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Canadian National 4-4-0 #40
A Preliminary Report on the Known DocumentsPrepared for the Canada Science & Technology Museum
by David McGee
Table of Contents
1. Introduction, p. 2
2. Construction by the Portland Company, p. 4
2.1 Related Contract Specifications, p. 6
2.2 The Portland Company Casting Books, p. 9
2.3 Portland Company Drawings, p. 12
2.4 Related Elevations, p. 13
2.5 Related Photographs, p. 15
3. Service with the Grand Trunk Railway, p. 17
3.1 The Photographic Evidence, p. 19
4. Service with the Chaudiere Valley Railway, p. 20
4.1 The Photographic Evidence, p. 21
5. Service with Canadian National, p. 22
6. At the Canadian National Museum of Science and Technology, p. 25
7. Further Research, p. 29
Appendix 1 - Portland Company Locomotive Production
Appendix 2 - Portland Company Locomotives Built for GTR
Appendix 3 - Portland Company Contract Specifications
Appendix 4 - Portland Company Casting List for Engines Nos. 229-245 and 251-253
Appendix 5 - Drawings Related to Portland 233
Appendix 6 - Photos Related to CN 40
Appendix 7 - Contents of the DVD
1. Introduction:
In 1967 the Canadian Science and Technology Museum (CMST) acquired a steam locomotive now known as Canadian National (CN) 40. This engine was built in 1872 by the Portland Company of Portland, Maine, for the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada (GTR). The Portland Company's shop number for the engine was 233. Its original road number was GTR 362 and changed to GTR 40 in 1898. This number was kept by lumber Baron John Breakey, of Breakeyville, Quebec, when he bought the engine from the GTR in January of 1903. CN kept the number when it acquired the engine from Breakey’s Chaudiere Valley Railway (CVR) in 1947 or 1949.1
CN 40 is believed to be the only surviving Portland Company 4-4-0, a type of locomotive that was the standard North American engine of the nineteenth century. CN 40 is also the oldest surviving passenger locomotive of the GTR, Canada’s first major railway system, making it the oldest surviving passenger locomotive in Canada. Literally millions of people saw CN 40 during the 1950s when it was part of CN's traveling “Museum Train”. Many more saw the engine when it was on display at the CMST exhibition building in Ottawa.2
Several attempts have been made to gather information about CN 40, but without much success. In 2007, however, the CMST decided to make a concerted effort to document the engine in order to be able to interpret the locomotive as it now exists, and possibly to restore it,.
This report presents the first results of the renewed attempt to document CN 40. It is based on archival research carried out between May 1 and July 31 of 2007. The goal of this research was to collect and digitize as much evidence about the physical history of the engine in the time available. It was not intended to interpret the existing engine in light of the information gathered, but it has proven necessary to offer various interpretations of the evidence gathered.
The evidence is presented below in sections corresponding to the phases of construction and ownership of CN 40, beginning with its building by the Portland Company and continuing with the years it was owned by the GTR, the CVR, CN and the CMST. The section concerning construction is by far the longest. It contains the first comprehensive collection of information about CN 40 ever assembled. The following sections deal for the most part with photographic evidence. Some tabular data has been placed in the text. Most of the detailed tabular data appears in the Appendices. Almost all the documents referred to, as well as this text, are provided in digital form on the accompanying DVD.
A great deal has been learned about CN 40 during this initial phase of investigation. But it is also clear that much has been lost. Various scholars, archivists and annotators have said things about CN 40 for reasons that are no longer evident. Documents that once existed are now missing. There is, however, good reason to believe that many of the missing documents still exist. Hopefully, the information contained in this report will not only contribute to a better understanding of CN 40, but will alert other investigators to the potential significance of the “lost” documents when they come across them and encourage them to make this information known to both the railway history community and the CMST.
