The Davenport-Besler Corporation in Davenport, IA, built this coal burning 0-6-0 in 1931 for the Dominion Construction Company as #2187 (the locomotive's construction number). It weighs 96,000 lbs. With 50” drivers and 17” x 24” cylinders, operating at a boiler pressure of 180 psi, it delivered 21,200 lbs tractive effort.
Incorporated in 1912 in Ontario to carry out general construction work, Dominion Construction worked on a number of railway lines throughout Ontario. A quarry was set up at Deeks where equipment was also stored and repaired. The site was active in the 1920s and 1930s but, by the late 1930s, company activities were winding down and Deeks became a storage yard for surplus railway equipment.
In 1938, #2187 was sold to the Gulf Pulp & Paper Company in Clarke City, PQ, and renumbered #38. In 1969, it was sold to Yvon Bordeleau in Quebec City, PQ. It was bought in 1985 by Horst Muller for display at his Christian Bell Porcelain in Mount Forest, ON, and, later, to a still-born tourist railroad in the Finger Lakes area of New York. In 2002, it went to a caboose lodge in Catawissa, PA, where it is still on display, albeit in a deteriorating condition.
