Freight Motor

#401

Locomotive L401 is a workhorse at the museum, as it can pull anything. It is an early Class B Locomotive. It was originally built for the Timber Butte Milling Company as locomotive #1. Later, it operated on the Anaconda Copper Line as L401.

In 1891, the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company broke ground for copper reduction works on the banks of the Missouri River across from the City of Great Falls. An electrolytic copper refinery and a furnace refinery were built the next year, which made possible the treatment of ore to commercial products. In 1910 the Anaconda Copper Mining Company took over the properties, designating them as the Great Falls Reduction Department. The operation gradually changed from copper concentrating and smelting to refining, wire and cable manufacture, and electrolytic zinc and cadmium production.

An electric railway system moved materials between the various departments. A third rail carrying 550-volt direct current supplied power to nine miles of standard gauge track.

Car Facts

Year Built: 1912

Builder: Baldwin-Westinghouse

Year Retired: 1973

Museum Acquired: 1993

Track Gauge: Standard

Motors: WH 301 D2 on Baldwin trucks

Status: Operational

Car when it was in service in Montana:

In Montana