The Jordan Spreader was originally developed to spread ballast between the ties. It was soon found that the Spreader was also capable of snowplowing. The Spreader worked especially well in the yard areas or where wide cuts had to be cleared. With the plow on the front of the spreader and its wide-reaching side arms, a large area could be cleared out in one pass.

The Elgin County Railway Museum's collection includes Jordan Spreader CN 51041 (shown above). This unit was donated by the Port Stanley Terminal Rail, who acquired CN 51041 from Canadian National's Edmunston, New Brunswick shops in the summer of 1992. The P.S.T.R donated it to the Elgin County Railway Museum in 1998. Still operational, 51041 was last used in Eastern Canada in 1990.

The original ballast spreader and spreader-ditcher was invented by Oswald F. Jordan, a Canadian who was a road master on New York Central's Canada Southern operations in the Niagara region. The first two or three Jordan spreaders are believed to have been built under Jordan's direct supervision in the St. Thomas Canada Southern shops about 1900.