One of the Contractor's Steam Shovels, Class A c. 1883
BCA Photograph No. 74941
BCA Call No. I-30851
Photo in Onderdonk Album, #5, 17. (BCA Accession No. 98401-006)

The same print in the Notman Archives (MP 600 - 3) is entitled Steam Shovel near Port Moody, B.C. Onderdonk was awarded Contract 92 early in 1882 to build the railway from Emory to Port Moody, a distance of 85 miles. While there were more tunnels to be built below Emory, such as Tunnel #5, as well as trestles such as the one at Hope, it was much easier to create a right of way along the north bank of the Fraser River than it had been in the Fraser canyon. In some areas, the road had to be built in swampy areas, and some of the bridges, such as the Bridge over the Pitt River, were very long.

The Inland Sentinel printed a short text on August 2, 1883, from a correspondent who observed the progress of work on Contract 92:

The road bed in a very short time will be ready for the ties all the way from Port Moody to the Mission; Mr. Cowie is a rustler and understands well how to push the work along; the present year will show more railroad than the past three years; what a difference there is in men who understand their work, than those who use the "Red Tape" and presume to know; the latter class should have long since been wiped out. For the past four months we have been in water, but the River is falling fast and will now give us a chance to connect a long chain of the road together. The health of the men in general is good; very few deaths. Mosquitoes are quite a bountiful crop and very amusing; they keep the men wide awake, always busy and continuously saying their prayers.

The steam shovel was used to load ballast onto flat cars or to load material to fill depressions in the road bed.