2. Construction by the Portland Company.
As noted in the introduction, the steam locomotive known as CN 40 was constructed in 1872 by the Portland Company of Portland, Maine, for the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. Its Portland shop number was 233. It was delivered to the GTR on November 27th, 1872 as GTR number 362.3 Since Portland’s records are organized in terms of shop numbers, the engine will be referred to in this section as Portland 233.4
The Portland Company was founded by John Alfred Poor (1808-1871) in 1846 to build railway equipment. The company produced 631 locomotives between 1848 and 1906. Almost all of these engines were built before 1895.5 Most were of the 4-4-0 type, with four leading wheels, four driving wheels, and no trailing wheels, which was the standard type of locomotive used by North American railways between 1850 and 1898, after which they were rather quickly phased out.6 The Portland Company also built marine engines, marine boilers, and many other kinds of machinery, and stayed in business until 1982. Much of the company's historical material was donated to the Maine Historical Society (MHS) in the 1960s.7
Of the 631 engines produced by the Portland Company, 259 were made for Canadian railways, accounting for approximately 41 per cent of total output. One hundred and nineteen engines were built for the GTR, making the GTR Portland’s biggest Canadian customer.8 Some of these orders may have resulted from the special relationship between the GTR and Portland, which became the eastern terminus of the GTR system in 1853.9 The GTR maintained large shops and yards there.10
The first Portland engine built for the GTR was delivered in 1854. Forty-two more engines were delivered by January of 1872, all but three of which were the "wide" or "colonial" gauge of 5 feet, 6 inches (66 inches altogether).11 It was in 1872, however, that the GTR decided to convert all its existing track to the standard North American gauge of 4 feet 8 1/2 inches (56 1/2 inches altogether).12 As a result, the GTR was suddenly in need of a large number of standard gauge locomotives. Accordingly, Portland 233 — the future CN 40 — was one of a batch of 22 almost identical standard gauge 4-4-0s ordered from the Portland Company by the GTR in late 1871, or early 1872. Delivery of these engines began in November of 1872 and continued into 1873 as more orders from the GTR poured in.13 See Table One.
2.1 Related Contract Specifications
One assumes the process of ordering new engines began with some sort of correspondence between the GTR and the Portland Company concerning the number of engines wanted, the need for variations based on experience with previous engines, the availability of new technology, and so on. No such correspondence concerning Portland 233 has been found.
The next step in the process of ordering was the drafting of a contract to which a specification was attached. No contract or specification has been found for Portland 233, or for any other engine in the batch. However, two examples of the kind of contract and specification that would have been made can be found in the National Archives of Canada (NAC). Two more contract specifications are in the archives of the Canadian Railway Historical Association (CRHA) at Exporail in Brossard, Quebec.
Of the documents in the NAC, one is a handwritten draft of an agreement to convert a number of existing wide-gauge engines to standard gauge.15 The second is a contract for 11 new engines, dated July 21, 1874.16 This second contract states that the new engines were to be delivered by September 20th, 1874, and mentions a few physical details: for example, that they should have Smith Vacuum Air Brakes on the tender and driving wheels, and that the headlights should be of an approved pattern with a reflector of 22 inches diameter. The contract is accompanied by a detailed specification, written out on a pre-printed form provided by the Portland Company. Attached is a handwritten note asking for items like screw jacks and jack bars, hammers, torches, and oil cans. These documents confirm the fact that ordering normally began with documents that went back and fourth between the two companies before they were formally printed and signed.
The documents in the CRHA consist of the pre-printed specifications that would have accompanied a complete contract package.17 There is no indication of what locomotives they refer to. The first specification is for an “eight-wheel” coal burning engine, dated Dec 16, 1872 (just after delivery of Portland 233), and was apparently ordered by an American railway.18 The second specification is for an "eight-wheel," “wood or coal burning” engine and dated to June 10th, 1874. The second document states that the tires for the driving wheels were to be made to GTR standard sizes and gives the tank capacity in Imperial gallons, so this order is almost certainly for a GTR engine. However, the document is dated more than a year and a half after Portland 233 was delivered.
