https://nwsl.com/products/bevel-gear-ho-bachman-2-truck-shay-81907-80-ton-3-truck-upgrade-bevel-gear-6

I'm also anxiously awaiting results.

Jeff Moore
Elko, nV

As much as I like the idea of a 2-6-2 and 2-8-2, what I'd really like to see produced in an outside frame 0-6-2T used mostly in the Hawaiian sugar industry.  Most of those were built to 30 inch gauge, so they'd be very appropriate for On30.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

I sent Bachmann a message shortly after they announced the new run of Shays asking if they would be compatible with the older runs, or if they would be again making sideframes available in the parts store.  That was a while ago now and Bachmann has never responded.  I'm hopeful but a bit frustrated at the lack of response. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Short answer, the combination of three laws- Antiquities Act of 1906, National Historic Preservation Act, and Archaeological Resource Protection Act protect anything 50 years old or older on Federally owned or managed lands, not just national parks or monuments.  Private lands are fair game, anything over 50 years on public qualifies.  There is a lot of public land managed by BLM along much of the old CPRR grade, so you do have to be careful which land you are on.  The general principal is take only photographs and leave only footprints. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Just to clear up one point....various acts, most notably the Antiquities Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, protect anything 50 years old or older where they are found on public land, meaning it is illegal to disturb or remove them.  If you are doing math, 50 years today is anything on the ground since 1973.  The CPRR grade crosses a generous amount of private land, the protections don't necessarily extend to artifacts located on them, but it's against the law to remove and take home with you anything from the grade where it crosses public land.  Pretty safe to assume if its on the grade and metal it's over 50 years old. 

The original main line around the north side of the lake continued to be used after the new line across the lake opened.  From 1904-1906 SP ran a daily except Sunday mixed train from Ogden (Utah) to Montello (Nevada) over the original line.  There was no service west of Kelton from 1906-1916, when SP again ran trains west to Montello.  In 1923 service amounted to three day a week service between Ogden and Kelton and two day a week service between Kelton and Montello.  What kept the line intact was not as a possible alternative to the line across the lake, but because the line had been offered as collateral for the a mortgage dating to the reorganization of the Central Pacific in 1889.  SP tried abandoning the line west of Kelton in 1933 but the ICC denied the application in 1934.  SP finally got permission from the State of Utah to drop train service west of Kelton in 1937.  All regular train service ended in June 1940, but SP continued operating as needed service to Kelton until the ICC approved full abandonment in June 1942.  The U.S. Military had already started the process of requisitioning the rails for use in military facilities in the area, which led to the railroad's quick removal after the line had been abandoned.  Above information gleaned from SP's Salt Lake Division book by John Signor.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV     

I've been watching this thread with some interest for a little while and finally figured it's time to step in. 

There were three main versions of the Pacific Railroad Act.  The first, passed in 1862, authorized building the Transcontinental Railroad.  The act created the Union Pacific, the Central Pacific already existed.  The act authorized Union Pacific to construct a railroad line "...commence at a point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich, between the south margin of the valley of the Republican river and the north margin of the valley of the Platte river, in the Territory of Nebraska, at a point to be fixed by the President of the United States, after actual surveys; thence running westerly upon the most direct, central, and practicable route, through the territories of the United States,  to the western boundary of the Territory of Nevada, there to meet and connect with the line of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California."  Central Pacific was "...authorized to construct a railroad and telegraph line from the Pacific coast, at or near San Francisco, or the navigable waters of the Sacramento river, to the eastern boundary of California..."  Union Pacific was further authorized to build into California if it reached the eastern border of that state before the CP reached that point, and in turn the CP was "authorized to continue the construction of said railroad and telegraph through the territories of the United States to the Missouri river, including the branch roads specified in this act, upon the routes hereinbefore and hereinafter indicated,  on the terms and conditions provided in this act in relation to the said Union Pacific Railroad Company, until said roads shall meet and connect, and the whole line of said railroad and branches and telegraph is completed."

