Steam & Excursion > This Doubleheader Was The Sure Sign That Spring Has Arrived!

One of the most time-honored rituals of steam railroading in the logging industry, was the spring plow trains used in snow country to open up the logging railroad after the winter shut down.  These trains signaled the return to work for the woods crews and railroad crews who would spend a couple weeks, first clearing the railroad tracks of snow back to the logging camps and then on to the cutting areas so that the summer timber harvest could resume.

In this fine view we see West Side Lumber's Shay #7 and another 3-truck Shay working hard behind the snow plow as they slowly move aside the snow that has blocked the line since the previous winter.  The 2 big Shays would make steady progress for several days just to open up the mainline to the camps that soon would be filled once again with loggers who would spend the long hot summer and into the fall cutting the pine trees that would keep the West Side mill running all year long.

This double-header train meant that winter was finally over and the son of the Shay would once again be heard in the Sierra.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/19 03:20 by LoggerHogger.

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And those men and machines spent long days unlike today in the woods, no AC no 8hr days just very hard work.  Dont even know if they had unemployment during the off season.  Hats off to those rugged men that made America back then.  As always another great photo Martin. Boyd in Chiloquin

BAB Wrote:
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> And those men and machines spent long days unlike
> today in the woods, no AC no 8hr days just very
> hard work.  Dont even know if they had
> unemployment during the off season.  Hats off to
> those rugged men that made America back then.  As
> always another great photo Martin. Boyd in
> Chiloquin

Got a news flash for ya, even modern loggers don't work just an 8 hour day. It's more like a 12-14 hour day and depending on how far behind they are they could be working a 6 or 7 day workweek.

This is the first photo that I've seen of Shays in snowplow service on the West Side.  An idea what year this photo was taken?  A book and a video that I have shows double-headed Heislers pushing the wedge snowplow.  It was explained that West Side preferred using Heislers in snowplow service in order to avoid damage to the cylinders and drivelines by lineside debris hidden by the snow.  I'll bet that the plow they are pushing is the one that was heavily damaged in the fire at the Yosemite Mountain & Sugar Pine a year-and-a-half ago.