A geared steam locomotive is a type of steam locomotive which uses gearing, usually reduction gearing, in the drivetrain, as opposed to the common directly driven design.
The Shay locomotive is a geared steam locomotive that originated and was primarily used in North America. The locomotives were built to the patents of Ephraim Shay, who has been credited with the popularization of the concept of a geared steam locomotive. Although the design of Ephraim Shay's early locomotives differed from later ones, there is a clear line of development that joins all Shays. Shay locomotives were especially suited to logging, mining and industrial operations and could operate successfully on steep or poor quality track.
Lima Locomotive Works was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. The company took the most distinctive part of its name from its main shop's location in Lima, Ohio. The shops were located between the Erie Railroad main line, the Baltimore & Ohio's Cincinnati-Toledo main line and the Nickel Plate Road main line and shops.
The Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad is a 3 ft narrow-gauge tourist railroad in California that starts from the Roaring Camp depot in Felton, California and runs up steep grades through redwood forests to the top of nearby Bear Mountain, a distance of 3.25 miles.
Ephraim Shay was an American merchant, entrepreneur and self-taught railroad engineer who worked in the state of Michigan. He designed the first Shay locomotive and patented the type. He licensed it for manufacture through what became known as Lima Locomotive Works in Ohio; from 1882 to 1892 some 300 locomotives of this type were sold.
Cass Scenic Railroad State Park is a state park and heritage railroad located in Cass, Pocahontas County, West Virginia.
Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, and its operating entity, the Sierra Railway, is known as "The Movie Railroad." Both entities are a heritage railway and are a unit of the California State Park System. Railtown 1897 is located in Jamestown, California. The entire park preserves the historic core of the original Sierra Railway of California. The railway's Jamestown locomotive and rolling stock maintenance facilities are remarkably intact and continue to function much as they have for over 100 years. The maintenance facilities are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Sierra Railway Shops Historic District.
The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad (YMSPRR) is a historic 3 ft narrow gauge railroad with two operating steam train locomotives located near Fish Camp, California, in the Sierra National Forest near the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park. Rudy Stauffer organized the YMSPRR in 1961, utilizing historic railroad track, rolling stock and locomotives to construct a tourist line along the historic route of the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Company.
The Sumpter Valley Railway, or Sumpter Valley Railroad, is a 3 ft narrow gauge heritage railroad located in Baker County, in the U.S. state of Oregon. Built on a right-of-way used by the original railway of the same name, it carries excursion trains on a roughly 5-mile (8.0 km) route between McEwen and Sumpter. The railroad has two steam locomotives and several other pieces of rolling stock. Passenger excursion trains operate on weekends and holidays from Memorial Day through the end of September.
The Midwest Central Railroad is a 3 ft narrow gauge heritage railroad operating within the confines of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa's McMillan Park, site of the Midwest Old Thresher's Reunion. The railroad is a registered, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The mainline track is a 1 mile loop with traffic moving in a clockwise direction regulated by an electrically signaled block system. The mainline loop features 2 stations: at the north end, the original Hillsboro, Iowa, depot along with a Milwaukee Road signal tower; and at the south end, a newer wood frame/metal sided building.
Soo Line 2719 is a 4-6-2 "Pacific" type steam locomotive built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) for use on passenger trains operated by the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railway. No. 2719 was used to haul the Soo Line's last steam-powered train, a June 21, 1959 round-trip excursion between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Ladysmith, Wisconsin. It was then displayed in Eau Claire, Wisconsin until 1996. It was restored and operated in excursion service from 1998 until 2013 when its boiler certificate expired. Today, the locomotive remains on display in Duluth, Minnesota.
The Allen County Museum is located in the city of Lima, the county seat of Allen County, Ohio, United States. Occupying a half city block, the museum campus includes the main museum building, a log house, the MacDonell House, a Shay Locomotive display, the Children's Discovery Center, genealogy and local history library, railroad archives, and the Children's Garden. The museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. According to recent reports of the American Alliance of Museums Accreditation Department, less than 800 museums, out of more than 11,000 in the United States, are accredited. Standards for accreditation apply across the board to both small and large institutions.
The Hetch Hetchy Railroad (HHRR) was a 68-mile (109 km) standard gauge Class III railroad constructed by the City of San Francisco to support the construction and expansion of the O'Shaughnessy Dam across Hetch Hetchy Valley.
The Powelltown Tramway was a 3 ft narrow gauge tramway that operated between Powelltown and Yarra Junction, Victoria, Australia. It operated between 1913 and 1945.
Hetch Hetchy Railroad no. 6 is a standard gauge three truck Shay locomotive built for the Hetch Hetchy Railroad by Lima Locomotive Works in 1921.
The Glenbrook is a 2-6-0, Mogul type, narrow-gauge steam railway locomotive built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1875 for the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company's 3 ft narrow-gauge railroad.
Meadow River Lumber Company No. 1 is a Shay locomotive at Steamtown National Historic Site, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This 2-truck Shay was built by Lima Locomotive Works in 1910. This type of locomotive was used primarily by lumber and mining companies. Some were used by other industries and on short lines. This is one of 77 Shay locomotives preserved in the United States.
Steamtown, U.S.A., was a steam locomotive museum that ran steam excursions out of North Walpole, New Hampshire, and Bellows Falls, Vermont, from the 1960s to 1983. The museum was founded by millionaire seafood industrialist F. Nelson Blount. The non-profit Steamtown Foundation took over operations following his death in 1967. Because of Vermont's air quality regulations restricting steam excursions, declining visitor attendance, and disputes over the use of track, some pieces of the collection were relocated to Scranton, Pennsylvania in the mid-1980s and the rest were auctioned off. After the move, Steamtown continued to operate in Scranton but failed to attract the expected 200,000–400,000 visitors. Within two years the tourist attraction was facing bankruptcy, and more pieces of the collection were sold to pay off debt.
The Columbia and Nehalem Valley Railroad was a standard gauge logging railroad near Columbia City, Oregon, which was owned by the Portland-based Peninsular Lumber Company.
The Michigan-California Lumber Company was an early 20th-century Ponderosa and Sugar pine logging operation in the Sierra Nevada. It is best remembered for the Shay locomotives used to move logs to the sawmill.
