Re: SVRy #18 Ready to Depart

Interesting questions John. SVRy did burn some coal, with preference to wood. The wood they burned was slabs which was a waste product back in the day. The slabs had little commercial value, so basically free fuel apart from the labor to handle it. Slab wood was and is today where available from small mills sold for use in heating stoves, so some value there, but again only because of the value added by cutting into stove length and delivering. In the modern day, there is more utilization of a log. What constituted a slab off the side of log as waste in the old days today may yield a poor quality 1x4 or 2x4 in the present day. The remainder is chipped and sent to a pulp mill or plant that makes OSB. The coal that was burned on the SVRy was to supplement wood particularly when all of the track side piles of wood were wet as they would be in the late winter and early spring. One of my friends talked to an old SVRy man years ago who said that the coal spaces in the tenders were filled with coal and wood piled on top. When they got to the tough parts of grades, and needed to up the BTUs they would start adding coal. In our archive we have fuel reports which the engine crew filled out. They show how much wood was loaded and how much coal. I imagine if a crew was found using too much coal, it would have been frowned upon, but that is just my guess. In 1940 when the two big articulated engines came, they could have kept them as coal burners, but chose to convert to oil. I doubt that coal was that expensive as most large buildings in N.E. Ore. along with lots of homes burned coal as late as the 1980's. They also converted Mike #17 to oil. Oregon Lumber Co. also converted Shay #7 out at Bates. One advantage was probably reduction in fire danger in the summer. We are too late to ask an old head about morale, and probably even the children of engine service employees have taken their final train. However, there were men who worked for SVRy for years right on up to closing of the mainline and beyond, so there must have been some loyalty and job satisfaction. Now as an aside, I recall reading a delay report from a crew based out of Austin. I think it was with Mike #17. They ran late and stated that even burning straight coal they could not keep pressure up, and the engine needed attention. So far as know none of the SVRy engines had brick arches. What do you bet that they sucked chunks of coal or clinker into some of the flues and plugged them?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2024 01:11PM by J.B.Bane.