Congress passed a second Pacific Railroad Act in 1864 that authorized Central Pacific to build 150 miles into Nevada provided UP had not yet reached that point.   The final version of the Act, passed on 3 July 1866, authorized each railroad to continue construction until they met and connected with the lines built by the other railroad, but it did limit each road to construction work no farther than 300 miles beyond the extent of their completed line.  Both railroad had their own definition of what "met" actually meant.  UP was intent on reaching Humboldt Wells- now the city of Wells, Nevada- while CP had their sites set on getting to the east end of Echo Canyon and especially the coal mines in that region.   

One of the historical notes that is often overlooked is the extent to which the Mormons in Salt Lake City played in building the railroad.  Both railroads hired Mormon crews to build grade in eastern Nevada and Utah, sometimes the same crews working on both grades.  One of the biggest examples of this was in eastern Nevada, UP had surveys run as far west as Wells and hired a Mormon contractor to build a number of short stretches of disconnected grade between Wells and the north end of the Pequop range, then later in time Mormon contractors built the CPRR grade from Utah into Nevada that paralleled in some places and crossed in at least a few places the grade segments UP built.  CPRR also had contractors building grade in Echo Canyon. 

Anyway, back to the story, the two railroads by the spring of 1869 had roughly 200 miles of duplicate grade constructed between Wells and Echo Canyon, about 100 miles of it actual parallel grade and the rest shorter stretches of uncompleted and never used grade.  The two railroads sat down to figure out a meeting point, and on 9 April 1869 Dodge of the Union Pacific and Huntington of the Central Pacific reached an agreement under which the railroads agreed to meet at Promontory Summit, after which CP would purchase UP's line between Promontory and Ogden.  Congress approved the deal the next day, UP ordered all of its crews to stop work west of Promontory the next day, and CP ordered its crews to stop all work east of Promontory on 14 April.  Thus was the golden spike driven at Promontory on 10 May 1869. 

And yes, there are a lot of cattleguards in this part of the world made out of old rails.  Not all of them to be sure but there are a lot of them. 

Interesting conversation. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, nV       

I forgot about one other diesel the OP&E owned, S-3 #101 for a few years in the late 1950s/early 1960s.  Atlas and Proto 2000 have produced those. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

I'm not aware that any locomotives have ever been offered painted for this road in any scale.  Bachmann has made two locomotives which could be custom painted to match OP&E locomotives, the 70-ton General Electric switcher (OP&E owned three of them, #10, #12, and #14) and the Alco S2, of which the railroad owned one (#21).  Other diesels the OP&E owned were an EMD SW-8 #602 (Life-Like/Walthers would make the best starting point) plus a couple others that have seldom if ever been offered in model form, GE 110-ton #11 and Plymouth DLC-6 numbered 14-1/2 (seriously).

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV     

I'd be happy to see Bachmann produce a Baldwin 0-6-2T commonly used on the Hawaiian sugar plantation railroads.  Many of them were legitimately 30 inch gauge.  I'd be in serious trouble if one of them became available....

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

I disagree on the demand part, the lumber industry always has been a popular model subject, and Bachmann in particular hasn't seemed to have many problems selling their geared steam locomotives when they make them available.  And unless someone has them unreasonably priced brass and plastic logging locomotives have no trouble selling on the auction sites.

In order to understand geared steam locomotives one really has to understand the logging industry and how it operated, which has been alluded to a time or two on this thread.  Sawmilling had mostly been a local industry until the early 1800s, when lumber demands shot up as cities started expanding.  The development of the railroad network really allowed for the economical transport of lumber long distances, and sawmill sizes progressively grew to meet demand.  The problem this creates is that a sawmill of any size will very shortly cut through all the immediately available timber, which means that logs either have to be hauled over ever increasing distances or the sawmill has to frequently move.  Relocating sawmills became increasingly difficult as they transitioned into large industrial facilities, and so the industry had to develop ways to economically move logs over ever increasing distances.  It's no coincidence that the cradle of the modern sawmill industry lay in the Great Lakes region, as water provided the best way of moving logs, either floating across lakes or in the great "log drives" down rivers.  This only works for as long as the woods and the mill are on contiguous waterways.  Animals- usually oxen or horses- provided the next best way to move logs, but log size and friction limited the length of such moves, which led to greased skidways and then primitive animal powered tramways, and then in 1876 a southern Michigan logger built what is generally credited to be the first logging railroad. 

