Steam & Excursion > While The Years Were Hard On Her, She Still Kept Her Proud Name!

The hard life endured by logging locomotives is quite evident when one looks at this portrait of Madera Sugar Pine's 2-truck Shay #2 at at Sugar Pine Camp in July, 1937.  She has put in 35 long hard years in logging service on the narrow gauge logging line she was built to serve back in 1902 when she left the Lima Factory.

Despite the many battle scars that this Shay wears in this photo taken at the end of her logging career, she still bears the name "Arthur Hill" on her tender cistern.  She was given this name when she was built as a nod to the principal financial backer of the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Company when the outfit first started.

While she still has a load of wood in her tender as if she were to head back to the woods at any moment, that will not happen.  She has already lost her bell and she is parked next to the tender of MSP 3-truck Shay #5 that is already being scrapped.  Soon she will be gone, along with the name of the man she proudly wore for all those years in the woods the he hepled log.

Martin



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/20 03:25 by LoggerHogger.

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Martin -- Any idea who Arthur Hill was?

Gordon

Wow. A color photo also.  Really nice.
Probably worn out from carrying that smokestack around.

Rick Z

Fancy headlight !

Posted from Android

Wow Martin, was the original photo color? If so, this is the only color photo I've ever seen of MSP equipment - and I collected quite a few. 

Arthur Hill was a civil engineer and regent at the University of Michigan. He was heavily involved with a number of Michigan, Canadian and West Coast logging operations. He supplied much of the capital used to open the Madera Sugar Pine operation It's reported that MSP eventually paid its investors forty times their original investment - a much better return than most of the Sierra logging operations.

It's interesting how tidy the worker's cabins and community buildings in the background appear to be.

#2 was the first Shay on the line, delivered to Madera in 1903.  She was partially disassembled for hauling into the mountains over the rough roads of the day.  The largest assembly (probably the boiler and frame) was hauled on a specially built wagon pulled by 16 mules.

Elesco Wrote:
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> It's interesting how tidy the worker's cabins and
> community buildings in the background appear to
> be.

Many of those cabins are still there today.  They are part of the privately owned community of Sugar Pine.

Martin

That is an inprobably large looking stack..

M-420 Wrote:
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> That is an inprobably large looking stack..

She was a wood burner and this style and size of stack was very common.  The cinders that wood burners could toss out was substantial and you did not want to burn down the forest you were trying to log.

Martin

That stack is a baby compared to the one on the replica of V&T #1 LYON at Carson City.
My friends were the builder of that stack.
I have stood inside it in the shop, and there was still room to spare.

James R.(Jim) Baker
Whittier, CA

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> M-420 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > That is an inprobably large looking stack..
>
> She was a wood burner and this style and size of
> stack was very common.  The cinders that wood
> burners could toss out was substantial and you did
> not want to burn down the forest you were trying
> to log.
>
> Martin

Wood fires throw embers not cinders and they can travel a long ways.
Embers and wind are the reason why forest fires can get so big so fast.

PHall Wrote:

> Wood fires throw embers not cinders and they can
> travel a long ways.
> Embers and wind are the reason why forest fires
> can get so big so fast.

From the Dictionary:The definition of a cinder is a small piece of burned wood or coal that is still sparking even though it has been mostly burned. A small leftover piece of firewood that is still solid and burning without flame is an example of a cinder. Ashes.

Martin