I found a book called California Western Railroad book (one not by Crump) and it contains pictures of the entire roster of the CW. It is a folding paperback printed in 1957 and I paid a walloping $2.25 on eBay. And the guy threw in 3 tickets for riding the skunk–probably around the same date.
Edit: Blessing or Curse. See Below.
Uh, what’s the “skunk?” Isn’t that one of those black pussycats with the white stripe down its back and a serious case of body odor?
More like a case of not washing properly in the nether regions…as in where the Sun don’t shine. [xx(]
Chip, I am happy to hear of your little victories, whenever they happen. [:D]
Hey score man. Happy to hear about your find. For what your doin, that has got to be a big help.
Congrats[:D]
Right now, I’m trying to decide if it is a blessing or a curse. In my state of blissful ignorance, I figured to make the 2-6-2 T’s that I need, I can convert MDC Baldwin 0-6-0’s by adding the front and trailing trucks. Well that’s all fine and dandy for the early models, but the later models had squared off tanks instead of the rounded on the MDC Baldwins. To make them right. I’ll have to ba***hem.
The CW had a 3 truck Shay, and I have a 3 truck Shay. The problem is, according to this book, it ran only in a branch of the Union Lumber Companies operation that I’m not modeling. The good news is that in the first phase of of my railroad construction, it can bring in lumber from staging. But when I build the logging camps and log loading sites which were off in the direction of the interchange with the Northwestern Pacific, I had planned to use the Shay to take the logs from the loading area to the logging camp. But it was never used there.
I know I can fudge. But it if I do…well, I’ll know.
I think you’ll find that it’s really a blessing in disguise. It will propel you to new heights in your modeling.
Those squared off tanks might not be that hard after all. Look around in the stores you visit every day. Any time you see plastic packaging for an item, it can be used in modeling. For example, your tanks could be disguised as packaging for a nightlight at the grocery store, or a paper clip box at the office supply store. Keep your eyes open and you’ll find all sorts of shapes you can use. I once made a canopy for a land speed record car out of a package of those little flame shaped light bulbs (or is that “lamps”…or should I not start that all over again). The up shot of this is, you get two products for the price of one! Can’t beat that with a stick, now can ya?
that’s great news Chip !
now remember to use it as inspiration , not necessarily as the Holy Grail
besides , how do you know they never used it there ? what if the regular loco they used for that job was in the shop , the shay might have filled in
lol at least it was cheap.
“Where the sun don’t shine” might apply to the Skunk–it’s pretty foggy and overcast in Mendocino County most of the year…home of the Skunk Train, on the California Western.
Prototype research is always illuminating but aggravating–sometimes deeply cherished illusions get shattered on contact with reality. But then sometimes you get contradictory information–I am in the midst of doing Sacramento streetcar research, and in my hunt for data on the PG&E corporation yard, I have found a map which says the yard went one way, and photos and eyewitness reports that say it went another way, totally contradicting the map! At some point you’ll read “X never happened” and then stumble across a photo of X happening…odds are, whoever wrote that history never saw the photo, or was willing to ignore it in order to maintain their illusions.
every now and then you can still find a good deal on ebay. I need to find a similar deal for Santa Fe.
The CW ‘Skunk’ got its name from the (in)delicate aroma of its internal combustion engine - the original was a gas-electric car operated as a single unit. By the time I rode it, there was a three-truck coach (originally an SP car) in the consist. The original gas-electric was nowhere in sight.
As for the Shay - didn’t it have to travel through the part of the CW you’re modeling to get to the shops for boiler washouts, flue inspections and the like? Knowing how anal California is about enforcing industrial safety regulations, I wouldn’t bet against it.
The era of the Skunk’s heyday was a California before the advent of industrial safety regulations–logging operations on the Northcoast would have given an OSHA safety inspector fits of apoplexy. But I am as sure as you that the Shay probably made some runs over that stretch of land–heck, on the railroad I model, single-truck Birney streetcars were equipped with third-rail shoes and run 100 miles north to Chico through farmland and open fields to get their regular service inspections!