Steam & Excursion > A Brute Of A Logging Mallet Leaves The Factory In !934!

While most logging companies were pretty well done buying steam logging lokies by the 1930's Weyerhaeuser Timber was an exception to this rule. They had opened up some new cutting areas that required the addition of more steam power. Nearly all their purchases in this time period were of Baldwin's successful logging Mallet design.

The most famous of their purchases in this time period was 2-6-6-2 #4 designed to operate on the Weyerheauser Klamath Falls operation that had opened in 1928 in Klamath Falls, Oregon. She poses in this photo at the Baldwin plant for her builder's photo before leaving for logging assignment. The care and attention of the builder in the art of manufacturing is quite evident in this portrait.

#4 would serve Weyerheauser well for 18 years in the Southern Oregon operation and even survived a devastating roundhouse fire there in the 1940's. In 1952 she was purchased by the Sierra RR and put in service there for the last 3 years of regular steam operation on that line before being retired again and sold to Rayonier who returned her to the logging work for which she had been originally designed. She served Rayonier well into the 1960's before being retired again and put on display at the Crane Creek shops.

Today she is stored in pieces in Merrill, Oregon just a few miles away from the pine forests that she was originally built to log in 1934.


Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/14 04:19 by LoggerHogger.

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Thanks for posting. That's one fine new locomotive, Mr. Hansen. I'm glad you have saved so many photos. Even better to know the locomotive still exists, that it's still around, in pieces or not.

I wonder if it took a while for Baldwin to get those side rods almost perfectly up/down for the pic?!

Walter
Sanfranciscotrains.org

Any idea why the pilot extends so far out? Doesn't appear it needs to by looking at the frame.

Now I am guessing, that it has a long draft gear up front instead of the conventional pocket for a short pilot coupler.

Yes, these engines had large pilot decks due the draft gear used for logging engines with the considerable slack involved in log trains. Also the loggers liked the large pilot decks as they were handy for storing all the frogs, cables and other paraphernalia used by logging railroads.

Martin

I'm assuming these are all shipped out via rail from Philadelphia to their respective locations - amazing!

Jim Lipnitz
Morrisville, PA
Big Jim Video Productions

Yes, the main rods were disconnected and they were shipped out by rail.

Martin

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Yes, these engines had large pilot decks due the
> draft gear used for logging engines with the
> considerable slack involved in log trains. Also
> the loggers liked the large pilot decks as they
> were handy for storing all the frogs, cables and
> other paraphernalia used by logging railroads.
>
> Martin


Or optional...Redwood hottub..with no shortage of hot refreshing water

Martin:

Thanks for posting the picture of the (eventual) Sierra #38. I have a story about this loco from my childhood years in Sonora. My grandfather was a steam engineer (John J. Mills) who worked for the HHYV, Empire City Ry. and Sugar Pine/Pickering, and eventually ended up running the main boilers in the Standard Pickering Mill. When he retired he and my grandmother (she used to run one of the rooming houses in Standard) used to be in charge of me many days as my dad and mom both worked. I used to be able to hear the Sierra freights coming into Sonora (we lived on Knowles Hill and could see the smoke of the locos as they came into and left Sonora) and my grandfather being somewhat sympathetic to my pleas to see the trains, would take me out to watch the daily freight's switch. I recall many times of watching the up and down trains meet in Sonora and using the long passing siding just west of Sonora near today's Propane spur.

One day when we went to Sonora there was a "new" engine sitting over on the old mill spur by the derrick. It was I later found out the Sierra #38 on one of her first runs. There were two other locos there as well but they were switching over by the freight depot and passing track. My grandfather walked over to find out why all the crew and a bunch of others were all standing around by the #38, which was ominously not moving.

I remember my grandfather staying over there by the 38 talking to the crew and the other men for some time. Lots of head scratching and pointing at the 38. The rest of us watched the switching but I remember the 38 never moved which seemed odd to me for a "new" loco.

Eventually my grandfather came back and told my grandmother that the engine was "broken down". He described it as a used up piece of junk the Sierra brought in. Apparently the crew didn't like it as they told him it rode "rough" and was not very good for switching. I don't think they cared for having to run it backwards from Jamestown to Cooperstown either. Apparently the fact that they couldn't turn it on the turntable was also a point of contention.

Obviously they must have got it running but whether it got back to Jamestown that day under its own power or was hauled back by the other Sierra locos was something we didn't stay around to see.

I know my grandfather's descriptions of the 38 from then on were not complimentary, but I never saw it in Sonora again.

John Mills

John,

Thanks for this great addition to the story. #4 had a rough life on Weyerheauser's Klamath Falls Operation. In the 1940's she was caught in an enginehouse fire and here are the results.

She did make it back to Sonora on a number of occssions after the Jamestown roundhouse crews got her fixed right.

Martin

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In 1967 (I believe) I had the pleasure of riding on the #38 on Rayonier's mainline. She was riding so rough by then that Bobby Rogers, the engineer, took the seat cushion off the seat-box and threw on the cab floor then proceeded to stand on it! I got quite a kick out of that.
Pete