Logging railroads faced several problems.  Railroads always have been incredibly expensive to build, equip, and maintain, and generally the costs associated with logging railroads had to be charged as part of an operation's logging expense and would have to be recaptured with lumber sales as logging railroads rarely produced any other revenues for their owners.  This translated into some of the cheapest railroads an operation could get away with building- rudimentary at best engineering, ties laid directly on the ground, little to no ballast, a minimum of earthwork or grading, and light rail.  This in turn limited the size and weight of equipment operating on these roads, and most mainline equipment could not tolerate lightly built trackwork or steep grades found on most logging railroads.  Ephraim Shay solved these problems when he invented the locomotive that would be named after him, and its success prompted others to invent the Climax and Heisler and a few other less successful variations.  The geared engines essentially operated in the equivalent of a car's first gear all the time, and the short wheelbases of the powered trucks made them adept at negotiating the roughly built trackage.  These were the considerations at play that dictated speeds, not keeping the logs on the cars as stated.  Logging railroads expected logs to roll off cars, and almost every operation would run a special train usually towards the end of each season to pick up all the logs that prematurely rolled off the cars along the line.  Most log flats had some sort of cheese block to prevent logs from rolling off cars, and chained log loads to the cars as well.  By the later years log bunks became standard equipment on almost all log cars. 

However, logging railroads tended to grow along with the industry, and by the early 1900s the ever increasing distances between the woods and the mills forced logging railroads to develop well built heavy use mainlines to bridge that distance.  Geared steam locomotives were simply way too slow to be used on those operations, and most larger railroads tended to start using them only on the temporary spur line trackage built into the woods while the 60- to 90- ton 2-8-0s, 2-6-2s. and 2-8-2s would handle the mainline hauls.  A number of the larger operations simply got rid of their geared steam altogether and found it cheaper to build the logging spurs to a high enough standard to support the lighter rod locomotives. 







Hopefully the images come through okay. 

Trucks largely replaced spur line logging starting in the late 1930s, with the conversion complete essentially by the late 1950s.  Of course, most operations found it cheaper just to keep the logs on the trucks once there for the entire haul to the mill, and by the late 1950s/early 1960s the only logging railroads really left were a few mainline hauls where enough timber existed in one place to keep the railroad cost competitive with trucks and publicly financed highways.

 

When it comes to logging modeling, the most popular form seems to be the earlier era, with a geared steam locomotive or two hauling a few carloads of logs to a mill so small that its production would have taken many days to fill a standard gauge boxcar and would have never been able to afford a logging railroad in the first place, but hey, they look cool in model form.

Lastly, while most Shays and geared steam were built to either standard of 36" gauge, there were some built to oddball gauges, a few for domestic use and some for export.  Perhaps one of the more unusual gauges were four two-truck Heislers built to 45-1/4" gauge, used on the Northern Redwood Lumber Company logging railroad out of North Fork (later Korbel), California, on the northwest coast in the redwoods. m All were later rebuilt to standard gauge.     

I hope this helps. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV   

"Logging and Mining" engines covers a pretty broad range of models.  Graywolf, it would help in queries like this one if you could flesh out your question a little bit, as we can't read your mind or know what you are seeking. 

That being said, there have been a lot of HO scale logging and mining locomotive models produced in both brass and plastic through the years.  Off the top of my head the plastic models I can come up with include Bachmann's 3-truck Shay, 2-truck Climax, and 3-truck Climax; Model Die Casting/Roundhouse also made 2- and 3- truck Shays and Class A Climax locomotives; I think it was AHM that made 2- and 3- truck Heislers, Rivarossi later released updated and improved versions; and Mantua made 2-6-6-2 "Loggers" in two types of saddle tank and a tender equipped versions.  I don't think any of these are available new now, and several have been out of production for many years, but they are readily available through all the various used markets. 