Although neither of the CRHA documents specifically concern Portland 233, they represent the nearest known specifications in terms of date, and are therefore important. A detailed comparison of their contents is made in Appendix 3. The details show that the earlier engine was to have 16 by 24 inch cylinders, boiler tubes made of iron, and weigh 32 tons when fired and ready. The later engine was to have 17 by 24 inch cylinders and boiler tubes made of steel, which allowed an increase in the number of boiler tubes from 145 to 162, as well as several other minor changes in an engine estimated to weigh 34 tons, fired and ready. As Appendix 3 shows, however, in almost all other respects the two specifications are more or less identical as to the dimensions and the materials to be used.
The similarity between the two specifications is important because it is an indicator of the slow rate of design and/or technological change in locomotive construction at the Portland Company. This slow rate of change means that evidence from many different locomotives may be relevant to the understanding of Portland 233. Portland 233 resembled the engine in the earlier specification more than the later engine but — with caution, of course — both specifications can be used as aids for interpretation.
2.2 The Portland Company Casting Books
Once an engine was ordered, the Portland Company's next step was to prepare a detailed list of the parts and materials needed. The list was copied onto printed forms in the company’s "casting book," which covered (in order):
- Iron castings for the engine;
- Iron castings for the tender;
- Brass and “compo” castings for the engine;
- Iron forgings for the engine;
- Iron forgings for the tender;
- Plate iron for the boiler;
- Plate iron for the tank;
- Miscellaneous iron for the engines,
- Tubing and etc. for the engine;
- Timber for the tender; and
- Timber for the engine.
As the list shows, more than castings were included in the casting books, where some 500 specifications could be made for each engine. The casting books provide the single biggest source of detailed information for any Portland engine.
The data for Portland 233 is found in Casting Book, Volume 15, which contains a list of the specifications used for shop numbers 229 to 245 and 251-253. A full transcription of the casting book may be found in Appendix 4.19
Original entries in the casting book were made in blue ink. These entries give the dimensions and/or the materials of various parts, and are sometimes accompanied by very small drawings. Later annotations were added in pencil, but it is not known by whom. The hand looks modern, and annotations in the same hand appear to have been made to all the casting lists at about the same time.
One of the peculiar features of the casting book is the inclusion (in blue ink) of what will be called the "same as" numbers for various parts. The first entry for the Portland 233, for example, states that the boiler saddle is the "same as 152." The next entry states that the cylinders and pistons are the "same as 153, 155." The majority of entries in the casting book have these "same as" numbers, while some are blank and others are stated as being "same as the draught." The “same as” numbers turn out to be the shop numbers of earlier engines. The saddle of 233, for example, is identified as being the same as the saddle of shop number 152, while the cylinders and pistons are identified as being the same as the cylinders and pistons of shop numbers 153 and 155.
The earliest "same as" number in the casting list for Portland 233 is 112, an engine delivered to the New York and Boston Railway in April of 1864. The latest "same as" number is 222-225, which refers to a batch of engines that were ordered by the GTR before Portland 233, but delivered at various times in late 1873 and early 1874.20 The "same as" numbers help confirm the point made above about the slow pace of technical change in the locomotives built by the Portland Company. An engine like Portland 233, for example, incorporated parts that were originally designed more than six years and 100 Portland engines earlier.
The data in the casting list confirms the similarity between Portland 233 and the contract specification dated December 16, 1872, beginning with the fact that Portland 233 also had a 48-inch diameter boiler and 16 by 24 inch cylinders. A more detailed comparison of the specifications is out of place here, but confirms the similarity as to both dimensions and materials.
