Western Maryland Railway WM #006 3-Truck SHAY Logging Steam Locomotive & Tender for Model Railroaders Inspiration
Cena 9 993,00 Kč s 21% DPH
Úzkorozchodná lokomotiva na svoz dřeva Western Maryland Railway WM #006 3-Truck SHAY Logging Steam Locomotive & Tender for Model Railroaders Inspiration - v dole Manor na trati železnice WM ve směru na Chaffee - historické muzeum WMR.
Driving normal fixed frame locomotives on logging railways was virtually impossible. The irregular underground made the wheels come off the track and derailed the locomotive. The three most numerous solutions to this problem were the Shay (2771 built), the Climax (appr. 1100 built) and the Heisler (appr. 850 built).
The Shays landmark is its powerful fast running three cylinder steam engine on the right side. Early examples though were fitted with two cylinders and with a straight boiler.
American Geared Locomotives - Historical Background:
Like so many technological advancements, invention is often derived from
need. These interesting geared locomotives were conceived and designed
by men working on site and looking for better ways to transport logs as
quickly as possible on temporary rails over rough terrain. Ephraim Shay
was one of these men and the story starts with him.
Ephraim Shay (1839-1916) designed the first Shay locomotive and
patented the type.
Ephram Shay studied to become a school teacher and taught in New
Jersey and Ohio during the late 1850s. From 1861 to 1864 Shay Ephraim
served in the Western Theatre of the Civil war, under General William
Tecumseh Sherman. Upon his discharge in 1864, Shay married and moved to
Michigan he established a general store and sawmill and was running a
logging business to supply the mill.
In the early days of logging, the loggers would transport the logs down
the rivers to the sawmills. When no river was available or when the
trees near to the river had all been harvested, they used ox and horse
drawn sleds in the Winter to haul the logs out of the forests. When
demand increased, crude railcars pulled over wooden rails set to a
26-inch gauge were used to haul out more and even bigger logs.
In 1876 Shay realised that a steam powered locomotive would greatly
help his business and allow him to haul more logs and become more competitive. He started off with a very crude and simple twin cylinder locomotive, but soon. Shay realised that
the dynamic force of conventional locomotive pistons on either side of
the loco proved to be too much and damaged the track curves.
He thus set about designing a solution that applied an equal amount to
torque to each side of the locomotive. In 1877 he hired William Crippen
of Cadillac, Michigan to build a boiler and cylinders that were
connected to the axel of the little loco by a belt-drive.
Shays design was not patented and Crippen went on to produce the
locomotive for the local industry. The Lima Machine Works in Ohio was
requested to build the locomotive by James Alley as Crippen was over
booked. Again as there was no patent, the Lima company produced the
locomotive and a few variants for the logging business.
Shay modified his designs according to his needs, but in 1880 he needed an
upgrade. As Crippen was too busy, Shay contacted the Lima Machine works
company and they worked with him on his redesign.
A Lima Works engineer, John Carnes, came up with the idea of powering
each axel of both trucks using bevelled gears situated outside the
trucks on one side of the locomotive. The gears were connected by
horizontal shafts that were subsequently connected to a crankshaft
driven by the steam powered cylinders, vertically oriented above.
SN-6 was a duplicate built for Milton J. Bond who had seen and was impressed by Shay s locomotive. The SN-6 was the first of 2770 Shay locomotives built by Lima.
Shay finally realised that he had something interesting here and he
filed for patent on March 30th 1881. This was his
Golden egg as it was the Lima works that would be building the
locomotive and he would be paid royalties for every one made. His patent covered the concept of using gears to drive the axels. A patent that covered many forthcoming locomotive designs.
He spent his later life promoting his locomotives and in 1901, at the
age of 62, Ephraim Shay sold all of his stock in Lima, thereby
completely ending links with the company. Shay kept on inventing and
lived out the rest of his life in Harbor Spring, Michigan.
The Shay Locomotive:
The classic Shay loco as we have come to know it is consisted of 2 or 3
vertical steam cylinders positioned on the right side of the engine
just forward of the crew cab. The piston rods were attached to a "crank
shaft" similar to that used in today s automobile engines. Attached to
either end of the "crank shaft" were drive shafts that extended to a
gear box on the outside of each wheel. The left side had no gearing or
cylinders. The boiler is located off centre and to the left of centre of
the entire frame. This was necessary for the location of the cylinders.
They were manufactured with either two or three
cylinders. The three cylinder models were used on the larger and more
powerful engines.
Models with two, three, or four truck sets were manufactured. More
trucks meant more distributed weight and thus more powerful locos could
be built. The two truck models carried their fuel and water bunker at
the back of a single frame for the entire locomotive. On the three truck
models, an additional tender with its own single driving truck was added
to the basic two truck locomotive frame. With the four truck model, the
tender was longer and was supported by two driving trucks.
The first Lima factory built Shay that was a two truck Class "A" sold to J.
Alley Co. for $1,700 in 1880, with two others being sold that year. The
last Shay built was the three truck Class "C" locomotive (sn-3354) sold
to the Western Maryland Railroad in 1945.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the small edition size and the great demand for this item, allocations are expected to occur.
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