Articulated Log-Hogs. At least as of February of 2020, California's Niles Canyon Railway was about the only place I know of where you could see a pair of compound, articulated Mallet Locomotives, both of which are fully operational.
On the left, we see Clover Valley Lumber Company #4, a Baldwin 2-6-6-2T saddle-tanker, built in 1924 for the Clover Valley Lumber Company of Loyalton, CA. She served that owner for over 30 years, before becoming a stationary boiler for a short time at the Tahoe Timber Company near Reno, Nevada. This locomotive was acquired by her present owner, the Pacific Locomotive Association (PLA) in 1973, and about 5 years later, she was in operation on the Castro Point Railway. When that line shut down, she was brought to her present home, the Niles Canyon Railway, which is operated by the PLA. She remained in storage here for many years until she was extensively rebuilt and put into service in 2012. Today, she is one of several steam locomotives which pull the tourist trains at Niles Canyon.
On the right is an even rarer locomotive. Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1909, this unusual 2-4-4-2 articulated, compound Mallet was intended for the Little River Railroad in Townsend, TN as their number 126. Unfortunately, that railroad quickly determined that she was too long for the tight curves on their line and she was returned to Baldwin. In 1910, Baldwin managed to resell her to the Columbia River Belt Line Railway in Blind Slough, OR, where she was put to work as a logging engine. That railroad typically named their locomotives rather than number them, and this engine received the name "Skookum", which is apparently a Chinook term, meaning large, powerful or impressive. She served the Columbia River Belt Line from 1910 through 1920, before being sold to the Carlisle-Pennell Lumber Company, where she acquired the number 7. After a four-year stint there, she served 4 other railroads, including the Deep River Logging Company, where her long career came to a sudden end in 1955, when she rolled over with a string of empty log bunks. Since that line was in the process of shutting down, no attempt was made to recover her and she was left in place. In 1956, she was acquired by a man named Charles Morrow, who removed her from her wreck site in pieces....and she's spent the next 60 years in pieces, owned by several individuals and moved several different places. In 2005, Skookum was acquired by Chris Baldo, who had her moved to the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad, with the goal of restoring her, a process which took 13 years. The restoration team slowly and methodically restored her major components and re-assembled her into the condition you see here. After running briefly on the Oregon Coast Scenic, she was brought to Niles Canyon by her owner, where she runs periodically, hauling the tourist trains and an occasional photo charter. Although this is her home for the time being, she is still privately owned. It has not been publicly announce how long she'll be here, or where she might go next.
Scenes of Clover Valley Lumber Company #4 and Columbia River Belt Line Railway #7 in action with freight and log trains, on a portion of the original Transcontinental Railroad.
