Steam & Excursion > A Pair Of Steam Locomotives Arriving At Their New Home!

By June, 1967 the Pickering Lumber Corporation was cleaning out their stable of Shays both at their standard gauge shop facility in Standard, California, but also at the narrow gauge yards of their West Side Lumber subsidiary in Tuolumne, California.  One of the Pickering Pickering board members was related to a young Malarkey Wall who had an interest in these old steam locomotives.  He quickly convinced Malarkey that he should snap up the pair of "#8's" from the 2 rosters.  That is exactly what he did.

By 1967, Malarkey had started constructing a narrow gauge railroad on his acreage high up in the Oregon Coast Range near Glenwood, Oregon.  He decided that former West Side #8 would possibly work well on this railroad.  Nearby at the time was the Vernonia, South Park & Sunset Steam Railroad in Banks, Oregon.  He felt that former Pickering standard gauge #8 could be operated on that line from time to time.

In this photo, taken in June, 1967, the 2 Shays have arrived on their flatcars at Banks, Oregon and will soon be unloaded.  As it would work out, Pickering #8 would only be fired up once at Banks for a Railcon convention in 1969 and would never operate there again.  West Side #8 would stay at Banks for a number of years in storage, but would never make it up to Malarkey's property as he determined she was too heavy for his light rail.

Pickering #8 would later be shipped to Cottage Grove, Oregon where she would be put on display at the railtown site established by the Oregon Pacific & Eastern.  Later she would be sold to Fred Kepner who has her today in storage at Merrill, Oregon.

West Side #8 would be purchased in the 1970's by Lindsey Ashby and would go to Colorado to operate on his tourist facilities, first in Central City, CO and later on the Georgetown Loop.  Today she is on display a Canon City, Colorado and is up for sale once again.

Martin



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/20 03:54 by LoggerHogger.

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Here's standard gauge #8 running at Banks two years after her arrival.  The fireman is the late Quinton Kummel.

Tom Moungovan posted this story about #8 here 13½ years ago:

There's a story about the 8 that maybe now might be a good time to relate...back in late '56 or '57 when Pickering got their
railroad beefed up enough so that the first two EMD's could travel clear out to Soap Creek, the suits decided it was time for a
head to head comparison of pulling power between steam & diesel.
Either 101 or 102 was put on the head end of a 22 car train at Beardsley Flat with Shay 8 cut in midway. The woods boss,
known to be against the railroad, walked over to the 8 & told the engineer, Jack Botfield Sr., that the diesel was going to put
him out of a job. Jack then told his fireman to make sure he kept her right at 200 lbs. when they left & started the long 2.2%
climb to Schoettgen Pass. Pickering loggers were sitting on the logs at the ends of cars so that they could observe just where
the train was bunched once underway.
Well, the 8 not only ended up pulling her 11 loads plus the caboose, but was also shoving 2-3 cars ahead of her. Lot of red
faces on managers that day. Yes, the diesel eventually won out, but on that one afternoon, old technology won out. The
90 ton Shay was perhaps the ideal locomotive for the Pickering.

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