Steam & Excursion > The Hazards Faced When Logging Around Lokies - TIMBER!

While we all know that logging locomotives faced daily hazards in the form of steep grades, uneven track, and often inexperienced crews, there was one more ever-present danger they had to endure - the logging itself!

In the high-ball days of steam logging, the railroad tracks were laid directly into the cutting areas to better facilitate the loading of the log cars for the trip to the mill. This meant that railroad crews and loggers were often working immediately adjacent to each other. This caused problems on occasion, as we see in this 1938 photo taken by Harold Hill.

We see here, Schafer Brothers Baldwin 2-6-2T-T #10 after she had the misfortune of having a logger drop a tree right across her wooden cab! We don't know the fate of the crew of the lokie and can only hope they were not on-board when the old growth fir tree came crashing down into the locomotive.

The unlucky lokie has been towed back to the Schafer shops at Brady, Washington to be fitted with a new cab of steel construction. we can only imagine her crew will now be as watchful of the loggers in their immediate vicinity as they are on watching the tracks ahead.


Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/13 04:44 by LoggerHogger.

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Harold Hill ? From The Music Man ? :):)

Couldn't resist. Great pic as usual.

Nudge