Members of the Middleton Railway Museum’s acquisitions team were happy to see the Plymouth engine put in place Dec. 29. From left are John MacDonald, Allison Bell and Rick Jacques. - Lawrence PowellMIDDLETON, N.S. — Two small railway engines and a steam locomotive tender rolled into theThe new acquisitions came by road on flatbed trailers from theAnd there’s more on the way, including a 117-year-old steam locomotive that will be reunited with the newly acquired tender after a 30-year separation.
Officials with A. W. Leil Cranes place a steam locomotive tender in place on the track closest to the Middleton Railway Museum parking lot on Dec. 29. It came from the Museum of Industry in Stellarton. - Lawrence Powell One of the two smaller industrial engines is a Plymouth that was used at the Wallace Quarries in Cumberland County, moving limestone from the quarry to the main track. It weighs 20 tons and has a six-cylinder Buda gas-powered engine. It was built in 1943 by the Fate-Root-Heath Company in Plymouth, Ohio.
• Although the museum has been closed to the public for most of the past two years, hundreds of people have stopped by just to see the steam locomotive. The museum held open house weekends throughout the summer of 2022. That didn’t go unnoticed by the province’s Museum of Industry and officials there contacted MacDonald.