FIRST LOAD OF LOGS.

Garden Railroading
1

My railroad buddy Mr Bill Nelson was nice enough to get me some straight “logs” from his farm. The logs have great bark detail. So I cut them to scale 15 feet long (1:20.3) and loaded them on the Bachmann 30 foot flats that have been empty for quite some time. The setting winter sun made for some interesting pictures of the Shay moving this one flat car that weighed about eight pounds (wood was still green). I was thrilled that it handled the 2% grade and nothing fell off from the trestle on this inaugural run of revenue to the mill.

Doc Tom

Doc Tom and the Little River Rail Road in Tennessee

2

Very nice work. Keep the photos coming.

3

It looks rearly good nice to see proper wood on the railway[:)]

4

Great work.

Keep them photo’s coming, we love photo’s

Sean

5

There’s a rather pesky wild plant growing here in Arizona known as Desert Broom with bark that looks a lot like what you have. At this time of year it is dormant and the wood gets very hard.

6

Thanks for the nice notes guys. I am plodding along building this replica of the Little River RR that harvested the logs in the present day Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.

Those logs are Oak a very dense and heavy wood. Particularly when green like these. I am looking forward to running a train with 6 log flats full and see how well the B.mann Shay performs.

More pictures to follow.

Tom

7

Just a word of warning check the pull of loco, as you say wood is heavy you do not want to strip loco gears if they are plastic[:)]

8

Thanks 2 tone. I wondered about that too. The Shay does have metal gears and the ruling grade is 2% but I am planning on being very careful not to overload the locomotive.

Thanks. Tom

9

Tom(?)

I have an original two truck Bachmann shay. The original trucks were a disaster and I replaced them with the diecast Bachmann replacements. It is over ten years old and still pulls eight skeleton log cars with two or three inch diameter eucalypt gum tree logs, each about ten inches long. I don’t know the weight, but the lesson is, don’t worry about your Shay. It will do the job.

10

That is good news. These Shays appear to be strong pullers.

Tom

11

Everything looks great!

The only other thing I might consider would be to add some chain over those nice looking logs.

12

Agree. I will be purchasing some real soon.

Tom

13

Well, I have yet to find a reasonable limit as to what one of the Bachmann Shays can’t pull. Last year I was running my three-truck Shay at a show with ten loaded rock cars and a caboose behind it, and after a while one of the guys added another ten or eleven of real-wood logging cars behind that…the Shay ran for another two hours like nothing was behind it at all!

14

That is incredible!!! The Shay is a beast !!

Tom