Jump to content

Shay locomotive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 128.255.45.57 (talk) at 21:39, 27 May 2010 (→‎Development: some history, with sources). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Class C Sonora (three driven trucks and articulated tender)
No. 7 Sonora Class C Shay
Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad, Felton, California
Drive side of the Class B Shay locomotive Dixiana at the Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad, Felton, California
Accessory side of the Dixiana

The Shay locomotive was the most widely used geared steam locomotive. The locomotives were built to the patents of Ephraim Shay, who has been credited with the popularization of the concept of a geared steam locomotive. Although the design of Ephraim Shay's early locomotives differed from later ones, there is a clear line of development that joins all Shays.

Development

Ephraim Shay (1839-1916), was a schoolteacher, clerk in a Civil War hospital, civil servant, logger, merchant, railway owner, and inventor. He lived in Michigan, and became a logger in the 1860s.

While a logger, Shay wanted to find a new way to get logs to the mill, besides floating them on a river. He built his own tramway in 1875, on 26 inch (66 cm) gauge track on wooden ties. This was very efficient and enabled him to beat his competitors because he saved so much money with the tram.

Two years would pass before he would invent the Shay Locomotive. In about 1877 he developed the idea of having an engine sit on a flat car with a boiler, gears, and trucks that could pivot. The first Shay only had two cylinders and operated through a series of gears over the inside portion of the rear truck. It did not take long for the idea to become popular.

Shay applied for and was issued a patent for the basic idea in 1881.[1] He patented an improved geared truck for his engines in 1901.[2]

Lima Lima Locomotive Works of Lima, Ohio built Ephriam Shay's prototype engine in 1880.[3] When Lima first received the Shay idea it was not impressed, until John Carnes influenced the company to use the idea, resulting in the classic Shay design.

In 1903, Lima could claim that it had delivered the "heaviest locomotive on drivers in the world," the first 4-truck (class D) Shay, weighing 140 tons. This was built for the El Paso Rock Island line from Alamogordo, New Mexico to Cox Canyon, 31 miles away over winding curves and grades of up to 6%. The use of a two-truck tender was forced by the fact that the locomotive to carry enough water for a round trip because of the poor water quality along the line.[4]

Lewis E. Feightner, working for Lima, patented improved engine mounting brackets and a superheater for the Shay in 1908 and 1909.[5][6]

Willamette Iron and Steel Works, Portland, Oregon, manufactured locomotives that differed only in detail from the Lima-built Shays after the Shay patents expired. Since "Shay" was a trademark of Lima, strictly speaking it is incorrect to refer to locomotives manufactured by Willamette and others as "Shays." Six Shay Patent locomotives, known as Henderson style Shays, were built by the Michigan Iron Works in Cadillac, Michigan.

Overview

Shay locomotives had regular fire-tube boilers offset to the left to provide space for a two or three cylinder "motor," mounted vertically on the right with longitudinal drive shafts extending fore and aft from the crankshaft at wheel axle height. These shafts had universal joints and square sliding slip joints to accommodate the swiveling trucks. Each axle was driven by a separate bevel gear, with no side rods.

The strength of these engines is that all wheels, including those under the tender, are driven so that all the weight develops tractive effort. A high ratio of piston strokes to wheel revolutions allowed them to run at partial slip, where a conventional rod engine would spin its drive wheels and burn rails, losing all traction.

Shay locomotives were often known as sidewinders or stemwinders for their side-mounted drive shafts. Most were built for use in the United States, but many were exported, to about thirty countries, either by Lima, or after they had reached the end of their usefulness in the US.

Classes

2768 Shay locomotives were built by Lima in four classes, from 6 to 160 tons between 1878 and 1945.

  • Class A: two cylinders, two trucks. Weights between 6 and 24 tons.
  • Class B: three cylinders, two trucks. Weights between 10 and 80 tons.
  • Class C: three cylinders, three trucks. Weights between 40 and 160 tons.
  • Class D: three cylinders, four trucks. Weights of 100 and 150 tons.

Note: Two 15 ton Shays were built with two cylinders and three trucks.

Twenty Class D shays were built. They were no more powerful than Class C, but had greater fuel and water capacity, resulting in improved adhesion.

Four Shays were built left-handed, all special ordered for the Sr. Octaviano B. Cabrera Co., San Luis de la Paz, Mexico.

