Hi all.
South Fork Timber Co. has been in need of another woods engine for quite some time so the Road Foreman and the Woods Boss headed south to look over several prospects. After rejecting a couple of possibles for various reasons we ended up at “Honest Earl’s” used locomotive lot. There we found a nice little 36 ton Heisler with outside counter weights in pretty good condition. Only 14-15 years old and Honest Earl swore it was only used on Sunday to haul the men down to church and back.
It is a wood burner, course we were looking for an oil fired, but what the h… we always have plenty of slab wood from the mill to fire her with. How could we go wrong, so a deal was struck and the Southern Pacific hauled her north and dropped her at the Redding yards. The boys at the shops went through her, slapped the home road name on her, declared her safe enough for the woods crew, so she went to work.
A couple pictures of her first trip up the hill to Camp Six. She is a good puller and sure footed, walked right through some of those temperamental switches with no problem.
Not much of a load really just an oil tank, broke back flat and the little Crummy, She will get a good workout in the morning bringing 6-8 sets of loaded dis-connects down the hill.
Always nice to fall into a deal like this she was already painted, weathered, with on board battery, Revolution and Phoenix sound. I changed the couplers, slapped South Forks name on it and started running.
Thanks for taking a look.
Rick