Narrow Gauge in California

This website gives us a lot of good history about the railroad that the locomotive on the front of this post card is working for: https://www.abandonedrails.com/west-side-lumber-company The back of the post card says that it is the West Side Lumber Company, but it wasn't always known by that name. Take a read... Tuolumne to Stanislaus National Forest, CA Home | CA | HH&YV , WSLCRR Note: For more information on the WSLC and its railroad, check out Last of the Three Foot Loggers by Allan Krieg. A railroad that had many names over the years, this three-foot narrow gauge railroad first operated under the name of the Hetch Hetchy & Yosemite Valley Railroad, starting in 1898. As a wholly owned subsidiary of the West Side Flume & Lumber Company, its primary purpose was to haul fresh-cut logs from the vast sugar pine forests of eastern Tuolumne County to the expansive West Side Lumber Mill in Tuolumne City. Here, the logs would be cut into dimensional lumber and transferred to the Sierra Railway of California for shipping. As the years went past, the HH&YV was eventually reorganized and absorbed into its parent company, becoming the West Side Lumber Company Railroad, but all the while its Shays and Heislers continued to run into the rugged backcountry, winding through the multiple canyons and creeks that fed the north fork of the Tuolumne River. For 64 years they ran, until finally in 1962, technology and economic forces caught up with them. By that point, the West Side reigned supreme as the last narrow gauge logging railroad still operating in the American west. In later years, efforts were made to resurrect the mighty West Side as a tourist railroad, spearheaded primarily by Glenn Bell and his "West Side & Cherry Valley Railroad" operation. But the numbers simply didn’t add up, and the WS&CVRR was forced to close its doors in the early 1980s. Today, a portion of the former West Side right-of-way serves as a hiking and equestrian trail. Members of the public can hike from the former station of Friedenberg (approximately milepost one point five by the original railroad timetables), to the station of River (milepost seven), where the tracks crossed the north fork of the Tuolumne on a large wooden trestle. Much of the trackage through this area still remains undisturbed, more than 20 years after the last train rolled by.

Once again the mysterious publisher strikes the blog post. At least in this one he points out that the fireman is sitting on the back of the tender, so he titles the card "Love me tender".

Thank you, Ephraim Shay

Designed by Ephraim Shay, and named after the inventor, the geared locomotive proved to be an invaluable tool in the logging industry. As early as 1872 he began development of a new locomotive that used gears rather than standard rods to propel the device forward. He built the design from the ground up using a flatcar as a base. Upon this he placed a boiler, vertical cylinders, and two-axle trucks on each end. The uniqueness of his design included that essentially the vertical cylinders drive a

horizontal crank shaft attached to drive shafts extending to each truck axle. These axles have gearboxes attached to them which propels the engine forward. Because geared steam locomotives have all of their trucks powered, they provided excellent adhesion enabling them to climb grades well over 5% (something all but unthinkable on main line railroads), although this high adhesion factor limited its top speed to just 18 mph. The flexibility of the design allowed each truck to negotiate the track independently of the other, thus keeping the locomotive on the rails and allowing it to operate over almost any type of track (which was usually nothing more than rails laid directly onto a hillside for most logging operations). The above information was condensed from the article "Shay Locomotives" Which was written (and last revised on May 12, 2023) by Adam Burns. It comes from the website: https://www.american-rails.com/shay.html This website provides the following statistics about Shay Locomotives https://www.shaylocomotives.com/ 2,767 Shays were built over 67 years under four company names. (116 survive) 350 were built by Lima Machine Works between 1878 and April 12, 1892; 1,557 were built by Lima Locomotive & Machine Co. between April 12, 1892 and 1912; 362 were built by Lima Locomotive Corporation between 1912 and March 1916; 498 were built by Lima Locomotive Works, Inc. between March 1916 and 1945; If you rank them by Class, MPH and Speed Range you get the following: 685 were 2-cylinders/2-trucks known as Class A that could travel between 7.7 - 17.5 MPH; 2 were 2-cylinders/3-trucks known as Special that could travel between 14.0 - 16.2 MPH; 1,481 were 3-cylinders/2-trucks known as Class B that could travel between 10.1 - 21.0 MPH; 580 were 3-cylinders/3-trucks known as Class C that could travel between 10.1 - 27.9 MPH; and 20 were 3-cylinders/4-trucks known as Class D that could travel between 18.8 - 26.7 MPH. Once again, I have an interesting post card from a publisher about which I know nothing.

What Kind of Driving Gear is That?

