Steam & Excursion > Early Morning And This 2-8-2 Is Ready To Leave Camp!

Here is beautiful shot of one of my favorite logging lokies of all time.

The date is June 9, 1949 an Richard W. Biermann was visiting Central Oregon to photograph all the logging and shortline railroads he could find. This brought him to capture the logging operation of the Shevlin-Hixon Company out of Bend, Oregon.

At the time the logs for the mill were coming out of the woods east of Chemult, OR some 60+ miles south of Bend and 20 moire miles off the Great Northern mainline. The logging town of Shevlin was home to over 700 loggers and their families. Besides the family quarters the town boasted an in-line enginehouse that could house 3 steam locomotives end-to-end and the other servicing facilities necessary to keep the lokies moving logs.

On this morning Biermann has got up early to catch S-H #5 as she is backed out of the enginehouse for their run down the 20 miles of logging line to Chemult and then on the last 60 miles to Bend on the GN. Her tender has been lengthened to add water capacity for these long runs. She has been given metal white "extra" flags on her smokebox as well as class lamps for her long run on the GN mainline. The old 1932 Chevy car body on the tender has the car seat intact and steam heat plumbed from the engine boiler to keep the conductor warm as he watches the log loads as they head for the big S-H mill in Bend.

Despite the beatifully kept appearance of #5, she would be retired when the Shevlin-Hixon Company sold out to neighboring Brooks-Scanlon Inc in November 1950. She would serve B-S for only 2 more years to allow B-S to take advantage of the S-H arrangment to use the GN mainline. After that #5 would be sold for scrap to Alaska Junk in Portland, Oregon. Today only her builder plates and spot plate remain.

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/19 06:05 by LoggerHogger.

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Great image Martin, and thanks for the look as Bowden showed No. 6 in his book, which like No. 5 also had a car on the tender.
—Mac

Shevlin-Hixon #7 also had a car body on the tender.

Martin

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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>
> On this morning Biermann has got up early to catch
> S-H #5 as she is backed out of the enginehouse for
> their run down the 20 miles of logging line to
> Chemult and then on the last 60 miles to Bend on
> the GN. Her tender has been lengthened to add
> water capacity for these long runs. She has been
> given metal white "extra" flags on her smokebox as
> well as class lamps for her long run on the GN
> mainline. The old 1937 Chevy car body on the
> tender has the car seat intact and steam heat
> plumbed from the engine boiler to keep the
> conductor warm as he watches the log loads as they
> head for the big S-H mill in Bend.
>


Martin,

Not to nitpick, but I don't think that's Chevrolet body on the tender. I used to own a 37 Chev sedan (now owned by our mutual friend in Hillsboro) and I'm pretty sure that's not a Chev. The roof line and rear window look like a Ford to me.

Here's a couple shots from the Goodguys car show in Fort Worth last year of a 37 Chev Coupe.

Keep those photos coming!

Nomosantafe
Fort Worth, Texas
"Where the West Begins"

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Randy,

I see I had a typo. I meant a 1932 Chevy body. I think that fits.

Martin

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It's interesting to see how railroads, big and small, can be so creative in solving an issue. Who would've thought, instead of building a conductor's "house", just grab an old car body... I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that they found an abandoned automobile along the right of way somewhere, maybe?

Not too different, in a way, than class 1's "back in the day" using old interurban bodies for tool sheds, and what-not...

Nice pic, sir. thanks for posting it.

Walter



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/14 08:50 by drumwrencher.

Boy that sure beats the doghouses on the D&RG! Talk about luxury!

That photographer must have amassed a really great collection if his goal was to shoot logging and short line in Oregon.

Nice morning light on that photo at the perfect 90 degree angle from the camera.

-M

Mike Massee
Tehachapi, CA
Photography, Railroading and more..

Great image. Thank you for posting, Martin!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/14 16:32 by roustabout.

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Randy,
>
> I see I had a typo. I meant a 1932 Chevy body. I
> think that fits.
>
> Martin

That works for me. It definitely looks like a similar roof line.

Nomo

Awesome. Back in the day photo.