The casting book also reveals differences between engines in the same batch. The list says, for example, that the drivers for Portland 231-237 and 251-253 were to be 5 feet 2 inches in diameter (or 62 inches total), while the wheels for the other engines in the batch were to be 4 feet 8 inches in diameter (56 inches total).21 Dimensions for the tires are given as 5 feet 6 inches in diameter (or 66 inches total) for engines 231-237 and 251-253, and 5 feet diameter for the other engines. The tires were to be 2 ½ inches thick. It is not clear from the casting list whether the dimensions of the wheels and tires are for the inside or the outside diameters. The numbers do not add up directly.22
Given the different size of driving wheels for different engines in the batch, there was a corresponding difference in the size of truck wheels. The casting book states that the truck wheels for Portland 231-237 and 251-253 were to be 30 inches in diameter, and 28 inches for the other engines.23 The wheels of the tenders are given as 33 inches in diameter, so the tender was originally higher than the engine truck. Naturally, the pilot for the engines with the larger wheels was bigger than the pilot for the smaller engines. Interestingly, the data for the pilot is contained in the section of the casting list that is for timber to be used in building the engine.24
2.3 Portland Company Drawings
Originally, the casting books contained no direct references to drawings. However, before any engine could be assembled, the right drawings had to be found so that the right castings, forgings and other parts could be made.25 This suggests that there was once some sort of registry relating the "same as" numbers to the drawings for required parts. 26 This registry can no longer be found.27
Fortunately, the pencil notations added to casting book Vol. 15 give the drawing numbers for many of the parts of Portland 233. Better still, these drawing numbers appear to be quite accurate. Each number leads to a drawing for the expected kind of part. All but two identify the correct part for the correct engine, according to the "same as" number. For example, drawing 1187P is indeed for the cylinders of engines 153 and 155, while drawing 1619P is indeed for the main valves of shop numbers 188 and 189. The "P” means the drawings were made on paper. Other drawings, designated "L" were made on linen. A complete list of drawings relating to Portland 233 is given in Appendix 5.28
In several cases the pencil notes identify drawings of parts for which no "same as" number is given in the casting book, or for parts that are described as being the same as the draught. In these cases, it is not possible to vouch for the absolute accuracy of the information, except to say that the majority of the other drawing numbers are correct, and they all appear to have come from some sort of registry.
Another oddity of the casting books is that several parts are identified as being the “same as” those of earlier engines, but the date on the actual drawing is not only later than the engine referred to, but later than the delivery of Portland 233. This indicates that drawings for various parts were reused many times over the years, then re-drawn once they wore out, but not updated to reflect the number of the latest engine for which they were used. This is likely because the missing drawing registry, like the casting books, referred to the drawings by their “same as” numbers.
A detailed analysis of the drawings of Portland 233 is beyond the scope of this report.
2.4 Related Elevations
The Portland Company generally produced an elevation for each of the locomotives or batch of locomotives it built, showing the completed engine from the side. No elevation for Portland 233 or for any other engine in the batch has been found. If fact, almost all of the elevations for engines built at this time are missing. This may be because the elevations, of little use during construction, were really made as presentation drawings to be given to the customer at the time of delivery.
Nevertheless, the Portland Company archives do contain several elevations that may be useful. They are listed in Appendix 6, and digital copies are found on the DVD.
Drawing 144P is for Portland shop numbers 153-155, and dated April 9, 1859. These engines were built for the GTR and are the engines most often cited in the “same as” numbers for Portland 233.29
Drawing 1914P is for Portland 147 and dated November 26, 1867. This engine was built for the Portland & Rochester Railway. This elevation is among the most detailed available.
Drawing 1901P is dated May 19, 1868 and was made for Portland engines 142-146, which were built for the GTR. This is the nearest elevation of an actual GTR engine to the date of Portland 233, although it is not referred to in the casting book.
Drawing 1933P is for Portland 156, dated May 7, 1869. This engine was built for the Maine Central, and is referred to in the casting list.
Drawing 1960P is for Portland 196 and dated November 11, 1871. This engine was built for the Portland and Ogdensburg Railway. This is the nearest elevation to Portland 233 in date.
Drawing 23058L has no date, but shows Portland 352, delivered to the Maine Central in June of 1879. This is the first extant elevation for a Portland engine after Portland 233.
Drawing 196P is for Portland 394-395 and dated August 17, 1881. These engines were built for the Maine Central. The drawing helps to show the continuing similarity of Portland output.
Go to "The McGee Report - Part 2". "Chapter 2.5 - Related Photographs"
