Logger steam train8/6/2023 ![]() Stauffer’s two Shays both burn oil, using 50-60 gallons per trip, along with 400-500 gallons of water.Īt the midway point, Stauffer stops the train to give passengers a chance to stretch their legs, take photographs and ask questions. Steam turns to droplets and falls as a light mist in the engine’s wake. It rushes above through the trees and dislodges dry needles and other debris, which gently float back to earth. Smoke and steam shoot from the engine’s stack. The Shay whooshes and chugs as Stauffer opens the throttle. “Settle back and listen to this engine work,” he says, referring to the 84-ton Shay. Harkenrider puts his microphone away as the train reaches the end of a long downgrade and heads uphill. Several heads crane for a closer look as the train passes through a horseshoe curve built by Chinese laborers with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. ![]() of Tuolumne and were hauled to their current home by truck. Stauffer owns two old Shays: a 60-ton engine built in 1913 and an 84-ton model, dating from 1928, which is the largest narrow-gauge Shay ever built.īoth were purchased from the Westside Lumber Co. The lumber company scrapped its original Shays after the company ceased operations in 1931. The gear-driven Shay locomotive, invented in 1880 by Ephraim Shay, navigated steep grades and tight curves and made a good workhorse for mountain logging. Narrow-gauge tracks span 36 inches between the rails, while the spacing for standard railroad tracks is 56 ½ inches. Every day, the company’s 800 employees produced 80 flat cars loaded with logs. Once trees in one area were cut, the tracks were torn out and extended into a fresh section. The company built narrow-gauge tracks into the forest to haul logs. Boards were rough cut at the mill and then sent to Madera, via a 54-mile flume, where they were planed and dried. The lumber outfit used five Shay locomotives to haul logs to its mill at Sugar Pine, which was on Lewis Creek about three miles south of Fish Camp. With the cars softly clanking, Harkenrider tells about the history of the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Co. While the big Shay can travel at up to 15 mph, Stauffer eases the throttle as the train descends into the forest. Although trees along the route are thick and lofty, the area was clear-cut during the heyday of the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Co., which harvested nearly 1.5 billion board feet of lumber on 30,000 acres from 1899 to 1931. Your ticket is all-inclusive and includes the round-trip ride on the Lumberjack Steam Train and admission into the Logging Camp Complex of historic and natural attractions, including the Logging Museum and Blacksmith Shop, Green Treasure Forest Tour, Animal Barn and Corral, the Nature Center, Cracker Barrel Store and Choo Choo Hut Restaurant.The fascinating four-mile trip, which takes about an hour, carries riders through a portion of the Sierra National Forest, about two miles south of Yosemite National Park. In the distance is the old Boarding House and several original barns, as well as the “Woods Boss’s House”. There is the old Hog Barn which is now the Petting Corral, the Blacksmith Shop which is now a part of the Museum, and the Old Slaughter House. When you arrive, you find some of the old buildings which were a part of the Lumber Company Farm. Later it became the site of the Lumber Company Farm. A ticket on the Lumberjack Steam Train takes you out to “Camp 5”, the site of an old logging camp. Inside the depot, tickets can be purchased for the train ride, just as people did at the turn of the century. Learn more about the train » Visitors board the Lumberjack Steam train at the 1880’s Soo Line Depot, located 1/4 mile West of the junction of Highways 8 & 32 on Highway 8. The “4-spot” is the only “PRAIRIE” style steam locomotive operating in the state of Wisconisn. The “4-spot” Steam Locomotive, built in 1916 pulls two all-steel passenger coach cars, an open air observation car and three cabooses. Sit in a rare cupola caboose as the vintage steam engine takes you to an actual site of a Northwoods logging camp. Head for Laona and climb aboard the famed Lumberjack Steam Train for a journey into the late 1800’s. Take the whole family on a trip back in time with a ride on a vintage steam train.
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