Steam & Excursion > As One Of The First Of Her Kind Built, She Was Given A Name!

By 1905, The Baldwin Locomotive Works, was starting to build larger rod-type locomotives for the logging industry of the Pacific Northwest.  One of the newer wheel arrangements that was finding favor by the loggers was Baldwin's small 2-6-2's.

In April of 1905, Baldwin finished this trim 2-6-2 that we see here for their display at the Lewis & Clark Exposition that was to be held in Portland, Oregon that year.  Since they did not have a buyer that had ordered the little Prairie, they give her a star number plate rather than a number and painted the name "Sequoia" on her cab sides.

The marketing plan worked as at the Exposition, the Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company of Eureka, California purchased the little 2-6-2 for use on their logging railroad in the Northern California Redwood region.  Apparently, they liked the name "Sequoia" that Baldwin had given her and felt that they had to have this new locomotive.

We see this same locomotive (now with the #2 rather than the name Sequoia) at the shops at Carson, California in 1946 after 41 years of logging service.  She still presents a proud image just as she had at the Exposition decades earlier.


Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/21 08:39 by LoggerHogger.

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I love that star number plate,  it is a classic!  I wish it was in my collection!

Ron

would love to see a picture of the loco at the exposition.......great story Martin....ok for our newsletter?     Arlen

Was there a Carson, CA in northern CA as well as the current one in the L.A. area? The wikipedia entry on John Dolbeer states the railroad was HQ'd in Eureka.
Dolbeer looks to be credited with creating the steam donkey or at least a version of it that he patented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dolbeer

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asheldrake Wrote:
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> would love to see a picture of the loco at the
> exposition.......great story Martin....ok for our
> newsletter?     Arlen

Sure Arlen

Agreed, great photo!  Thanks for posting it!

One slight correction, D&C did not open Camp Carson until 1930, after the #2 had been in service for a quarter century or so.  The Carson name has thrown a few people off in previous threads about this subject, just to be clear we are not talking about the city in southern California but the Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company's Camp Carson, on the North Fork of the Elk River about seven miles southeast of Eureka.  The former camp is now home to the Elk River Boy Scout Camp, and a few of the original camp buildings are still in use in the camp. 

The Dolbeer & Carson itself is a fascinating story.  John Dolbeer (perhaps best known for filing the first patents for the steam donkey engine) and William Carson incorporated the company in 1864, and they built a large mill towards the north end of Eureka waterfront, in what is now a vacant lot underneath the Highway 255 bridge to Samoa.  William Carson built the much famed Carson Mansion on a rise adjacent to his mill, it was set up in such a way that he could see every part of the mill from the upper floors of the building.  The D&C company's first rail logging show commenced around the early 1880s in the Bayside area along the eastern shore of Humboldt Bay north of Eureka using a pair of small 0-4-0T locomotives.  In early 1896 the company moved its logging operations to the Lindsay Creek basin well north of the bay, the company contracted with the Humboldt Bay & Trinidad Railroad to haul their logs down to a log dump located just north of Samoa, the logs would be rafted across the bay to the mill from there.  The Humboldt Bay & Trinidad was eventually sold to the Eureka & Klamath River Railroad, which later went on to become part of the Oregon & Eureka Railroad, and eventually part of the Northwestern Pacific.

