Steam & Excursion > Built For One Purpose But Now Used For An Entirely Different One!

Even though steam locomotives were designed to meet the specific needs of their original owners they were often found to be so adaptable that subsequent owners could use them equally well in entirely different uses.  Here is just such an example of this principle.

When the Lima Locomotive Works designed and built this large 3-truck Shay in May 1926 they took into account all the demands that the Charles McCormick Lumber Company of Quilcene, Washington intended to put her through.  This modern Shay was purposefully designed and built for the riggers of logging service.  She did that job well well for 10 years that her owner had run out of timber and put her up for sale.

Soon a buyer came for c/n 3304, but it was not another logging outfit.  This time the Columbia Construction Co. of Westport, Washington saw just what they needed in #201 in the way of a construction engine for their projects in the Northwest.  That same flexibility for rough and temporary trackage on logging lines would serve her well on the similar tracks found around the dam sites that Columbia Construction was working in.

#201 would first serve at Westport and later at Vail, Washington before finally being transferred to Columbia's operation at Declezville, California where we see her in 1947 sporting her new (and last) number, #960.  Except for the addition of an extra headlight on her cab, #960 shows that no other modifications were required to convert her from a sturdy logging locomotive to a reliable construction engine.

Such was the adaptability of steam motive power.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/17 03:52 by LoggerHogger.

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LoggerHogger Wrote:
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>

> #201 would first serve at Westport and later at
> Vail, Washington before finally being transferred
> to Columbia's operation at Declezville, California
> where we see her in 1947 sporting her new (and
> last) number, #960.

Declezville, California is on the SP near Fontana, California. Declez was the name on the railroad (now gone), but the townsite of Declezville still exists.

Declezville supported a big pig farm from the early 1920s until to the 1950s.  Garbage trains run by the Southern Pacifc delivered food waste from Los Angeles to the Declez, where it was fed to the pigs. Health concerns about garbage-fed pigs eventually shut down the operation (there was also a kick back-scheme involving the owner and a couple of LA Councilmen in the late 20's). 

I find it odd that a Shay would be used in this operation, and always assumed that the SP switched the farm.

 

The Shay was not used in the hog farm business.  It served the Jensen Quarry that supplied rock to the Consolidated Construction job sites in the area.

Martin