Shay 100th birthday party

[Dan Rowe]

Shay shop number 3288, Lima Stone #10, never left Lima OH It is now on display at the Allen County Museum. There is a birthday party on September 21.

I will be there and I will have a table for some of my Shay work and Shay related stuff. If you want to play stump the chump, ask me a Shay engineering question. A good question will give you something from my collection. If I can not answer the question or know where the answer is located, then I will give you a copy of my articles "The Nuts and Bolts of Shays".

https://allencountymuseum.org/event/celebration-of-our-shays-100th-birthday/

Cheers Dan

[crueby]

Happy birthday to the Shay!

[CI]

Thanks for posting that info.
I am a longtime fan of the Shay locomotives.

A funny story, I was at an my wife's cousin's house years ago, and noticed a photo of a locomotive on the wall.
I asked about it, and they said "Yes, my husband's dad ran a lumber company, and they had two of those".
I did not know anything about a Shay at the time, but I was highly impressed by the quality of the photo hanging on the wall.

Years later, I starting chatting with folks, including Dan, about Shays, and it clicked in my mind that the odd looking locomotive at my inlaw's house could be a Shay.
I called them up, asked them if I could come over and take photos, and they said yes.

Turns out it was a Lima Shay, and their family lumber company owned two of them.
And the photo on the wall turned out to be the original photo sent to the Shay owner from Lima.

Photos attached.
The Shay design is an amazing tale of ingenuity, in my opinion.

.

[PaulR]

And the photo on the wall turned out to be the original photo sent to the Shay owner from Lima.
quote]
That's quite a locomotive, even to the yes of a Brit, and love the lumber yard photo. Thanks for sharing.

[Dan Rowe]

I have a bunch of pasters, the small Lima photo with the specs on the back, but I have never seen one of the big versions. That is shop number 3296. Vestal Lumber owned 6 Shays. That is the last one that they owned.

Thanks for the photos.
Cheers Dan

[Dan Rowe]

Paul, a single Shay went to England shop number 618. It was one of the few Shays built with a copper firebox.

Cheers Dan

[PaulR]

Paul, a single Shay went to England shop number 618. It was one of the few Shays built with a copper firebox.

Any idea where or what for?

[Dan Rowe]

Paul,
Staffordshire Steel & Ingot Iron Works, #1 named "Lima", Bilston, England

Here is where to look up Shays by shop number and a lot of other options, just choose 'Lima#' then select 618 for a photo.
https://www.shaylocomotives.com/data/dataframe.htm

Cheers Dan

[PaulR]

Paul,
Staffordshire Steel & Ingot Iron Works, #1 named "Lima", Bilston, England

Interesting, that's less than 10 miles from me as the crow flies! Seems the engine had a very short life, built 1900 scrapped 1918.

[CI]

The detail in the photo is quite impressive when you zoom in on it.
Must have been a big box cameral or something.

.

[CI]

Here is another Vestal Shay.
They actually gave me this apparently original photograph, but it is about 1/4th the size of the 108 photo.

.

[crueby]

Great looking engine!

[Dan Rowe]

That is shop number 3284. If you want to see the left side of this one and the other Vestal Shays
https://www.shaylocomotives.com/data/dataframe.htm

Choose V in the Shays by owners section. Vestal Lumber was in TN and GA and there are photos of most of them.

Cheers Dan

[Dan Rowe]

I took a better look at the photos and wow a feature I have never spotted.

Look at #107. The line in the middle of the boiler goes into the upper section of the smoke box. This is a superheater supply pipe from the superheater to the steam engine. Now look to see the valve, Shutting this valve will stop the engine. There has to be a bypass valve for steam flow to the engine. Now look at the pipe just above the forward running board. That is the exhaust line.

I have to think about that valve for a while. The throttle valve for a superheated Shay is in the smoke box, not on the backhead.

Cheers Dan

[crueby]

Okay, question: I don't know much about superheaters and how they are plumbed, but why would there need to be a bypass line around that valve? I would think that valve would be there just as a way to isolate the engine during maintenance? I've not seen any references about running a superheat boiler without the superheater, though I'll admit I've never investigated it!