If you look carefully, you will notice that the driving mechanism on this

locomotive does not look like the usual drive bar pushing the wheels around, like the standard steam locomotive that we are used to seeing. This Shay Locomotive has a gear-driven drive system that is extremely useful for going up very steep grades like those found in the mountains of eastern Tennesee. For a detailed explanation of how the Shay locomotive works, I recommend this website: https://www.shaylocomotives.com/trucks/trucks.htm The next website has provided the history of the locomotive on the front of this post card. I summarize the content below. http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/brim/brimstone.htm The locomotive on the front of this post card was built by Lima Locomotive & Machine Company (one of 1,557 built by this company) in August of 1910. It was commissioned as Lima #2366. The wheel arrangement is that of a Class C Shay 3 truck locomotive. It was energized by coal that heated water into steam that powered the drive train. It was originally sold to Raleigh & Southwestern RR as #35; then it went to Smokey Mountain RR in 1921; in 1938 the W.M. Ritter Lumber Company took possession; they sold it to Brimstone in 1942. After Brimstone, the locomotive went to the Tennessee Valley Railway Museum then to the Yolo Short Line and finally to the Silver Bend Tree Farm in 1995. And this website gives the history of the Brimstone Railroad, the railroad on which this locomotive is pictured. Again, I have summarized the content below. https://abandonedonline.net/location/brimstone-new-river-railroad/ The Brimstone Railroad was chartered in May of 1942 in eastern Tennesee, by the W.M. Ritter Lumber company of Virginia, and followed Brimstone Creek in northern Tennessee. As typical for a logging route, each hollow featured a railroad branch;switchbacks were used to ascend steep grades via three shay locomotives. The Brimstone Railroad primarily hauled timber and coal, with two underground coal mines located at Hughett and Lone Mountain. Timber was taken to the W.M. Ritter Mill at New River and later to a mill in Verdun. The railroad reorganized as the Brimstone & New River Railroad in 1965, and as the New River Railway in 1966 after the W.M. Ritter Company was acquired by Georgia Pacific Corporation. The line was purchased by the CNO&TP in 1970. Traffic along the New River Railway became increasingly scarce because the high-sulfur coal found in the region had become less desirable and the last active coal mine along the route closed in 1980.

The post card was published by Audio-Visual Designs in Earlton, New York after October of 1983. The address on the back of the post card includes the 5 digit zip code plus the 4 more digits that were added after October of 1983.

Tamalpais Scenic Railway

The engine pictured on the front of this card is a Shay.

A Class B Shay engine had 3 cylinders, which you can clearly see on the side of this engine and two trucks. It is one of 1,480 Class B Shay engines built between 1878 and 1945. They were built by a company that changed names three times before it finally became the Lima Locomotive Works, Inc. in March of 1916. This particular engine was known as Number 646 by the Lima Locomotive and Machine Company as it was known in 1901. This locomotive was finished on April 15, 1901. The three cylinders were 10 inches in diameter with a 10 inch stroke. The wheel diameter was only 28 inches. It ran on coal, of which it could carry almost 2 tons, and it could hold 1238 gallons of water. It weighed 61,810 pounds when it came off the assembly floor. It worked at the Tamalpais Scenic Railway as Engine #3 until 1915. It changed ownership 6 more times before it was sold for scrap on October 10, 1929.

During its time a trip on the Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railroad was a favorite city getaway for San Franciscans. The railway was an immediate success when it opened for business in 1896 and was dubbed by locals as the “Crookedest Railroad in the World” because of its 281 curves in just over eight miles of track. At the Mill Valley train depot this Shay steam engine’s whistle signaled the beginning of the train ride to the top of Mount Tamalpais. Passengers breathed the fresh mountain air from open cars as the train climbed to an elevation of 2,500 feet at a speed of 10 miles per hour. At the summit people marveled at views of the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Locomotives were positioned on the downhill end of the train and pushed the passenger cars uphill, allowing for unobstructed vistas. Watching the engines push from below was an added spectacle for riders, who could see the train’s gears and engineer at work. Ridership declined in later years. By 1920, automobiles could drive to the mountain summit on twisty roads. A fire on Mount Tamalpais in 1929 left many of the rail ties damaged or destroyed. Rail managers lost hope for profitability and abandoned reconstruction efforts. The last train traveled up the mountain on October 31, 1929. Tracks were pulled up in 1930, signaling the end of travel to Muir Woods on the Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railway.

This post card was published by M. Rieder from Los Angeles, California. It is number 4002 in their series of post cards. It was printed in Germany (so, again, before the beginning of World War One - see last week's post). This card is postmarked June 18, 1909 so we know how old it is.

The writer is telling the receiver of the post card that he is receiving $2.50 per day for 8 hours of work per day. "Easy Money", he writes.