Quote:
Originally Posted by markpierce
"A two-truck engine, the Dixie weighs 42 tons"
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The Shay in the pictures up above was either 70 or 90 tons.
At one time they brought in a Mallet, pronounced "Malley," a big rod
120 ton engine for way back in the bush. The tracks down to the chuck couldn't handle it so they dismantled it on the barge took in pieces to Nimpkish Lake, floated it up the lake and reassembled it. New, heavier, straighter trackage was needed because it was not articulated.
There were 2 Shays at the beach. One had a very proud engineer (Krofty), always dressed in clean engineers clothes head to toe and always polishing. His loci sparkled.The other engineer was a pig and so was his engine.
Krofty loved the camp ladies...always toot tootin' at them and they loved him. If any were walking along the tracks he'd let go a
PHISH of steam when he went by. They'd all jump and giggle; he'd give them a ding, ding, ding and carry on.
Those were the days.
Haircuts in the bunkhouse.
Hotcakes from the cookhouse fed to the bears.
Playin' house under the trestle.
Jiggin' for stickleback off the booms.
Give a kid a stick and he'll float on it. None of us swam and I think almost every one of us was fished out of the drink just before going down the last time. I say almost because some didn't get the pike pole through the collar.
We burned wood for heat.
Every camp had a wood cutter.
They hauled blocks up the tracks on flat cars and just rolled them off at each house. We all knew when they were coming and scattered because sometimes the blocks would go astray and take out anything in its path, mostly the back end of the woodshed.
Better quit now and get some cloths on...