Hamilton & Dundas 0-4-0 Locomotives in Canada

Class 4 (Locobase 16305)

Data from DeGolyer,Volume 20, p. 239. See Trainweb.com's history of the Hamilton, Canada Transit system, page "Steam Dummies for Dummies", last accessed 4 September 2016 at []; and Edward Roper, By Track and Trail: A Journey Through Canada (London:W.H. Allen & Company, lim., 1891), p. 418.. Works numbers were 15125 in December 1896.

The H&D served a mainly rural area of the Canadian shoreline along Lake Ontario. Edward Roper offered a "leaf-peeping" recommendation of the area in 1891:"Four miles from Hamilton is Dundas. You go by train, or by "dummy," which means a steam tramway. It is a small town, exceedingly prettily situated, of no very great trade, principally cottonmills and iron-works; but the hills and cliffs near are certainly the finest I have seen in Eastern Canada. A day in the Indian summer spent amongst the rocks and gorges and splendid forests there, when the foliage has taken on its gorgeous full colouring, will be a neverto-be-forgotten event."

"Steam Dummies" explains that this locomotive might actually have acted as a bargaining chip. Its purchase apparently was intended "to act as a warning to the local town councils that the H&D was willing to remain a 'dirty, noisy' steam railroad if they wouldn't approve bylaws for electrification of the system."

The 4 was a Vauclain compound that used two 6 1/8" (156 mm) piston valves, each supplying a set of one HP and LP cylinders.

Within a year, the system was electrified and the 4 fell idle. In 1902, it was sold as a contractor's engine to build the Preston & Berlin radial line. Later it worked for William Milne & Sons to serve the Trout Mills near North Bay and later at Temagami.