Survivors

The "Leetonia No.1" at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Only 116 Shays survive today, some a combination of parts of two Shays.[7]

The oldest surviving Shay sn-122, built in 1884, is currently displayed in Redding CA, at Turtle Bay Exploration Park.

The Camino-Placerville & Lake Tahoe No. 2, a three-truck Shay, is on display at the Travel Town Museum in Los Angeles' Travel Town Museum.

The Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad operates the class B Dixiana and the class C Sonora.

Railtown 1897 preserves a class C Shay, Sierra Railroad # 2, and occasionally runs it as part of its excursion trains.

The Colorado Railroad Museum holds two Shays, Nos. 12 and 14 which operated on the Georgetown Loop Railroad for about 20 years.[citation needed]

The New Jersey Museum of Transportation[1] at Allaire State Park is currently restoring the 36-inch gauge Ely-Thomas Lumber Company No. 6. This locomotive ran on the Pine Creek Railroad from around 1955 through 2002, when she was taken out of service for boiler work.

The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad owns and operates two former West Side Lumber Company Shays, Nos. 10 and 15, on its line just south of Yosemite National Park.

The Canada Science and Technology Museum owns one operational engine constructed from two locomotives, numbered engines 3 and 4 built for the Merrill & Ring Lumber Co., Ltd and used in their forestry operations at Theodosia Arm on the British Columbia mainland. This Shay is operated by volunteers of the Bytown Railway Society.

The Graham County 3-truck shay #1925 survives at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, NC. It ran at the museum until the mid-1990s, until operation ceased because the state couldn't provide enough funding to run it. Since then it has been stored in the roundhouse as a static exhibit, and the universal joints have been removed.

Sn-3345, a class C Shay built for New Mexico Lumber Co. in 1929, survives at the Hesston Steam Museum in Hesston, Indiana. This was the last narrow gauge Shay built. It was acquired by the LaPorte County Historical Steam Society and moved to the Hesston Steam Museum, where it was damaged in an engine house fire in 1985. It was rebuilt and converted to a wood burner, resuming operation in 2006. [8]

The last Shay, sn-3354 built in 1945, still operates on the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. One of the largest Shays built, this 150 ton Class C locomotive was in service only five years when it was retired and placed in the B&O Railroad Museum. In 1981 it was removed from static display, in exchange for a smaller Shay and a Porter locomotive, and placed in service on the Cass Scenic Railroad. It has now served in tourist and enthusiast service for a longer period than it did for its original owners. It is still in near-new condition. The second largest Shay ever built was Western Maryland No. 6, nicknamed "Big 6." Big 6 is Currently in active service at the Cass Scenic Railroad in Cass, WV and is the largest Shay currently in existence.[9]: 194–195 

Images

Dixiana accessory details
Dixiana drive details
File:SonoraUJoints.jpg
Sonora's universal joints with sliding coupling between
Engine of Shay locomotive built by Lima Locomotive Works. Lima # 3320. Locomotive is still in operation in Cass Scenic Railroad State Park.

References

  1. ^ Ephraim Shay, Locomotive-Engine, U.S. Patent 242,992, June 14, 1881.
  2. ^ Ephraim Shay, Locomotive-Truck, U.S. Patent 706,604, August 12, 1902.
  3. ^ "Shay" Locomotives at Work, The Locomotive, Vol XV, No. 198 (February 15, 1909); page 37.
  4. ^ H. C. Hammack, A Remarkable Locomotive -- Heaviest on Drivers in the World, Locomotive Engineers' Monthly Journal, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1 (Jan. 1903); page 51.
  5. ^ Lewis E. Feightner, Locomotive Crank-Shaft Bracket, U.S. Patent 879,617, Feb. 18, 1908.
  6. ^ Lewis E. Feightner, Superheater for Locomotive Boilers, U.S. Patent 939,237, Nov. 9, 1909.
  7. ^ ShayLocomotives.com. "116 Known Surviving Shays." Accessed 2010-02-14.
  8. ^ ShayLocomotives.com. "sn-3345" Accessed 2010-02-21.
  9. ^ Cook, Roger (1992). The Western Maryland Railway: Fireballs and Black Diamonds (2nd ed.). Laurys Station, Pennsylvania: Garrigues House. ISBN 0-9620844-4-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shay locomotives.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shay_locomotive&oldid=364552685"