April Fool's Day and a tank Mallet

摘要

IN THE SPRING OF 1964, I photographed and rode Klickitat Log & Lumbers Shay locomotive No. 7 in Washington state during its final days of operation. This was long before the internet, but I ran into some Canadian fans who advised that Rayonier was still operating steam logging trains at a place north of Hoquiam called Railroad Camp, so I headed there the next day. On the foggy morning of April 1 (no fooling!) I found two Rayonier compound articulateds steamed up at Railroad Camp: One was the fairly conventional 2-6-6-2 No. 38 (ex-Sierra Railroad), while the other was also a 2-6-6-2, but it had a large split tank on its boiler, and it also had a slope-backed tender, so its Whyte wheel arrangement classification was 2-6-6-2T+T. Usually, we think of tank engines as small creatures puttering around factories or as shop goats, but No. 111 was a big tank engine indeed.