Re: Sumpter Valley's Heisler #3

Over the years the shay was considered a good "compromise" of the three designs. Higher top speed than a Climax, yet very good pulling power.
Because the Shay had all downward thrust on one side it was not uncommon for logging operations (and others as well) to either switch rails over a period of time or reverse the direction the Shays were traveling. The Shays really did pound the rail on one side.
Because of thier higher speeds Heislers were flexible in that they could be used as "road" engines in some operations, as well as "hill" engines.
So far as marketing, longevity and initial, and period of time costs you'll probably get different answers.
But Climax was the first company to "give it up" and usually the first locos to be sent to the dead track at logging operations. Possibly the reason being is that they were the most "specialized" of the geared engines and actual mountain railroad logging was already starting to die out in the late 1920's in favor of reload hauling.
Phil Schnell tells me that the late Walt Casler told him that the truck gearing on the Climax was NOT "mathematically" manufactured and that each ring and pinion had to be custom made to the locomotive.
Apparently the engineering department could not derive a mathematical formula to mass produce them. That seems very odd to me, as while mechanical manufacturing was still somewhat in it's infancy at the turn of the last century mathematics goes back a lot farther.
With the Shay virtually everything was "modern" and interchangeable.

Lon Wall
Trainmaster SVRY