Steam & Excursion > During The War You Needed Permission Even To Scrap An Engine!

The restrictions put in place in this Country during WW-2 were extensive and all geared to insuring Allied Victory.  Few people today know are even aware how many such restrictions there were, including those for America's railroads.

With the Country needing maximum production of materials for the war effort, the government did not want railroads scrapping needlessly steam locomotives that still had useful life left in them.  For this reason, locomotive operators had to get the governments permission to scrap an engine beforehand.  Even logging railroads fell under this regulation as we see here.

Several years ago my friend John Taubeneck came across the government form we see here.  The date was 1943 and Weyerhaeuser Timber had an 80-ton Shay at their Vail, Washington operations that they felt needed more boiler work done to her than she was worth.  Rather than just scrapping the engine as they would have done before the War, Weyerhaeuser had to fill out this form and submit it to the government for approval before they could dispose of the engine.

The form is dated August 11, 1943.  The attached photo of WTC Shay #2 was taken by Al Farrow at Vail on April 14, 1943, just a few months earlier.  We see that the Shay has not operated since September 1942, according to the form.  The Shay shows no outward signs in Al's photo of any repair issues and does not show any removal of steam dome covers for boiler inspection, even though the form says she needs $5,000 of boiler work.

The drafter of the form seems to be taking some liberties in order to convince the government to allow her scrapping.  He has correctly identified her Construction Lima number as 3090 (which would have been available from the builder's plate still present on the side of the smokebox) but has listed her build date as "about 1917" rather than the correct date of 1920 which would also show on that same builder's plate.  I wonder if the form drafter was trying to make the Shay look older than she really was.

Once processed, the government apparently approved the request, at least in part.  WTC Shay #2 was not cut up entirely, however.  Her running gear and engine cylinders were sold to the White River Lumber Co. of Enumclaw, Washington for stand-by use for one of their Shays they had in logging service.  The rest of WTC#2 was in fact finally scrapped.

The form does not go into detail of what kind of boiler repairs #2 needed.  Did she burn her crown sheet?  We can only wonder if she really was too far gone for saving or did Weyerhaeuser simply know how to get the government to give them what they wanted.

Martin

P.S.  If anyone out there has any of these forms or knows where they are stored please let us know as they are great research tools.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/16 04:29 by LoggerHogger.

---

---

That is a great story I enjoy reading then each morning.
Luke

Posted from Android

Thanks Martin. I learned something new today. Unfortunately at my age I've likely forgotten five old things at the same time.

I love history like this too, thanks for continuing to share. Assuming the RR was trutful and the repair was going to cost $5,000 and the value of the engine was $1,000 it's just amazing to me how values change over time regardless of inflation. While $5,000 was a lot of money in the 1940's it wasn't massive though, using an inflation calculater we can easily determine that $5,000 in 1943 equates to about $70,000 today. That is still far below the cost of most major repairs to steam or even diesel locomotives today. 
 

This is a fascinating document of the World War II period.  Not subject to heresay about what the WPB did or did not do...