Where to find period-accurate Shay Locomotive Logging Cars?

[Jazzdawg]

Greetings!

Please reply if you can tell me what model of Bachman Logging Cars, is period-accurate for a Bachman Spectrum 80 Ton, Three Truck Shay Locomotive.

Thanks in advance!

[J3a-614]

Yes, Bachmann's truss rodded logging cars are quite accurate.  The Bachmann Shay is based on Greebriar, Cheat & Elk No. 5, which is operational at Cass, W.Va.  The logging flats are also based on GC&E (and later Mower Lumber Company--"Mower" is pronounced like "cower") cars on the same railroad, and are even available, or used to be available, in two versions.  

Those old log cars were also the basis of the first excursion cars at Cass, though the excursion cars currently offered are of a different and later prototype based on former Meadow River log cars.

Other cars can be accurate depending on the railroad and time period.  These include "skeleton" cars from a couple of manufacturers, including a kit version from a company better known for couplers (this kit, by the way, is probably 50 years old but is still a great one).  The prototype, again depending on the railroad and time period, also used heavy steel flats (think of the typical flat car with fishbelly sides), some of which were purchased second hand from main line railroads; often such cars were handy for moving things like skidding engines.  I have seen a prototype photo of a 50 foot flat, still lettered for Chesapeake & Ohio, in service on a logging road with a Shay, but minus its deck, essentially making it a type of skeleton car.