Willamette locomotive

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Willamette Locomotive no. 7, on static display at the Fort Missoula Museum. Willamette locomotive No 7.jpg
Willamette Locomotive no. 7, on static display at the Fort Missoula Museum.
Cylinder detail of a Willamette locomotive Willamette locomotive cylinders.jpg
Cylinder detail of a Willamette locomotive

The Willamette locomotive was a geared steam locomotive of the Shay locomotive type, built by the Willamette Iron and Steel Works of Portland, Oregon. After key patents on the Shay locomotive had expired, it was possible for other manufacturers to produce Shay-like locomotive designs.

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Willamette Iron and Steel Works in Portland, Oregon, was well established in the Pacific Northwest, as a logging operations supplier, when they expanded into locomotive building. Their design of the Willamette locomotives, was focused on logging, incorporating all of the modern (in 1922) aspects of a Shay locomotive and the standard features most requested by western loggers; steel cabs, girder frame, cast trucks, air brakes, electric headlamps. The unique features of the locomotive were patented in 1923 (patent No. 1,464,696) by Albert Claypoole, an engineer with Willamette Iron and Steel Works. [1] All Willamette locos were Standard gauge, 56½". A total of 33 were built in Portland Oregon, between Nov. 1922 and Dec. 1929; 1 ordered and cancelled in 1927. [2]

Three class sizes were built: [3]

(50-2) 50-ton, 2-truck, with Three 11 inch x 13 inch cylinders, 2 built, 1 cancelled.

(70-3) 70-ton, 3-truck, with Three 12 inch x 15 inch cylinders, 27 built.

(75-3) 75-ton, 3-truck, with Three 12½ inch x 15 inch cylinders, 4 built.


Designed and introduced in late 1922, the high point in production was 1923, when 11 were built and shipped. By 1929, only one, the last one, was built.

The Willamette locomotive was very similar to a Shay, but had many differences, as the company that made them intended on making an "improved Shay", even though the "Pacific Coast Shay", later made by Lima, took up many of the features of the Willamette. The differences were:

All but one Willamette burned oil, despite their working for logging companies, where wood would be abundant. Oil burners produced few sparks, however, and were less likely to ignite a forest than coal- or wood-fired locomotives. The only coal-fired Willamette worked for Anaconda Copper.


Six Willamette locomotives survive.

A Willamette locomotive, filmed on location in Washington, features prominently in the action sequences of the 1937 Warner Brothers film God's Country and the Woman, with the film's logging industry plot.

Further reading

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References

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