A couple of years ago, I decided to “gift” my Wrightwood property (here in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains) over to my son and daughter-in-law. My grandfather built it in 1924-1925. Just a couple of years after WWII, he purchased the vacant property next door. The lot is full of big Douglas fir trees and some Canary Island pines. But it’s ideal for a small lumber railroad in 1-1/2 scale.
There is even a small creek/stream to the right of this photo. Perfect for a small trestle.
So while I was visiting my kids here last November, my son and I started discussing getting a smallish, three truck, 3-cylinder Shay and start laying track in this 5000+ sq ft lot. It definitely has a good slope from the back of the property down to the road (in the foreground in the lot photo). We were guessing there was probably a 5-6 foot drop from back to front. Definitely Shay Country! Allen Models of Nevada (Steve Alley-owner) now has two 3-cyl. Shays in “kit-form”. One is a two-truck, 3-cyl. which is only 56 inches long and weighs 310 pounds. The second Shay is also a 3-cyl., but it’s also 3-trucks. Much larger and heavier at 84 inches long and 400 pounds. I ordered the prints for both engines and started to research what this thing would cost to build and how long it would take to finish. i’m 78 now, so time is an “issue”. I’ve already built one 1-1/2 inch scale steam engine and that was the Allen ten-wheeler. I sold it a few years ago to a young corporate jet pilot. He now has it finished and running on steam. So I know how these engines can take some time to build. But a Shay is a more simple engine to build and no side rods to quarter! I put a bid out for quotes on a new boiler to a few folks I know that are STILL building boilers in this scale. After a few months of adding up boiler costs, plumbing fixtures for the cab and cost of hundreds of rough castings and machining (I have a complete machine shop, that wasn’t an issue), I could see this simple little shay was going to be about $12K-$20K and take me another 5-6 years of my life. My wife commented that if I wanted to still build another big engine, why didn’t I just keep the ten-wheeler and finish that one. Good point!
I got to talking to my Glendale College retired professor (taught Machine Technology) and he said he had a 1-1/2 scale Kozo Hiroaka 3-truck, 3-cyl. Shay out in his barn! He said he would give it to me to finish. The only things it needed to steam was a boiler and the plumbing on the engine and cab. So last April, he comes down from Markleeville with this Kozo Shay.
This engine was a Glendale College Machine Technology project for students who were apprentices in the aircraft industry at Lockheed in Burbank. As part of their apprenticeships, they attended the college for the classroom work. This was over forty years ago! This photo shows one of the students overseeing the display of the engine at a college Open House. As you can see, the engines are complete and the Shay was running on air.Other photos below of the delivery to my home in Burbank.
Footlocker with all the machined parts (all three engines and valve gear, 3 engine manifold for the smoke box to feed steam to the engines and thousands of little parts to inventory and reassemble to get the engine running again.
I spent quite a bit of time in April of this year going through every part and checking this to the book that Kozo wrote in the mid-seventies on how to build this engine. Buying a boiler for this engine was going to cost in the $5K-$6K range because these are difficult boilers to build. Shay boilers are more like teapots that the straight boilers you usually find on “rodded” steam engines. I figured that I had quite a bit of work just to tear down the engine as it was and then actually rebuild from scratch all over again. I might even have to make some parts that were never machined at the school or were missing from the inventory just because so much time had gone by. Bottom line on this, one of the guys in our Baldwin electric project was interested in this Shay because he has a nice 7-1/2 inch gauge around his home here in So. Cal. and he has the funds to have someone complete this engine for him. There are many folks here who do this as a business. So the engine was sold in May and the rebuilding as already started and the boiler is being made at this moment.
But still, my son and I didn’t didn’t have our Shay to run at the home in the mountains. My son decided that a Ga. 1, 45mm track was actually more feasible for the property. I said I would look for a Accucraft Shay and try to find a BRAND NEW one! Boy, did I make a mistake…I emailed and called every Accucraft dealer in the U.S. and Europe. Nobody had any used Shays, let alone a new one. The last name in my contacts list was Bob Weltyk in Michigan (Weltyk’s Whistles). I had hosted a little steam-up for him at LALS’s 45mm club track when he came out to visit in 2016. I sent Bob an email and he actually called me about an hour later!. He asked me which Shay I wanted. I had no idea which one to get. He already has two or three Accucraft Shays and an Aster Shay. He said the best one by far was the little two-cal, 2-truck Mich-Cal #2. I said that is the one I want then. Bob said that he would make a call and get back to me with the availability and price of a Mech-Cal Shay #2. He calls back in 15 minutes and says he can get the Shay and he named the price (which was very fair. Bob told me who to call and his phone number. The man I called is well known in the steam hobby (most of you steam guys probably know who it is). I made the deal for a brand new Accucraft Mich-Cal #2 Shay. Still in the original box shipped in April 2010!! Never been opened. AND I even had the choice of the lowest serial number of those he had in inventory (#22).
The Shay was delivered to my son’s front door in Wrightwood on May 21st. On display now in the cabin. The cabin is being remodeled now (started on July 1st). So all the trains, including this little beauty, are in an AirBnb just down the street. The cabin should be completed in late September and at that time, we are supposed to have a FaceTime call from the man who sold us this engine and made this deal possible and he will walk us through our first steam-up with this engine.
