Curtis_F Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Steve Stockham Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Seven to ten years for a lease for #9 is a good
> > deal! That Shay is in the same class (sizewise)
> as
> > Shay #8 which was a good deal larger than Shays
> > #12 and #14!
>
> Just a reminder "for those who came in late", the
> West Side 8, 9 & 10 are sisters. All built to the
> same erecting cards, with only minor part
> difference between them.
>
> Each one is a a bit heavier that the previous.
> #10 is the heaviest and will pull the most on a
> flat grade. #8 is the lightest and pulls the most
> on a grade (has less of it's own weight to move
> than the #9 or #10).
>
> While the #8 got glory for being the first of the
> big three, and #10 got the glory for being the
> "Largest Narrow Gauge Shay", #9 is a stout engine
> that didn't have balance problems from the factory
> like the #8 and didn't crash like the #10.
>
> I'll be making a special trip to GTL to shake
> Phil's hand and kiss the #9's cylinder heads.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Curtis F.
________________________________________________________________
Curtis and all:
The "Shay 9 to Georgetown" subject has been discussed on various Yahoo! Group Lists, also. a couple of years ago I wrote a "Requiem for the West Side" on the 50th anniversary of having seen it in action. It is liberally illustrated with color photos which I took back then, especially including the #9 and the #10 in action as well as the #8 on the RIP track. If you have an Adobe Acrobat PDF reader, you can read it on the PacificNG.com website at:
[
www.pacificng.com]
For anyone who is interested, I posted the following message to the DSP_P Yahoo! List on Friday, 2/3/11:
""All the Shays which the Georgetown Loop had came from the West Side Lumber Co. of Tuolumne, CA. My wife and I first became familiar with the West Side in the Spring of 1959, when we were Seniors in college. It was operating as a logging line back then and I met some of the men who ran it. Photographed it a lot. Its last run was a cleanup one in the Spring of 1961. After that some of the engines were sold off to various tourist lines, at least two of which are still operating regularly in California, one very near Yosemite Nat'l Park. 3-truck Shays 7, 10, and 15 are run regularly. The Tuolumne site was turned into a theme park with the engines running but the park closed about 1982 and everything was sold off. My wife our young son explored close to every inch of the various lines the company ran into the woods in various directions for 70 miles or so. Almost nothing is left out there now after half a century.
Shay 8 (now exhibited at the Canon City depot) was built for the West Side in 1922; Shay 9 was built for them in 1923; Shay 10 was built for them in 1928 (thought of as the largest ng Shay ever built, mostly because is is a few hundred pounds heaver than any other ng Shay anywhere) and operates at the Yosemite Mtn. Sugar Pine tourist line; there were never any nos. 11 and 13; Shay 12 was built in 1927 for the Swayne Lumber Co of Oroville, CA, and came to the West Side in 1940 after Swayne quit and it is the engine that is going to the Midwest Central in Iowa in trade for the #9; and lastly, Shay #14 was built in 1916 for the Sierra Nevada Wood & Lumber Co. and came to the West Side after that line quit in 1936. I believe the 14 is still at the CRRM.
We've ridden behind the 12 and 14 at the Tuolumne theme park, including a 7 mile trip into the woods, in the late 1960s. And of course on the Georgetown Loop!
Shays 8, 9 and 10 were built to the same plans ("plates" in builders' parlance) by Lima except the 10 had a smaller firebox at West Side's request, so the boiler held more water, hence most of the reason for its heavier weight. Shay 8 was used by Lindsey Ashford at the Loop but it was heavier than the 12 or 14. It used more fuel and was harder on the rails, or so I was told when I was there in 1999. By then the 8 hadn't been steamed up since 1986, or so I also was told by staffers.
The incoming #9 at 159,000 pounds is about 5,000 pounds heavier than the 8 (154,400 pounds), per a roster in "Last of the 3 Foot Loggers", by Kreig, published in 1962. By comparison per this same roster, the 12 weighs 133,500 pounds and the 14 weighs 117,000 pounds. Supposedly, these are all "as built" figures.
Shay 9 was the regular engine used by engineer Bert Bergstrom in the later years of the West Side logging show. Bert later narrated the video, now DVD, on the West Side that was released in 1993 and on which I helped. I only met Bert once, when he stopped his outbound train of empties (#9 was the power) immediately in front of me above West Side's River Bridge and we conversed for a while. A big man and a really nice guy. Bert's son, Gerald, is a friend of mine and has shown up regularly at the "West Side Reunion" in Sonora, CA, (sometimes known locally as the "Logging Modelers' Convention" but no relation to the one held yearly in the Pacific Northwest. As a kid, Gerry used to ride in the 9's cab with his father out to the woods and stay overnight in one or another of the camps to return with a loaded train the next day.
Shay #10 was the regular engine of engineer Shorty Maddux, whom I also met in 1959. The 9 and the 10 were the regular Shays for the turns from Tuolumne to Camp 21, about halfway to the reload site. 12 and 14 were the "woods" engines, running from the reload sites to Camp 21. Believe it or not, the grades were a bit less in the woods than on the original main line on which 9 and 10 usually operated.
Regarding the Colorado Historical Society, IIRC the woman President who presided over the departure of Lindsey Ashby and the Georgetown Loop, Inc., people about 2004 was replaced by a man in 2007. Perhaps this is part of the reason as to why the attitude towards Shays and what is "historically correct" has changed.
I am really glad to hear that the current concessionaire has hired back some of the good Georgetown Loop people! I'll rest a little easier about the 9, perhaps.""
(As a footnote, I've ridden in West Side's 3 truck Shay #15's cab a couple of times, including once at night. Fairly spectacular; it, too, operates with the #10 at the Yosemite Mtn. Sugar Pine line. Both times, it was doubleheading with the #10).
Best regards, Hart Corbett