A.B. Hammond, one of the more prominent lumberman in the nation at the time, bought the Eureka & Klamath River and associated lumbering operations in 1900.  Dolbeer and Carson resented what they saw as Hammond's intrusion into the redwood region, and as the end of the log hauling contract approached the company decided to built its own railroad north to their still extensive timberlands in the McKinleyville to Fieldbrook area.  In 1905 the D&C started building their Humboldt Northern Railroad, which when completed ran from another log dump into Humboldt Bay north of Samoa north across the Arcata Bottoms to McKinleyville and Fieldbrook, plus a branch to Arcata.  To equip the new road the company bought two locomotives, a used 2-4-2T from the Southern Pacific (HN #1) and the #2 featured in this thread.  The two locomotives, plus the HN #3, a larger 2-6-2 purchased new from Baldwin in 1922, delivered D&C's logs into the bay until 1930, when they finally exhausted their timber reserves in those northern areas.  The D&C at that point sold the Humboldt Northern to the Little River Redwood Company and moved their logging operations to the Elk River watershed.  The D&C bought the Bucksport & Elk River Railroad, which ran from Bucksport just south of Eureka up two forks of the Elk River, and the #2 and #3- now lettered for the D&C company- alternated hauling log trains from Camp Carson down to a log dump into the bay located just north of what is today the Bayshore Mall in Eureka.  The company rafted the logs from the dump three miles north to the mill.  The Pacific Lumber Company bought the D&C company in 1950 but continued operating it until around late 1952, when they finished truck roads that would deliver logs from the former D&C holdings on the Elk River to their own railhead on Yager Creek above Carlotta.  While the other two D&C locomotives in use at the time survived the #2 unfortunately did not, as it had been scrapped in 1949.  

Attached is an old postcard I recently acquired of this locomotive during its Humboldt Northern days on a trestle, probably in the Fieldbrook area.  

Thanks again for posting the photo!

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV     

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As I recall, several Baldwin Sequoias were built.  Clover Valley Lumber #8, later Feather River Short Line, was another Sequoia type.  And didn't the McCloud River have a couple?

Any others out there?  I am not sure if anyone has ever done a study on the type or put together a roster.

Z 

The name Sequoia was the Baldwin name given their 2-6-2's for the logging industry.  Baldwin built dozens of those.  This was the only one that the painted the Sequoia name on the cab.


Martin

I don't know that "Sequoia" was ever a designated Baldwin type, at least officially.  Tall Timber Short Lines Issue 71 (Spring 2003) carried an article by John Cummings on Baldwin Logging Prairie Tender-Type Locomotives, the first of what was to be a series on the subject.  They covered tank-type prairies in a later issue but didn't get to some of the other planned articles in the series before the magazine folded.  According to the article, Baldwin pioneered their "Double Ender" locomotives in the early 1870s, primarily for commuter service.  The concept quickly spread to locomotives built for other services requiring frequent reverse operation, including logging.  There's an interesting chart included in the article showing the numbers of Prairie type locomotives Baldwin built by class.

10-18-1/4D, 12" cylinders, 32 tons.  51 built, 20 for logging
10-20-1/4D, 13" cylinders, 36 tons.  35 built, 22 for logging
10-22-1/4D, 14" cylinders, 39 tons.  66 built, 12 for logging
10-24-1/4D, 15" cylinders, 43 tons.  161 built, 71 for logging
10-26-1/4D, 16" cylinders, 52 tons.  198 built, 57 for logging
10-28-1/4D, 17" cylinders, 63 tons.  178 built, 56 for logging
10-30-1/4D, 18" cylinders, 68 tons.  61 built, 20 for logging

The above list includes tank-type locomotives. 

As far as I know Baldwin built prairies mostly for southern loggers in the early years.  The McCloud River #4 (built October 1898) was the fist of these Baldwin prairies in California, and maybe in the west.  McCloud bought three more in 1901 and a fifth in 1904, a year before Baldwin built the "Sequoia".  McCloud referred to their early prairies as "Mongul types" in company documents from that era, a term I have never been able to figure out or have seen used anywhere else.  That being said, the exposure the type got through the dispaly of the Sequoia at the Exposition may have resulted in that label being at least unofficially attached to tender type prairies built for logging in the west.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV       

One last note on this subject, I found on the Southern Methodist University website the specification sheet for this locomotive, which shows it to be the 76th locomotive of the 10-26-1/4D class constructed.  

In addition to the classes from the table in the article in my above post, I also found references in other resources to Prairies Baldwin built for logging service in Classes 10-16-1/4D (11" cylinders) and 10-34-1/4D (20" cylinders).

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/21 13:28 by JDLX.

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OK, Camp Carson. Thx for the clarification.
Here's the Carson Mansion from a bike trip I made up there about a decade ago.Now a private club.

