One More Thing. I never thought starting this thread would generate this much disscusion about logging. Pretty cool! All thanks to M.C.'s Cannery layout!! http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine...-Coffin-amp-Kalama-RR-23-quot-x41-quot-layout
If you can find a copy of it, there's a couple books you really need of the era and time.... 1) "Wild Catting" on the mountain - woo woo woo - the story of the Whitmer & Steele lumber company. That has the best shots of seen of wooden track, Class A's and the White Deer & Loganton, probably the only Climax-powered passenger operation ever. 2) "Pitch Pine and Prop Timber" - woo woo woo - that has the chapter in it on the McNitt-Huyett Lumber company. They INVENTED the square water tank on the Climax A's and Climax copied it. It's a wonderful book of the tramroad era. Those are often available in the Railroad Museum of PA bookstore, also the Strasburg Railroad Museum bookstore. The real find - I got lucky to get one - is "The Climax Locomotive" (Thomson/Dunn/Hauf) that is a mind-bender and the best logging locomotive book I've ever seen. That is the book that inspired me to do the Class A models. It's already become a collectors book selling well over the publishing price. The one that inspired my 13-tonner is Higbee & Hugh (unnumbered) in 1891, supposedly the first Climax in Michigan. I own an original print of the same negative in the book from the Casler collection:
Here's some more fun.... Corry, PA and Climax legitimately holds the title as the 'original' geared locomotive in 1875, predating Shay (1881) by several years. Corry is still VERY PROUD of its heritage. I only live about 30 miles away. The majority of the original erecting shop is still standing today, with an historical marker beside it, and one of the downtown buildings toward the Erie/E-L/WNYP main has a wonderful mural on it: Note that it brags it as the Climax TRAMWAY locomotive....
I've got the whole series plus Muncy Valley Life Line and The Climax Locomotive within arms reach. My Pa lumbering series is really worn from reading them over and over again, usually in bed where I fall asleep with one. The Manns Creek Railway book is another that has sky rocketed in price. The Bradford Co Historical Society published a book on the history of Barclay Mountain in Bradford county. It has lots of logging railroad and early rail coal hauling in it. It also covers the S&NY and the very large lumber town of Laquin. There is also information on the coal mining town of Barclay, of which the only thing left is the cemetery. http://stores.ebay.com/Bradford-County-Historical-Society Two other cherised books are Steam and Thunder in the Timber, and The Buffalo and Susquehanna Railway by Peitrack.
