Probably the most amazing find I have had over the past two years exploring the Madera Sugar Pine woods has been discovering the smoke stack of Betsy, their odd geared locomotive. While I won't divulge where this is on the right of way, I did go back and measure it carefully last time I was in the woods.
First, here's two photos of the stack:
Notice the bolt on the side of the stack near the bottom.
Reference the above photo with this early photo of Betsy from Johnston's "The Whistles Blow No More":
Notice the steam line running into Betsy's stack at the location of the bolt. For some reason they had piped in this line early in Betsy's career, and then later removed the line and filled it with a bolt.
In my mind this clinches the identification of this stack as belonging to Betsy.
In the following posts I will give detailed dimensions of the stack for anyone interested. There is one big surprise in her dimensions that I don't think any modelers have ever caught...
To be continued...