This Jordan River hydro development 36 inch narrow gauge railway locomotive was built by the Westminster Iron Works circa 1952 - 15 Sep 2023 William Slim.
 
This railway, which no longer exists, was once located next to the Jordan River at the southern end of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
 
Mountainous, rugged, tree covered, lake dotted, Vancouver Island is about three quarters the size of Switzerland and lies off BC's west coast separated from America at its closest point by the Strait of Juan de Fuca at just 11 miles.
 
The townsite of Jordan River, if you could call it that due to a lack of buildings on a flood plain, lies next to the beach 70 West Coast Road twisting kilometres from Victoria, the capital of BC, near the southern most tip of the Island.
 
The river itself is fed from the Bear Creek and Diversion reservoirs lying in the east-west Bear Creek Valley, north and up hill, from the West Coast Road at Jordan River.
 
The reservoirs, or actually the Diversion Dam, are the reason for the railway's completion back in 1911.
 
Electric power was needed in a growing capital and the hills around the Jordan River offered sufficient elevation to produce power by water driving turbines driving electric generators in a huge plant located just above the beach.
 
A wooden 5.98-mile-long flume was constructed from the then new Diversion Dam to carry the water to the small Fore Bay reservoir which then ran pipes south to the hill above the power plant for the final drop into the turbines inside the plant.
 
All this construction was enabled by a 3 foot gauge railway which paralleled the flume from a terminus at Fore Bay Reservoir to the Diversion Dam.
 
That railway is now long gone, and there is no trace it ever existed, except for a few historical photographs and two remaining narrow gauge locomotives.


This Jordan River hydro development 2 1/2 ton 36 inch gauge locomotive was built by Plymouth circa 1920 - 15 Sep 2023 William Slim.