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3-Truck Shay
Science & Tech
Eastern Railway & Lumber Company Three-Truck Shay No. 1 is a three-truck Shay geared steam locomotive built by Lima Locomotive Works of Lima, Ohio, in 1904. It weighs 65 tons and burns coal. Unlike rod-type locomotives, a Shay has vertically mounted cylinders and transmits power to the wheels through drive shafts and gears, a design known for tremendous pulling power on rough, lightweight, temporary logging tracks. The design was developed in the late 1800s by Ephraim Shay. In 1875, he built a rough wood-railed tramway and used horses to pull cars loaded with logs. Years of experimentation led to a locomotive suited to the difficult conditions of logging railroads, at a time when transportation accounted for nearly 75 percent of production costs. This locomotive was built for the Newhouse Mines Smelter Company in Utah, where it hauled copper ore from the Cactus Mine on the Newhouse, Copper Gulch and Sevier Railroad. About ten years later, after the mine played out, it was sold to Cramer Kay Machinery Company of Salt Lake City and then to the Eastern Railway and Lumber Company in Centralia, Washington, where it hauled log trains. In 1942 the company became the SAJ Angus Lumber Company, and No. 1 continued hauling logs until the railway was abandoned in 1951. The locomotive was stored at a sawmill until it was donated in 1961 and moved to the Northwest Railway Museum in 1969.
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