Steam & Excursion > The Proud Crew Of Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade #20 1938!

The date is April 1, 1938 and the place is the yard tracks in Chehalis, WA of the Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade Ry. We see the entire crew posing with their well cared for 4-8-0 #20.

#20 was built by ALCO in 1897 for the Northern Pacific as their #14 in the "X" class of engines on the NP. She was purchased by the CC&C in 1936 to replace some aging second hand power on the CC&C.

When the timber products began to run out in 1955 and the lines main bridge across the Cowlitz River near Mayfield became condemned the line was abandoned in 1955. Before the abandonment CC&C leased NP 0-6-0 #1110 to help perform a very unusual operation on account of the condemned bridge.

In the second view we see the very last trip across this huge timber trestle on May 9, 1955 with CC&C #20 on the lead. There is no crew on the engine! Because of the fear that the bridge would not hold the weight of the train, the crew of #20 has dropped off #20 before reaching the bridge and they walked back to get on CC&C #1110 that is coupled onto the rear of the train. They fire up #1110 and use her to shove #20 and the first part of the train across the bridge. Once #20 is safely across the bridge, the crew drops the fire on #1110 and then walks across to get back on #20. They re-light the fire and pull the rest of the train and #1110 across as we see in the last photo.

Al Farrow took all these great images.

While #20 was scrapped at the end of operations in 1955, the CC&C name lives on today on the tender of former CC&C 2-8-2 #15 that operates out of Chehalis WA on the Chehalis Centralia Railroad. In a few years we hope she will be joined by another former CC&C engine, the #25.

Martin



Edited 14 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/13 11:21 by LoggerHogger.

---

---

---

Here we see CC&C #15 undergoing boiler repairs in the late 1940's.

Also on the roster of the CC&C at the end of operations was CC&C #25 a big Baldwin 2-8-0 that had been built as "Big Jack" for the Whitney Company who logged the Oregon Coast Range.

This engine is undergoing repairs now at Chehalis for a return to service after spending decades on display in a park in nearby Centralia, WA.


Martin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/13 05:35 by LoggerHogger.

---

---

---

Didn't this bridge meet a fiery end, and locomotive destroyed, for a Hollywood movie?

No - you are thinking of the Wynochee Creek Trestle that was on the Simpson Logging CO. line near Camp Grisdale, WA.

Martin

Why did they kill the fire and then relight it?

That's a really interesting story and cool pictures Martin.Can you imagine having that conversation with the FRA today? "See, here's what we're going to do..." Haahahaa...

Cheers,Dave

They killed the fire on the unattended locomotives simply so they did not have to worry about the water level getting low and letting the fire go out accidentally with the oil still on.

Martin

Pickering104 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Didn't this bridge meet a fiery end, and
> locomotive destroyed, for a Hollywood movie?

No, as Martin notes in his answer to you, it was the Wynoochee River trestle on the Olympic Peninsula. The tank locomotive went down, along with the coaches, but the tender was saved by a cat pulling it off the trestle with a cable. The borrowed tender was from the Oregon-American #105 pictured here. You can read all about it on Brian McCamish's web page at http://brian894x4.com/RingofFire.html. Look about 80% of the way down the web page for the story of the tender. There is a typo regarding its years of use on the VSP&S; the operation started in 1964 rather than 1961.

---

Like all movies, Ring of Fire is a whole of parts. A big old sawmill in Vernonia, Oregon was burned as the town people escaped by train that "somehow" got to the Olympic peninsula. The bridge Martin notes was burned with a steam engine and two coaches crashing through to the river below. Its quite spectacular. The train parts are still in the river but I think because of timber growth they can no longer be seen. Excellent coverage here: http://www.brian894x4.com/RingofFire.html.
Roger Beckett

Jim700 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Pickering104 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Didn't this bridge meet a fiery end, and
> > locomotive destroyed, for a Hollywood movie?
>
> No, as Martin notes in his answer to you, it was
> the Wynoochee River trestle on the Olympic
> Peninsula. The tank locomotive went down, along
> with the coaches, but the tender was saved by a
> cat pulling it off the trestle with a cable. The
> borrowed tender was from the Oregon-American #105
> pictured here. You can read all about it on Brian
> McCamish's web page at
> http://brian894x4.com/RingofFire.html. Look about
> 80% of the way down the web page for the story of
> the tender. There is a typo regarding its years
> of use on the VSP&S; the operation started in 1964
> rather than 1961.

Ok, Jim...is that drop off over the summit in the photo for real?? That just hast to be an optical illusion! I know you and Greg have talked before about the grades on the VSP&S, but that's insane!

Brian

Thanks

LoggerHogger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They killed the fire on the unattended locomotives
> simply so they did not have to worry about the
> water level getting low and letting the fire go
> out accidentally with the oil still on.
>
> Martin

speeder3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ok, Jim...is that drop off over the summit in the
> photo for real?? That just hast to be an optical
> illusion! I know you and Greg have talked before
> about the grades on the VSP&S, but that's insane!
>
> Brian

Yes, Brian, that's for real! On a day that Greg was called for the firing job I took the photo with a so-called "normal" 50mm lens on a 35mm slide film camera. There's no view compression as would occur with a telephoto lens.

All of the ex-Oregon Electric Railway truss-rodded interurban coaches had safety chains between them because the coupler knuckles would be very close to slipping by at the break-over. The engine is on the steeper side of the hump. Notice the freshly ground sand showing on the rail under the drivers (compared to the unsanded rail ahead of the engine) which is aiding getting the nine car train over the top. The track speed limit over the hump was 5 MPH. When climbing the 4% on the east side to the hump we'd have the water above the top of the sight glass (but hopefully not too high for obvious reasons) only to watch it disappear from the glass for a short period of time after the tip-over.

The location of the hump (which is in the cut of a daylighted tunnel) may be seen at http://binged.it/108tjNX. Zooming out four times will allow seeing the location of the horseshoe trestle at MP 40.1 to the north which crossed over Oregon Highway 47 and was the location of the photo runby on each outbound trip. This was the trestle on which we met a motorcycle bouncing over the ties in the middle of it one day when I was firing for Tom Grier.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/13 00:56 by Jim700.

They just recently showed the movie "Ring of Fire" here in Shelton - this time on the "big screen" and, hopefully, will do it again sometime soon. It was a sellout and they had to turn away about 60 people.
A lot of people from Shelton and Grisdale were hired as extras in the movie. Contrary to popular belief, the Wynooche bridge was not burned down, but "Hollywood" made it look that way. Controlled gas fires were set to provide a little smoke and the flames were dubbed in on the screen. In one scene that shows the train going through fire on both sides - that was real fire. They had the Army from Fort Lewis use Napalm to set the trees a fire along the right-of-way. Before they put in Wynooche dam, on an extreme dry summer, the lokie was exposed at the bottom of the canyon and I've actually walked on it. But since the dam was put in, there is always an even flow of water covering the lokie.
Pete