Anyone Else Fascinated By Old Locomotives?

[LE BARON]

Not all railroading jobs back in the days of steam were created equally. This photo more than adequately proves just that point.

The date is January 1909 and station agent C.R. Lively has left his station on Cumbres Pass, Colorado to capture on film the approaching narrow gauge D&RGW rotary train as it claws it's way up to his location to clear the pass. The snow this winter has certainly been more than the mere flangers, plows and spreaders could keep up with.

Positioned on the top of the smoke belching rotary just ahead of 3 steam locomotives pushing her along is a lone crew member whose job it is to stand on this lonely cold perch and give hand signals back to the engineer on the rotary. Needless to say this was all long before hard hats and ear protection.

 

[1st Vette]

Is this where the expression " off the rails " comes from?

 

[dyoung]

Went on a road trip this past week....Spotted this A and B unit in Cranbrook B.C.

 

[1st Vette]

Went on a road trip this past week....Spotted this A and B unit in Cranbrook B.C.View attachment 140680View attachment 140681View attachment 140682

Nice to see these amazing machines restored and preserved.

 

[LE BARON]

By August of 1951 there was only one wood-burning railroad left in the West. This was the Lorane Valley Lumber Co. of Cottage Grove, Oregon. All the other wood-burning railroads in the West had faded into history. However the wood-burners hung on until the end at Lorane Valley.

While wood was readily available and relatively cheap for a lumber company, the amount of labor needed to keep the wood-burning locomotives supplied with fuel, together with the fire danger caused by such engines, caused most logging lines (and all mainlines) to abandon wood as a fuel source years earlier.

Despite these negative factors, Lorane Valley decided to hang on to burning the mill ends in their logging lokies throughout the llife of the logging railroad.

As we see here, the crews became very efficient in their ability to pile as much wood into the tender of the Lorane Valley locomotive tenders as they could. One can wonder if they would have piled the wood in ALCO 2-6-2 #2 even higher if they did not have the covered bridge they had to run through just at the edge of the mill grounds on their way back to the woods.

Alas, there were no buyer looking for steam logging locomotives by that late date no matter what fuel they burned and #2 fell to the scrappers torch.

 

[LE BARON]

In the mid-1920's Clark Kinsey brought his camera gear deep into the woods above Melbourne, Washington. There he found Clemons Logging Co. 3-truck 70-ton Shay #2 delivering supplies and a train of empties to camp

 

[LE BARON]

In the 1920's Clark Kinsey made his way to one of the Clemons Logging Company camps above Melbourne, Washington. There he found the logging crew and Clemons 3-truck Climax #3 taking a break from their logging chores.

 

[LE BARON]

August 21, 1946 finds the very last logging mallet built by Baldwin sitting in the railyards in Portland, Oregon on here way to her next operator. Built as Weyerhaeuser Timber #9 in 1937 for their operation in Melbourne, Washington her time there is over. She is now headed to Weyerhaeuser's logging railroad out of Klamath Falls, Oregon. There the WTC shop crews will cut down her side tanks and add a tender while re-numbering her as #8.