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Thanks Jeff!  Interesting.  I seem to recall that Jim Boynton had in his collection of papers an advertising booklet from Baldwin discussing the logging 2-6-2s where the explicitly referred to them as "Sequoia models" or something similar.  Deifnitely seemed to have been used as a marketing name.

Z

I got to thinking about the Sequoia name throughout the day.  The only direct reference to a "Sequoia" type I've seen in print is in Kramer Adam's Logging Railroads of the West, which included the following paragraph appearing in a section discussing in a very general nature the application of advancing steam locomotive technology to logging locomotives.

"Typical of the improvements was Baldwin's Sequoia type.  Among other advantages, it has 25 percent more heating surface than earlier models.  Its first users, Polson Logging Co., Weyerhaeuser Timber Co. and Peninsular Railraod Co., found that it could handle 6 per cent grades and 36 degree curves."

The book has a photo of the Sequoia, along with a caption that reads "Sequoia type locomotive was a modified Prairie 2-6-2 developed by Baldwin Locomotive Works for Western logging roads.  The pilot model was display at the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco and later made the rounds of logging camps as a demonstrator."  (Adams probably meant to say Lewis & Clark Exposition...)

As per the specification sheets I posted earlier, the Sequoia locomotive heating surface was 1,439 sq.ft tubes and 122.7 sq ft firebox for a total heating suface of 1,561.7 sq ft.  For comparrison I checked some of the earlier locomotives of this class.  One interesting note, the text Adams wrote specifically called out Polson, Weyerhaeuser, and Penninsular Railroad as being three early uses of the "Sequoia" type, but of those only Polson is recorded to actually have directly purchased any locomotives of these types.  The Penninsular machine was actually bought by Simpson Logging Company.  I have no clear idea to which locomotive the Weyerhaeuser machine refers.  

McCloud River 8 and 9, built 1900, the 11th and 12th locomotives of the 10-26-1/4D class: 1,385 sq ft tubes, 114 sq ft firebox, 1,499 sq ft total.
Seoul & Chemulpo Railway, built 1901, 14th-28th of the 10-26-1/4D class: 960 sq ft tubes, 107 sq ft firebox, 1067 sq ft total.   

Specifications for some of the post-"Sequoia" prairies:

Polson 45- 55th locomotive built of the 10-24-1/4D: 987.8 sq ft tubes, 86 sq ft firebox, 1,073.8 sq ft total.  Should be noted this was also the next smaller class. 
Simpson Logging/Penninsular Railway 6, 79th locomotive built of the 10-26-1/4D: 1,303 sq ft tubes, 107 sq ft firebox, 1,410 sq ft total.

All told I'm not sure I see much in the specification sheets to back up the claims Adams makes.  My overall feelings is that I really don't see much in the way of big improvements in the pre- versus post- "Sequoia" locomotives, which leads me to conclude it was likely a marketing gimic and may have not represented a substantial change in the machines themselves.  It is interesting to look at the overall production and distribution of the 10-26-1/4D class, and especially how many of that class were built for export to Asia.

