Text below accompanys advertisement for "Nanaimo Foundry & Machine Works" locomotive was written by Chris Sundstrom - Dec 24, 2020  & posted to "Vancouver Island Railways Historical Discussion & Modeling Group" (on Facebook)  


From the 1906 Henderson's Directory. Built in 1904 for Andrew Haslam's Nanaimo Sawmill.

Andrew Haslam had been one of the original founders of the Hastings Sawmill company when they built their first sawmill in Nanaimo to supply the growing city and the mines. He was their timber cruiser and staked out almost all of their timber properties. He also staked a few properties for himself, often adjacent to the Hastings properties. He left Hastings just before the merger to become BC Mills, Timber & Trading and took the Nanaimo sawmill as his share of the deal.

Between 1888 and 1903 he obtained logs for his mill from local hand-loggers (many from the Nanaimo indigenous peoples), settlers clearing land and from logs hauled to tidewater on the mine railways. His sawmill was where the Greyhound Bus Depot is located, adjacent to the Dobeson (Nanaimo) Foundry.

After Dunsmuir wrapped up their Nanaimo railway operations he needed to get timber from another source. He decided to develop two of his timber properties with railways, one at Vancouver Bay in Jervis Inlet and one at Theodisia Arm. He purchased an ex-VCML locomotive refurbished by the Nanaimo Foundry and contracted them to build another. The locomotive pictured was used to build the railway in Jervis Inlet, but broke down and was sent to Vancouver for repairs over the winter.

Unfortunately his sawmill then burned down twice in six months, the second time while uninsured. In his 1906 bankruptcy the sawmill assets and the timber limits near Nanaimo were purchased by the Ladysmith Lumber Company, who changed their name to the New Ladysmith Lumber Company at this time, and the other timber limits were sold to Merrill & Ring. The ex-VCML locomotive was sold to the HSPV&N Railway by Merrill & Ring and the locomotive pictured above was repossessed by Nanaimo Foundry and Schaake Machine Works, where it was under repair at the time. It was sold to an unknown company in the Fraser Valley.

Andrew Haslam became the BC Chief Forester a few years later until his death about 10 years later. Merrill & Ring didn't develop their properties until the 1920's due to a raw log export ban that came into force less than a year after they purchased the limits.