Vintage Locomotives on the Move....

The Museum of Industry in Stellarton is bustling with activity as cranes, trucks, trailers and a work crew relocate some of the largest and heaviest artifacts in the Nova Scotia Museum' s collection.

The artifacts, which include five locomotives, a steam shovel, a large stone saw from a quarry, Second World War vintage machine tools from Trenton Works, and a number of smaller items, will be moved to a new storage location near the museum.

"We are pleased to be able to provide better protection for these artifacts," said Debra McNabb, director of the Museum of Industry. "The relocation also provides new opportunities for the museum to utilize the railway station to attract more visitors to the museum, and to enhance their experience here."

The Department of Transportation and Public Works is working with museum staff to complete the move. Leil's Cranes will move the larger pieces; locomotives will be loaded by crane onto flat-bed trailers and escorted to the new location this week.

The five locomotives that will be moved to the new storage site are:

• Locomotive No. 42, built in 1899 by Schenectady Engineering Works of Schenectady, N.Y. It was built for the Sydney and Louisbourg Railway and was used by the Acadia Coal Company in Stellarton from 1955 to 1963,
• Locomotive No. 7260, built in 1906 in Kingston by the Canadian Locomotive company. The 61 ½-ton switcher (55.8 tonnes) started life with the Intercolonial Railway and spent its final years of work with the Drummond Coal Company of Westville, N.S. It ceased operations in 1964.
• Vulcan Locomotive, built in 1928, was formally owned by the Bowater Mersey Paper company Ltd. of Liverpool, N.S. It weighs 25 tons (23 tonnes) and was donated to the Museum of Industry in 1991.
• Plymouth JLB, built in Ohio in 1943, this gas-powered engine weighs 20 tons (18 tonnes) and was used by the Canadian Dock and Dredge during the building of Cape Tormentine terminal in New Brunswick. The locomotive ended its days quarrying sandstone at Wallace, N.S.
• Devco 20, one of eleven Model 40 locomotives built by Electro- Motive Corp. of LaGrange, Ill., in 1940. It weighs 44 tons (40 tonnes), is 24 feet long (7.2 metres) and is capable of a speed of 35 miles per hour (56 kilometres an hour). Number 20 has no transmission and can be operated in a forward direction from either end. It is considered one of the oldest surviving diesel locomotives in Canada.