1: Built 1895 for Rumford Falls & Rainley Lakes
2, 3: Built 1896 for Calumet & Hecla Mining
4: Built 1896 for Cordz-Fischer Lumber
5: Built 1896 for Rumford Falls & Rainey Lakes
6: Built 1897 for Missouri Lumber & Mining
7-9: Built 1897 for Hokkaido Coal & Mining
10: Built 1898 for McCloud River #4
11, 12: Built 1900 for McCloud River #8-#9
13: Built 1900 for McCloud River #10
14-28: Built 1901 for Seoul & Chemulpo Railway
29-36: Built 1904 for Seoul & Wisu
37-55: Built 1904 for Frazar & Company
56-75: Built 1905 for Imperial Government of Japan
76: "Sequoia", Built 1905 for display at Lewis & Clark Expo, then sold to Humboldt Northern
77: Built 1905 for De Queen & Eastern
78: Built 1905 for Tremont & Gulf
79: Built 1905 for SImpson Logging
80: Built 1905 for Benson Logging & Lumber
81: Built 1905 for Louisiana Central Lumber
82: Built 1905 for Chapman Timber
83: ?
84: Built 1906 for Paine Lumber Limited
85: Built 1906 for De Queen & Eastern
86, 87: Built 1906 for Frazar & Company for Sangu
88: Built 1906 for Kaul Lumber
89: Built 1906 for Seattle Southeastern
90: Built 1907 for Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber #8 (future Clover Valley Lumber #8)
91: Built 1907 for East Broad Top & Coal
92: Built 1908 for Woodward Iron
93: Built 1908 for Booth-Kelley Lumber
94, 95: Built 1908 for Tientsin Pukow.
96: Built 1908 for Ozark Land & Lumber
97: Built 1909 for Pacific Lumber Company #27
98: Built 1909 for Goodman Lumber
99: Built for Appalacian
100: Built for Woodward Iron
101- Built 1909 for Howe Sound, Pemberton Valley & Northern
102- Built 1909 for United Fruit
103-106: Built for Pekin-Kalgan
107: Built 1910 for De Queen & Eastern
108: Built 1910 for Louisiana
109: Built 1910 for Longville Lumber
110: Built for Waterman Lumber & Supply
111: Built 1912 for Texas, Oklahoma & Eastern
112-114: Built for Paulista
115: Built 1912 for Louisiana & Pacific
116: Built 1912 for Flambeau Paper
117: Built 1912 for Industrial Lumber
118, 119: Built 1912 for Paulista de Estradus de Ferro
120: Built 1912 for Palmetto Phosphate
121: Built 1912 for St. Croix Timber
122: Built 1913 for Haslem Lake Timber & Logging
123: Built 1913 for Sawyer-Goodman Lumber
124: Built 1913 for Ocanto Lumber
125: Built 1913 for Carter-Kelly Lumber
126: Built 1913 for A.L. Clark Lumber
127: Built 1914 for J.R. Buckwalter Lumber
128: Built 1914 for Kneeland-West Lumber
129: Built 1914 for Alabama Central
130: Built 1914 for Calcasieu Long Leaf Lumber
131-133:  Built 1914 for Carpenter-O'Brien
134: Built 1914 for Burton-Swartz Cypress of Florida
135: Built 1915 for Frost-Johnson Lumber
136, 137: Built 1915 for Arnold Kerberg, for Tung Yu Mining
138: Built 1915 for Crowell & Spencer Lumber
139: Built 1916 for Deep River Logging
140: Built 1916 for Thompson Brothers Lumber
141: Built 1916 for Tavares & Gulf
142: Built 1916 for West Lumber
143: Built 1916 for Rapid City, Black Hills & Western
144: Built 1916 for Industrial Lumber
145: Built 1916 for Mellen Lumber
146, 147: Built 1916-1917 for Texas, Oklahoma & Eastern
148: Built 1919 for Bolivian Government
149: Built 1919 for Burton-Swartz Cypress of Florida
150-152: Built 1919 for Peking-Kalgan
153-154: Built 1919 for Hupeh Government Mining Bureau
155-156: Built 1919 for Industrial Lumber
157: Built 1919 for Southern Pine Lumber
158: Built 1919 for Central Estrella
159- 168: Built 1919 for Minero-Siderurgica de Ponferrada S. A.
169: Built 1920 for Arkansas Land & Lumber
170: Built 1920 for Central Estrella
171: Built 1920 for Central Pilar
172: Built 1920 for Texas, Oklahoma & Eastern
173: Built 1920 for J.R. Buckwalter Lumber
174-183: Built 1920 for Peking-Suiyan
184: Built 1920 for Arkansas Short Leaf Lumber
185: Built 1920 for Frost Johnson Lumber
186: Built 1922 for A.H. Stange
187-188: Built 1922 for Chosen Chuo
189: Built 1923 for Lassen Lumber & Box
190: Built 1923 for Sierra Railway of California #32
191: Built 1925 for W.B. Harbeson Lumber
192: Built 1925 for Winnsboard Granite
193-195: Built 1926 for Standard Fruit & Steamship

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV