Steam & Excursion > When Mainline Railroads Bought Shays They Were Huge!

There are a few examples of mainline railroads who owned and operated Shay locomotives. These engines tended to be of the very large variety. As an example, Union Pacific had a couple big 3-truck Shays for their Tintic Branch in Utah.

However, no mainline railroad ever operated larger Shays than those of the Western Maryland RR. Shown here is not their largest Shay, but is right up there. We see in the 1953 photo WM #5 in storage at Maryland Junction in West Virginia. She was built in 1910 for the C&O Ry as their 2nd #11. With 4 trucks she held 8,000 gallons of water and 9 tons of coal. Her over all weight was 121 tons!

While she is clearly out of service, why she is stored here with her smokestack removed is unknown. However you can simply feel the pulling power she had when you look at her.


Martin



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/14 04:12 by LoggerHogger.

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From what I remember a former Western Maryland Employee once told me is that she was no longer in service and was awaiting her fate which was being sent out for scrap.

Martin... The Southern Railway put at least one shay in service right around the 1905-1910 timeframe... They were big units (...100 tons or better...)... There is not much data on them; but they seem to have been put in service around the Middlesboro, KY area working the coal mines in the Bryson Mountain area... They evidently were too slow and they were soon sold to the C&O...

By the way; thanks for takin the time to post pictures of our favorite locomotive, that great "Iron Mule"; the shay...!!

Keep up the good work...
leroy

Martin,

Am trying to finish a kit-bash job that John Cummings started some years ago of one of the UP Shays - the one that went to Kosmos Tbr. Co. Do you have any photos of them as UP? I know I've seen photos of these somewhere, but can't remember where.

Pete

Pete,

UP had only 2 Shays. Only one of these went to a looging outfit and that was Oregon American, not Kosmos.

The big Kosmos Shay came from the George Palmer Lumber Co. in Eastern Oregon.

Martin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/14 08:29 by LoggerHogger.

Didn't the Kansas City Southern have a fairly big Shay also?

Between the C&O and the WM, This engine worked for West Virginia Pulp and Paper at Cass WV as their #14 along with a sister C&O engine, that was number 13 at Cass. #14 was sold to the WM in 1932, but #13 stayed at Cass until sold for scrap in 1942.

#5's replacement on the WM was #6 which was the largest 3 truck shay ever built, which is now active at Cass.

Yes, KCS had 2 Shays. One was a huge 143-ton beast.

Martin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/14 07:41 by LoggerHogger.

For what it is worth, the C&O had 15 of these 4 truck, class 150-4 beasts.

Here is a photo and some info on the Southern Shay

Tom Daspit
Morgan Hill, CA
Tom's Trains

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Does the extra truck add much adhesion, or is that limited to steam pressure and piston size?

Thanks,

Jim Montague
IRVINE, CA
Train and Nature photo Art

The extra truck allows for the larger water capacity. That extra weight of the water bearing down on another powered truck does give the engine more adhesion. However, the extra weight requires the larger cylinders and higher boiler pressure.

Martin

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Pete,
>
> UP had only 2 Shays. Only one of these went to a
> looging outfit and that was Oregon American, not
> Kosmos.
>
Martin, according to Don Strack's UtahRails.net Union Pacific, through it's subsidiaries had quite a few Shays with the first one arriving for service on the LA&SL Tintic Branch in 1896, the second in 1902 and a third in 1907. This web page lists all of them - http://utahrails.net/up-steam-roster/up-shays.php

Cheers,
Jack

Jack,

If you count the UP subsidiaries then yes, they had more than 2. I was just referring to the 2 that operated as Union Pacific engines.

Martin

Back at the beginning of this thread we were looking at the impressive beast of a shay; Western Maryland #5. Most of us are familiar with the impressive WM shay #6, a three truck machine. WM #5, a four truck shay was bought from the West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co in 1932. It was assigned to the WM's wholly owned subsidiary; The Chaffee Railroad. In 1942 the #5 was badly wrecked in a runaway. As the only engine powerful enough to make the operation on the Chaffee's 7 per cent (plus) grade, the WM had to fix the #5. The WM management wanted to buy two 44 ton diesels to replace the #5, but were unable to procure them during the war, so a new shay was ordered. When the new #6 arrived in 1945, the four truck number 5 was sent to standby storage. In 1950 the big #6 was also moved to storage, as the coal mines on the Chaffee Branch had closed. The #5 is listed as having a weight of 300,000 lbs. and the #6 as 324,000 lbs.

Too bad no 4 truck Shays survived.

#5 may have been the last. WVP&P #12, which I have found out weighed in at 197 tons, or 394,000# survived at Cass until about 1944-45, but apparently not as long as #5.

I was just reminded by someone who knows, that #12 survived out behind the Cass shop until about 1956, so #5 was not the last 4 trucker in existence, but was the last Lima built 4 truck shay since #12 was rebuilt into the 4 truck configuration at Cass.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/14 12:21 by elueck.

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> There are a few examples of mainline railroads who
> owned and operated Shay locomotives. These
> engines tended to be of the very large variety.
> As an example, Union Pacific had a couple big
> 3-truck Shays for their Tintic Branch in Utah.
>

Martin,
Looked up UP's Tintic Branch on Google Maps (searched Tintic which lead to numerous references to businesses in Eureka, Utah). Lots of evidence of right of ways, a couple of wyes and the line branches off one of those wyes, leading to a mine southeast of Eureka. Must have been a heck of a run!

Here is one of the UP Shays after she arrived in Portland in 1948 on her way to Oregon-American Lumber in Vernonia.

Martin

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Not to mention going up the wrong side of the hill! The Rio Grande line was bad enough but at
least it had some miles to climb. The UP side sort of left the main and headed up.

Out