Steam & Excursion > The Iron Horse Would Meet The Real Thing On This Railroad!

Each summer in the Sierra in California, the pine forests would be filled with the sound of loggers and their logging railroads as the summer cutting season was in full swing.  At the same time, local farmers would turn loose their cattle into the forests each spring and let them graze on the grasses on the floor of the forest until they would gather them up in the fall.  This not only gave the lumber companies some additional revenue, but it also worked to reduce the fuels on the forest floor and thus lessened the risk of forest fires.

In this photo we see the crew of West Side Lumber 3-truck Shay #9 paused at Camp 8 one afternoon and chatting with a cowboy who is looking after his heard of cows out in the forest.

One added benefit to the cattle in the forest was the cow dung that they left behind to dry in the summer sun.  On more thanone occassion, when one of the West SIde Shays developed leaky flues while out on thier log runs, the crew would find a pile of dried cow dung and grind it up and put it in one of the locomotive injuectors.  This would work quite well to seal up the leaky tube so they could make the run back to the mill with their log train and then have master mechanic Ed Sullivan seal up the flues properly.

So much to tell from one simple photo.

Martin

 



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/20 04:37 by LoggerHogger.

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Nice human interaction scene.  The dung also helps the trees grow.  Gerry

Yes!   It works!
In Conneaut, It was common practice for 'road apples' to be dropped in the tender's cistern....

On the NKP, the machinists would call the boilermakers -- 'Horse-s!!t', and boilermakers called the 
machinists 'nut-splitters' --- after the practice of using sharp chisels to cut rusted nuts off of threaded fittings.
( the chisel was driven on top of the nuts -- 2 cuts, 180-deg opposite each other.) --- rather than unwinding
the stuck fasteners using the wrench.

The un-digested oats in the 'road apples' would migrate to the leaky threaded fittings, under the 
influence of the tiny currents inside the boiler's submerged shell.  After a trip over the road, the 
leaky staybolts, etc. would be all sealed-up, nice and dry.

W.

By any chance would that be "crappy" water??

Adds extra horse power?
Low cost & Eco-friendly water treatment?

It only takes a few 'apples' for the cure to work.

​W

.

Article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about cows and wild fires.
Only read the first paragraph though.

What has the cows & prairie fires got to do with this thread?
Please explain.

​W.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What has the cows & prairie fires got to do with
> this thread?
> Please explain.
>
> ​W.

Why bring prairies to the discussion?
Please explain.

Looked up the Reference to the WSJ article that referred to the cows & prairies...
that was cited by the author ---- "that only read one para".

You , too, should look it up.

W.
 

In less rural locations, a box of Quaker Oat Meal works wonders....

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looked up the Reference to the WSJ article that
> referred to the cows & prairies...
> that was cited by the author ---- "that only read
> one para".
>
> You , too, should look it up.
>
> W.
>  

The OP describes cows in the forest at the time of the photo. The WSJ article moved off their webpage.
Please explain the relevance.

Exactly my POINT!
There is no relevance of that WSJ article to fixing a leaky boiler..

W.

The Murdoch family empire might have livestock holdings.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Exactly my POINT!
> There is no relevance of that WSJ article to
> fixing a leaky boiler..
>
> W.

No mention of praries either.
Please explain.
 

Read the WSJ article...

Over & Out  !!!!!