Steam & Excursion > On Any Other Type Of Railroad, This Steam Structure Is Normal!

The sight of steam locomotives parked in roundhouse was certainly commonplace in the steam era in all mainline and most every shortline railroad.  So why is this image taken in July, 1955 so very unusual?

The answer to this question is the fact that this roundhouse was built and operated not by a mainline, or even a shortline.  This roundhouse was built and operated by a purely logging line!  While there were hundreds of lumber companies that operated their own railroads during the steam era and these lines had some servicing structures in common with their mainline counterparts, it is hard find any loggers, no matter how big an operation, that had an actual roundhouse for their steam fleet.

This exception to the rule was the Simpson Timber Co. of Shelton, Washington.  When that line was first built, it sported a wooden roundhouse that lasted until the 1940's when it was replaced a few blocks away in Shelton by this brick roundhouse.  A few years ago I covered the original Simpson roundhouse:
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,3018773,3018773#msg-3018773

This photo taken by Elwood White shows Simpson's Baldwin Mikes #8 and #3 at rest between runs in the "new" Simpson Roundhouse.  It is hard to come up with another logger that operated a true roundhouse as we see here.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/20 02:33 by LoggerHogger.

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Thanks,Martin, for including the link to the earlier posting with photos.  That was a really interesting maintenance complex and, I would think, a modeller's dream.

Gordon

I've always been curious as to why some RRs backed their engines into the roundhouse.  Durango & Silverton comes to mind.  I thought the design was to pull the engines in so there is more room around the engine to work and the tender was in the narrower space.  At any rate, this is a rarity on a logging road.

What's the status of this roundhouse? I know there's a group making headway on starting excursions on the old Simpson line. Were they able to save the roundhouse? 

One reason could be to minimize the results of a leaky throttle.  If the tender goes into the pit first it is unfortunate.  If the locomotive goes into the pit you have a major problem.  In addition the workspace between adjacent locomotives is better in a roundhouse with a "nose in " set up.

Or maybe that's what the roundhouse foreman wanted.
Nothing more and nothing less.