Steam & Excursion > How You Get Your Locomotive To Your Isolated Railroad!

So what do you do when your logging railroad is isolated from the outside world and down at the bottom of some steep mountains? Here is what you do.

The Santa Cruz Lumber Co. built a logging railroad in 1930 that was entirely cut off from the outside world in the steep terrain in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco, California. They purchased their only locomotive in March 1930 from the San Joaquin & Eastern for the sum of $2,375.00. She was a 42-ton 2-truck Shay built by Lima in 1911 for the Fresno Flume & Lumber Co. Along with her purchase came 4 log cars from the SJ&E as well.

Since the road down to the SCL mill was not completed, the Shay was partially dismantled and attached to a loggers skyline and "flown" down to the mill site as we see here in this photo. The tender tank and fuel bunker along with the trucks and line shafts and crankshaft have all been removed to lighten the engine for her time flying through the air! When the engine was safely down at the mill the 4 log cars made the same trip in by skyline.

This unique operation reached only 8 miles in length by 1950 when trucks replaced the railroad entirely. The engine was offered up for sale but no buyers were found. in 1954 She finally came out of the canyon in pieces again, but this time after she had been cut up by a scrapper.




Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/14 03:59 by LoggerHogger.

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Martin, your wealth of information never ceases to amaze me.

Thanks again for sharing.

Jason Rose
Spring, TX
Rio Grande Explorations

What a remarkable picture, narrative, and the idea by the loggers. Never would have thought those skylines would have handled that much weight. Thanks for posting this.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/14 08:21 by tomstp.

Actually those skylines could handle massive redwood logs cut by Santa Cruz Lumber that would at times weigh more than the partially dismantled Shay.

Martin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/14 09:06 by LoggerHogger.

Amazing.

Thanks

Holy moly!

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

So we've got a logging engine doing a "trust fall" in your last post and a Shay riding the zipline in this one. What's next, a bungee-jumping Heisler? ;^)

Evan_Werkema Wrote:
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> So we've got a logging engine doing a "trust fall"
> in your last post and a Shay riding the zipline in
> this one. What's next, a bungee-jumping Heisler?
> ;^)

ROFLMYA!

I wanna see bunjee

When I lived in Santa Cruz one of my customers once worked for the Santa Cruz Lumber Company. He told me that when he worked there they only used three flatcars on account one was wrecked.

Not quite like seeing pigs fly, but steam locomotives are sometimes called "hogs". One of my job assignments when I was a comm tech for Southern California Edison involved the Big Creek hydroelectric project, which was the original home of the Shay that took to the skies. The S. J. and E. tracks were long gone, but the roadbed provided a path to some of the facilities.

That's got to be the most unusual Shay picture I've ever seen !! Wow !!

"pigs fly".... LOL :)

Mike