This engine was built by the late Jim Turnbull of Montreal, Canada in 1957.
He was a prolific builder of live steam engines, and I have been told that this one was his thirteenth out of thirty six!

The locomotive is constructed from Little Engines parts. It is basically their pacific (4-6-2), but missing the front driver set and the rear trailing truck, with a shortened boiler on top.

The engine was built for Howard Crotty, the first president of the Pioneer Valley Live Steamers in Massachusetts. Howard still owned the engine in 1965 when it appeared in an issue of Model Railroader magazine. Carl Hoffman of Kitchener (or Waterloo?), Ontario was the next owner. The engine appeared in an article about his track in a 1975 issue of Modeltec magazine. It was sold to a Frenchman in Canada, who owned it for two years before selling it to Wayne McFarland of Toronto.
My friend Rick Rubino of Fairport, NY, purchased the engine in the mid 1990's from Wayne who had been pulling people in a park in the Toronto area for some time. I purchased the engine from Rick in 2006.