Steam & Excursion > These Steam Locomotives Worked In This Direction Just As Often!

During our recent TRAINS Magazine charter showcasing the Skookum, I made it a point to take the opportunity on a couple of occasions to run around our log train and let the photographers shot the trains as they were backing up.  I explained to the gathered photographers that this was a very typical move in the days of steam logging and we needed to duplicate it on this charter on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad.

What some people forget is that few if any logging railroads had any turning facilities available to them in the woods.  Wye tracks, or balloon tracks were rarely built in the woods since the track into the cutting areas was seen as temporary in the first place and would be pulled up when the timber in that area was cut and quickly re-laid into the new cutting area.

This temporary nature of the track used by logging railroads in the woods resulted in most every logging train working in a backwards direction as often as they worked in a forwards direction. The need to run their locomotives for long distances in reverse led to most rod-type logging locomotives being designed with both lead and trailing trucks.  This helped the locomotives track better in both directions.

In this scenario, the most common practice was for the empty log trains to head to the woods backwards with their empty log cars trailing behhind them as we see in these 2 photos.  The first photo, taken by Al Farrow, shows Skookum heading back to the woods on the Deep River Lumber Co. line in 1953.  It was in this move that she derailed her tender when she het a broken rail in February 1955 and had her famous wreck that ended up saving her for future generations.

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/19 02:38 by LoggerHogger.

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My 1985 cab ride on Carb Orchard & Egyptian #17 was also tender first.  They had a wye at one end of the line, but decided to always keep her facing west.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions