The Columbia River Belt Line Railway #7, aka The Skookum, is gently being pushed up a ramp an on to a trailer for its road trip to The Niles Canyon Railway in Sunol California. Click Here for close up shot of the Skookum being loaded.
This unique early logging Mallet Locomotive with an even more unique and interesting story, has been plying the rails of the Oregon Coast Scenic Railway for the past few months after being restored by the crews of the OCSR and Roots of Motive Power.
For the next few months, it will be drawing attention at Niles, but that won’t start for a couple of weeks. As I write this, the Skookum and its tender are on the first day of a 3 day, tortured route to Sunol.
This photo depicts a rather unique operation, the use of a steam engine (McCloud River Railway #25) to shove another steam engine up a ramp and on to a trailer equipped with it’s own set of rails. The Skookum was helping with the braking, with compressed air from the yellow compressor. Two engineers, a fireman and whole bunch of eyes (and a lot of sweat, grime and rain), got the job done. Smooth as silk, just exactly like they knew what they were doing, because… they do!
