Meadow River Lumber was formed in 1906, and by the 20s, it was the "World's Largest Hardwood Manufacturer." This was the most long-lived lumber operation- and is remembered as an especially compelling combination of geared steam power and mechanized logging. The last of Meadow's steamers were retired in the mid-1960s, when two found new homes on the Cass Scenic Railroad. This book celebrates Meadow River Lumber's grand saga through a comprehensive text, 127 photos and track system map.
William Warden began photographing logging railroads in West Virginia in 1957. This book explains--and illustrates with both color and black & white photographs--the operations of logging railroads in the state from about 1940-1960. It includes a fascinating look at the rapid and haphazard laying of track, the challenge of getting up the mountains, and the hazards of derailing locomotives. Warden's book addresses the romance of back woods railroading. With puffy white clouds in an azure blue sky, a Shay type narrow gauge geared locomotive on the Ely-Thomas Lumber Company's logging railroad hauls a train of logs toward the mill in June 1954. This scene is typical of the interesting West Virginia logging railroad operations that are portrayed in this book. In another Ely-Thomas Lumber Company scene, Shay No. 5 prepares to cross Manns Run, near the end of this narrow gauge logging line's life in October. William E. Warden began photographing logging railroads in West Virginia in 1957. He prepared this book to illustrate and explain the methods and operations of logging railroads in West Virginia in the last twenty years that they ran, ending about 1960. West Virginia was one of the nation's largest producers of lumber beginning in the late 19th Century and extending into the middle third of the 20th Century. It had hundreds of logging railroads carrying huge quantities of timber to mills for processing into finished lumber, which was then shipped all over the United States, again by rail. The lumber industry in West Virginia began its decline when the great stands of virgin forest began to be depleted, and by the 1950s, there were only a half-dozen or so operations left still using logging railroads. There remain many logging and lumber milling operations in the state, but today the logs are taken from the forest by motor truck to modern, highly automated mills. The romance of back woods railroading holds a particular allure and nostalgia today, even as it did when these last few lines were still operating. We are lucky that Bill Warden and others were there to photograph the last decades. The book treats in detail five of the last and largest companies to use logging railroads and illustrates each line in some detail. Also included are chapters about logging in West Virginia and the locomotives that were favorites of the loggers--the famous geared Shay, Climax, and Heisler types. Today tourists can experience some of the logging railroad flavor by riding the Cass Scenic Railroad over the old line of the Mower Lumber Company out of Cass, W.Va.
Here's the complete history of every geared steam locomotive used by lumber companies that operated the logging railroad out of Cass, WV. It is said to be one of the largest lumbering operations in West Virginia and the eastern part of the U.S. It included the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Co., West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co., and the Mower Lumber Co. Details include data of all of the Shays and on one Climax used by these companies while lumbering the great hardwood forests of Pocahontas County, WV.
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 33. Chapters: Durbin, West Virginia, Ronceverte, West Virginia, Pacific Lumber Company, Portland and Western Railroad, Phillips and Rangeley Railroad, Caspar, South Fork and Eastern Railroad, California Western Railroad, Franklin and Megantic Railway, Cass Scenic Railroad State Park, Oregon and Eureka Railroad, Rockport, California, Fort Bragg and Southeastern Railroad, Usal Creek, Elk, Mendocino County, California, Babcock Lumber Company, McCloud Railway, Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway, Wild River, Laurel Fork Railway, Cass, West Virginia, Perry Lumber Company, Simpson Investment Company, West Side Lumber Company railway, Andersonia, California, Arcata and Mad River Railroad, East Waterford Lumber Company, Minarets and Western Railway, Camino, Placerville and Lake Tahoe Railroad, Metropolitan, California, Sawyer River Railroad, Juniata and Southern Railroad, Harbor Springs Railway, Susquehanna and Eagles Mere Railroad, Almanor Railroad, Crane Creek Lumber Company, Marion and Rye Valley Railway, White Top Railway, Idaho Northern and Pacific Railroad, Bodie and Benton Railway and Commercial Company, Diamond and Caldor Railway, Bartlett and Albany Railroad, Sierra Railroad, Shaver Lake Railroad, Wheeler and Dusenbury Lumber Company, Bainbridge Northern Railway, Saco Valley Railroad, Brunswick and Pensacola Railroad. Excerpt: The Pacific Lumber Company, officially abbreviated PALCO, was one of California's major logging and sawmill operations, located 28 miles (45 km) south of Eureka and 244 miles (393 km) north of San Francisco. The once storied company and its historically positive relationship with conservationists begun in the 1920s was altered drastically after a hostile takeover began in 1985. As a result, the company was transformed into a wholly owned subsidiary of Maxxam, Inc by 1986 and during its two final decades....
This highly illustrated book explains the business of logging railroads and provides examples of prototype operations. Photos of locomotives, equipment, and structures set the stage for modeling logging scenes and designing a logging layout.
The period of 1890-1950 marked the romantic era of steam power as the rails reached deep into the old growth of the Adirondack woods to harvest the timber crop. In this volume, not only does William Gove provide an in-depth history of railroad activity in the Adirondacks he also describes the logging methods used, the role of railroads in the logging industry, and the influence of the railroads on the condition of the Adirondack forest today. In addition, he addresses the political and economic forces determining the location and viability of logging railroads, villages, and the forest industry.
This book documents the construction of railroads in West Virginia, largely to access the untouched stands of timber in such counties as Upshur, Webster, Nicholas, and Randolph. Johnson Newlon Camden and Henry Gassaway Davis were the two men that were the driving forces behind these railroads. They were industrialists and politicians as well as friends and rivals. Camden built the Clarksburg, Weston and Glenville Railroad connecting Clarksburg and Weston in north central West Virginia. Completed in 1879, it was extended to Buckhannon in the fall of 1883. The West Virginia and Pittsburgh Railroad soon built extensions from Weston to the Gauley River and south from Buckhannon. Davis started construction of the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway in 1880, which followed the North Branch of the Potomac River south into Tucker and Randolph Counties. Sawmills and towns sprang up all along the railroads as vast quantities of lumber were harvested from the forests of West Virginia. As the forests were denuded, mines opened, more towns were built, and coal replaced lumber as the principal freight. While sections of the W. Va. & Pittsburgh have been abandoned, the present day successor to the B. & O. still hauls coal along these rail lines to the voracious power plants of the eastern United States. Author and railroad scholar Alan Clarke has once again offered an in-depth look at the building of railroads in West Virginia in the late nineteenth century. Much of the technical and historical information in the book will be of special interest to railroad buffs. However, Clarke's grasp of the state at that time in history, as well as the book's vintage photographs, maps, and illustrations, cause this book to appeal to anyone interested in the history of the Mountain State.