In addition to the above list there are a number of smaller plastic steam locomotives that could readily be found on logging railroads.  Bachmann and Mantua both made smaller 2-6-2 prairies that could be reasonable stand ins, the Bachmann is still available but the Mantua has been out of production for many decades.  MDC/Roundhouse "old time" 2-6-0 and 2-8-0 models are both good starting points for logging locomotives, and Athearn has released upgraded versions of these in their Roundhouse line.  Ten wheelers were rare but not unheard of on logging railroads, and Bachmann's 4-6-0 would be a good starting point. 

Logging and mining steam have been incredibly popular in brass.  There have been many, many brass models of Shays, Hieslers, Climaxes, and Willamettes in many shapes and sizes produced.  Some of the logging rod locomotives produced in brass include 2-6-2T and 2-8-2Ts; four or five versions of 70-ton logging mikados; three 2-6-2 prairies; several variations of the 2-4-4-2, 2-6-6-2 and 2-6-6-2T logging mallets; plus some smaller locomotives like 0-8-0T, 0-4-4-0T, and a Vulcan Duplex.  As in plastic there are also a fairly large number of other small brass steamers that can be easily adapted for logging railroad service.  Unfortunately, most of these models date from the 1960s/1970s, can be expensive to purchase, and generally require motor replacement and substantial drive train upgrades if they are to be operated today.

I'll echo what Trainman203 said, that Baldwin 2-6-2 and 2-8-2 logging specific prototypes would be most welcome additions to Bachmann's line.  As noted above, there have been three logging specific prairies produced in brass, the generic "Prairie King", Polson/Rayonier #45, and the Oregon-American #105.  The "Prairie King" is closest to the earliest versions of the Baldwin logging prairie from the late 1800s/early 1900s, while both of the others are models of essentially one-off prototypes that had relatively few to no others like them.  I'd love to see a "modern" Baldwin prairie (middle 1920s), along the lines of the Dolbeer & Carson 3 or McCloud River #20/#21.  As for the Mikados, the brass versions produced have been a late 1890s Brooks mikado, two versions of the Polson/Rayonier #70, Brooks-Scanlon/Georgia Pacific #5, and the Owen Oregon/Medford Corp/California Western #3/#45.  All of these are in the 70-or so ton weight class, which were on the smaller end of the Baldwin logging mikado.  I'd love to see a model of a Baldwin 90-ton logging mikado, but I've pretty much given up that it will happen. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 

Re: tariff war....as of now there are no tariffs on model railroad products.  They are however almost certainly included in this last batch of imports from China threatened with tariffs if the current negotiations break down.  That being said, the trade war has driven up raw material costs for everyone, so that almost certainly plays some role. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Personally, I'd love to see a Baldwin superheated piston valve logging mikado, either 70-ton or preferably 90-ton weight class.  This is a model that's only ever been done in brass, four models of the 70-ton mikado, and two of those were early and late versions of the same prototype engine. 

Second would be a nice generic Baldwin logging/shortline prairie. 

Lastly would be an outside frame 0-6-2T in On30, there were a large number of those built in 30" gauge.

Those are my thoughts. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

My family and I spent a little over a week on the island of Kauai in 2016, during which time I became fascinated with the history of the Hawaiian sugar railroads.  In the year plus since, I've often thought that one of the Baldwin outside frame 0-6-2T locomotives once so common throughout the islands would be a perfect addition to the On30 line, especially in as much as so many of them were built to 30-inch gauge.  I see in doing a search of the archives this product has been suggested a couple times in the distant past, the last specific ones being close to a decade ago. 

Three of these still exist on Kauai, and several more 36" gauge machines exist elsewhere.  One of these served for a while on the Roaring Camp & Big Trees.  The three on Kauai are all 30" gauge and part of the Grove Farms collection...

https://grovefarm.org/hawaii-trains/

There's also a nice video of one of these in operation from a couple years ago on the short amount of trackage Grove Farm has:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcnwsAOtagw

I'd like to revive the suggestion of producing these plus a string of cane cars in On30...I know my wallet would be in some measure of jeopardy should these be made...

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV 

I for one would sure like to see a Baldwin 90-ton, 48-inch driver logging/shortline mikado.  I know my bank account would be in serious trouble if Bachmann made one of those...

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV