Steam & Excursion > When This Happens All That Is Left To Do Is Pick Up The Pieces!

While the logging industry for many decades was the single most dangerous occupation in the U.S., the railroad portion of this industry tended to be one of its less dangerous segments.  There were days however, that this was not the case.  This was one of those days!

What we see in this old photo from 1925 is the aftermath of a wreck on the Flora Logging Co. above Carlton, Oregon in the Coast Range.  Shay #6 of the Flora Logging Co. has met an untimely end when her brakes gave out as she and her tank car of fuel was descending one of the steep grades on the line.  The result was this pile-up on a narrow cut leaving the Shay badly wrecked along with her train.

Amazingly, the remaining pieces of this 1908 product of the Lima Locomotive works were shipped to the Willamette Iron & Steel Co. of Portland, OR where they worked their magic and repaired this 2-truck Shay and she returned to logging service for another 20 years of service.  The last photo shows her ready to leave WISCO after the rebuild.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/15 07:27 by LoggerHogger.

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Could hardly have picked a worse place to derail in that cut.  Guess a bridge would be worse.

Man, when they logged back then, THEY REALLY LOGGED.

Almost hard to believe that poor shay is repairable.   I wonder where you'd start fixing.   I imagine you would have to steam clean the whole thing, just to see what you had left, and find any cracked parts.  It wouldn't even be easy to get it's carcass out of the cut, back to the shop, and then shipped off to Willamette.  I wonder if the crew jumped and survived ?  

That logging job does look pretty bad.  They used to think there was no end to the big trees, till they met the other guys on the other side of the hill.  I wonder what this exact place looks like today ?   It may have been cut again since then.

Over here in Idaho, the maximum size logs they want are 27" on the butt end.  They cull you badly if over size.   Takes about 110 years to grow a good Doug Fir log over here.   Lots faster near the coast.

Craig Hanson
Vay, Idaho.

So Martin, when the loco left WISCO would it still be considered
a Shay, or was it then known as a Willamette?

Larry Dodgion
Wilsonville, OR

Good question Larry given the extensive re-build.  However she was returned to her original Shay design.

Martin

WOW !! Hard to believe that Shay was salvaged and rebuilt. I would have thought that would have been considered totaled ??