Climax Class A logging locomotive
As steam locomotives go, logging engines aren’t the most attractive specimens out there. They’re the railroad version of the long-standing joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. But let’s not get hung up on appearances. These engines carved out their own niche in the very lucrative timber industry, and they have an enormous fan base.
There were three main makers of logging locomotives — Shay, Heisler, and Climax. The Climax Manufacturing Co., (later renamed Climax Locomotive Works), was based out of Corry, Pa., and eventually built about a thousand locomotives. Most of them had cylinders set at about a 45-degree angle connected to a line shaft running along the underside of the boiler.
Some of the earliest Climaxes had vertical boilers resembling tents on wheels to the entire world. Very few examples survive. One example is actually a replica Class A, and it operates near Clarksburg, W.Va.
Welcome to the Locust Heights & Western Railroad
Stop me if you’ve heard a story like this before. A man buys a caboose for the kids to play on. Then he decides the caboose needs some track to sit on. Then he decides he needs something to pull the caboose around with. So he goes hunting for blueprints and builds his own steam locomotive. Strange but true. This is the back story of the Mason family.
Keith Mason owned a blacksmith shop, and his Locust Heights & Western soon expanded to fill the family’s property in the mountains. The rails are three-foot gauge and there’s just about three quarters of a mile of trunk with grades in excess of 4%. In the early 1970s, Mason constructed a replica Class A Climax. The closest real Climax of that type would have dated to about 1890 — very early in the company’s history.
The operation doesn’t get a lot of press, but it is open to the public. Wednesday evenings from June to October finds the railroad offering rides.
It may look strange, but it’s coal fired and it operates on steam. And that’s all that matters.
Check out the video, “Climax Class A logging locomotive in action.”
First rate story and many thanks to the Mason family for keeping this operation going. “nothing like the smell of coal smoke…..”