Steam & Excursion > The Sun Sets On The Steam Power For These Two Railroads!

When Dale Clark stopped by one late afternoon at his old stomping grounds at the Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company mill in Bend, Oregon in 1953, he was saddened by what awaited him.   There in the fading afternoon sunlight he saw lined up no less than 6 steam locomotives from both the Brooks-Scanlon and the Shevlin-Hixon Company logging railroads.  The fate of these engines was clear, they were all headed out soon on an SP&S train up the Oregon Trunk, bound for the Alaska Junk yard in Portland, Oregon.

The lead engine in line was former Shevlin-Hixon #4 a big 90-ton Baldwin Mike that had been in the shops for servicing in November, 1950 when S-H sold out to Brooks-Scanlon.  This resulted in her being lettered "S-H-4" on her cab and "Brooks-Scanlon Inc." on her tender as we see here in Dale's photo.  Behind her is Shevlin-Hixon #4 another 90-ton Baldwin Mike.

Visible across the Deschutes River we can see the Shevlin-Hixon oiling facility and enginehouse that once served their fleet of steam logging locomotives.  These buildings held some memories for Dale Clark, as he used to report to work there when he was working as a fireman on the Shevlin-Hixon logging railroad in the 1940-'s before he started his career an an Engineer for the Great Northern.

In a few days, this train set of 6 Baldwin logging 2-8-2's would head out of Bend for the last time.  The pair of ACLO diesels purchased by Brooks-Scanlon would close out the history of logging railroading in Bend just 3 short years later. 

Dale knew when he took this photo that afternoon, that the sun was setting on these logging railroads in more ways than one.

Martin



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/19 04:11 by LoggerHogger.

---

Interesting photo Martin, in that both engines have piston valve conversions of two different types.  SH-4 has a universal piston valve conversion and retains its Stephenson valve gear, while #4, 
has a bolt on piston valve of a different type, and walshaerts valve gear (again possibly a later addition).  
 

Actually, #8 was superheated from the Baldwin factory.  In the last 2 years of service she subbred from cracked cylinders and Shevlin-Hixon shop crews added the bolt-on drawbar pieces to the cylindrers to keep them from cracking further.

Martin

---

AHH!  Like a lot of the Nickel Plate Mikes that I grew up with.  Easy to see in the first photo, now that I know what to look for!