Steam & Excursion > A Used Steam Locomotive Dealer Used All The Sales Tricks!

Today we know many of the sales tricks used by used car salesmen to make an old clunker of a car look as good as new on the outside while hiding the potential defects the car may have on the inside.  The life and times of a used steam locomotive dealer were not all that different as we see here.

The 50-ton 2-truck Shay that we see her gleaming in the sunshine in Portland, Oregon had quite a history of various owners and being sold by no less than 3 different locomotive Dealers over the years.

Built on speculation by Lima in January of 1913, this Shay was shipped out to Lima's West Coast dealer, Hofius Steel & Equipment Co. of Seattle, Washington for them to look for a buyer.  Hofius soon found one and this Shay was soon on her way to Deep River Logging Co. of Deep River, Washington to work as their #5.  It was here at Deep River that #5 had a horrible wreck the nearly totally destroyed the locomotive.

After her big wreck, #5 was loaded on a barge and shipped up the Columbia River to Willamette Iron & Steel Co. where she was completely rebuilt.  She was then returned to Deep River where she worked until 1924 when she was sold to Zimmerman-Wells-Brown, a locomotive dealer in Portland, Oregon.  It is here that we see #5 all painted and polished like a brand new locomotive waiting for a new buyer to come along.

It took about a year, but in November 1925, Z-W-B found her a buyer in the form of the Mount Emily Lumber Co. of Hilgard, Oregon.  Mount Emily needed a 2-truck Shay to work the log trains from the cutting areas down to the camps in the Eastern Oregon pine forests of Oregon Blue Mountains.

When Mount Emily moved to using trucks to haul logs from the fallers to the reload to rail in 1942, #5 found herself out of a job and, once again, up for sale.  Amazingly, she was bought by the same Willamette Iron & Steel Co. that had rebuilt her years earlier to work as their shop switcher at their plant in downtown Portland, Oregon. WI&SC must have felt they knew this Shay better than anyone else given the extensive rebuild they had done to her back in 1925.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/19 02:34 by LoggerHogger.

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So in a since the #5 is a high bread Willamette Shay. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/19 07:58 by czuleget.

Another very interesting and historical post, Martin.

Quote: "So in a since the #5 is a high bread Willamette Shay."

Translation:  So in a sense the #5 is a hybrid Willamette Shay.

 

norm1153 Wrote:
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> Quote: "So in a since the #5 is a high bread
> Willamette Shay."
>
> Translation:  So in a sense the #5 is a hybrid
> Willamette Shay.
>
>  

THANK YOU!!