Portal to the Online Railway Photos of Canadian Archives
Compressed Air Mine Locomotives

Notes

Riva, p. 137: «Compressed Air Locomotive: A locomotive powered by compressed air driving pistons in chambers and providing power to the wheels through connecting rods and crank shafts on the same principal as a steam engine. The compressed air is stored in a large rechargeable tank mounted on the bogie (the wheeled undercarriage) of the locomotive.»

Also called air motors, yard motors or dinkies, their raison d'être is as follows:

Heritage Park, RS-MN-01: «Fired steam locomotives would have been impossible deep in a mine shaft for a number of reasons. Lack of ventilation, oxygen starvation for combustion and risk of pockets of explosive gas totally ruled out their use. The earliest solution... to mechanized haulage was the compressed air locomotive, a form of fireless traction.»

Heritage Park Historical Village, Calgary, has two such locomotives in their collection:

«An 8-ton, 42 in. gauge engine, mounted on 4 wheels, came from Crowsnest Coal Company in Michel, B.C. It was built in 1909 by the H.K. Porter Company in Pennsylvania, builders no. 446, and supplied to the Canadian Rand Company at the Sherbrooke Mines, Quebec, probably as a 36-in. gauge locomotive. Bought by Crowsnest Coal, it was converted to 42 in. gauge and operated between 1923 and 1928 by members of the Rothel family.»

«A second compressed air locomotive in the collection is a 6-ton Porter, bought by the Bankhead Coal Company in the year 1902, for use in what is now Banff National Park. This engine passed to Canmore Mines Limited, Canmore, Alberta... .»

Finally, we note that there were many variants produced, mostly based on the number of cylinders and their sizes.

Postscript

Just an interesting aside showing Gotthard Railway's (Switzerland) air motor #6 hitched up to a supplementary air storage car:

By enabling extended running times, it seems more than likely that this combination was used in the construction of the 15-km-long (9.3 mi) Gotthard Tunnel. When opened in 1882, it was the longest tunnel in the world.

References

  1. Heritage Park, Calgary (1989), Rail Preservation Notes, RS-MN-01, Heritage Park Historical Village, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
  2. Riva, W.J. (2008), Survival in Paradise: A Century of Coal Mining in the Bow Valley, Canmore Museum & Geoscience Centre, ISBN 978-0-9810275-0-0.
  3. Wikipedia (2023), Gotthard Tunnel, last edited on 1 December 2023, at 00:49 (UTC).

Last Updated December 12 2025, at 14:14:37 MST ⚫ Visitor #