Steam & Excursion > Never Underestimate The Ingenuity Of A Railroads Master Mechanic!

When one were to visit many shortline railroads in the latter days of steam, the variety of contraptions that could be found to have been created over the years in the railroads shops was quite astounding.  These various creations were usually the product of a resourceful master mechanic on a limited budget.

An example of this was found by Bay Area railfan Ted Wurm in October, 1947 when he visited the enginehouse of the Oregon, Pacific & Eastern Railroad in Cottage Grove, Oregon.  Here is what he found on that cloudy day.

While the lines main motive power, OP&E 2-6-2T #1 was tucked safely inside the 2-stall enginehouse, Ted's fascination was with a more "modern" piece of motive power parked outside.  What he found was a converted loggers M.A.C. Speeder that had been converted to serve a variety of functions including as a mobile crane.  M.A.C. stands for "Motor Appliance Co." which was the name that the Skagit Steele & Iron Works of Sedro-Wolley, Washington marketed these rail cars under.  The one here is a Model 4-40.
A total of 43 Model 4-40 rail cars were produced between 1921 and 1929. The model number refers to the number of cylinders and to the tractive effort in hundreds of pounds. Thus the 4-40 had four cylinders and could produce 4000 pounds of tractive effort.

M.A.C. rail cars like this one were very handy serving as small locomotives able to shuttle cars in yards without the need to fire up the steam engine.  They could carry many loggers to the woods and back with relatively good speed if not in perfect comfort.  They also were good at carrying tools and when adapted as was done here, they could be come work horses for the track and bridge crews.

We can certainly see why Ted stopped to record this particular creation of the OP&E machine shop.

Martin



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/15 14:36 by LoggerHogger.

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Thanks for the look. Love that back-ackwards amperstand on the tank car reporting marks.

A modeling nuance.
Dave in Msla

A milk can for those observing Rule G and a barrel for those who aren't?

Is it just my eyes, or does the front rad say "MAC" instead of "MACK"

Posted from iPhone

It does say M.A.C. , which is different from Mack