The Little Engine That Could

“I think I can. I think I can!” repeats the heroic little engine of the classic children’s story as it struggles to pull a stranded train over a steep hill. And “I think I can” could also have been the mantra of the modest woodburning steam locomotive pictured at Melville Junction, aka Melville Cross, in about 1900.

The “James McKay,” named for a prominent Métis citizen of Manitoba, was always destined to be a workhorse. Its first assignment was to help build the CPR’s transcontinental line across the Prairies.

But when much bigger and flashier locomotives on the CPR’s Toronto to Owen Sound line faltered as they tried to haul their loads up Caledon Mountain’s notoriously tricky Horseshoe Curve and onward into the highlands of Dufferin County, the humble woodburner became an unsung hero. Transferred to Headwaters, its job was to give an extra boost to trains chugging upward toward the height of land near Dundalk.

The fancily dressed man and the little girl in the photo are not identified. Perhaps he is a CPR official? But engineer George Newman stands on the left. On the right is the fireman, also unidentified. His hot, dirty and exhausting job was to transfer wood from the tender behind the engine into the locomotive’s firebox through a hatch at the front of the cab. The fire heated the water in the boiler, creating the steam that turned the James McKay’s wheels.

By 1900, coal had become the fuel that powered most steam locomotives, though some, such as the James McKay, continued to use wood. Providing the necessary wood to stations such as Melville Cross provided extra income for nearby landowners clearing land for agriculture. But as the forests of Headwaters disappeared, a ready supply of wood became scarce, and the James McKay was scrapped in 1909.

The heyday of steam trains – indeed, all trains – is now a distant memory in Headwaters, but this doesn’t diminish the importance of locomotives such as the James McKay in shaping the history of communities in these hills.