This two truck Shay was built by Lima in 1910 for the Sugar Pine Railway Co., in Standard, CA. An oil burner, it weighs 125,000 lbs. With 36” drivers and three 12” x 12” cylinders, it operated a boiler pressure of 180 psi delivering 23,890 lbs tractive effort. The fuel bunker has a capacity of 1,200 gallons of oil and 2,000 gallons of water.
The Sugar Pine was set up as a subsidiary of the Sierra Railway Company in 1903 to feed the Standard Lumber Company's mill at Sonora, CA. With an economic recession in 1907, management was turned over to Standard Lumber. In 1921, Pickering Lumber bought Standard Lumber, which continued to operate as a separate company until consolidated into Pickering in 1926.
#3 was retired in 1957 and went on display in Standard. Twenty years later, it was moved to its current location at the junction of W Stockton St and Southgate Dr at the entrance to the Tuolumne County Fairgrounds in Sonora, CA. You can see more two truck Shays on the National Railroad Museum page of this website, the Mid-Continent Railway Museum and Stimson Lumber #1 pages.
Shays have vertically mounted cylinders, which transfer power through pistons to a horizontal drive shaft.
The shaft has square sliding slip joints to accommodate the trucks' swivelling motion. Drive was transferred to the wheels by bevel gears.
