Survivors
Only 117 Shays survive today, some a combination of parts of two Shays.
The oldest surviving Shay, serial number 122, built in 1884, is currently displayed in Redding CA, at Turtle Bay Exploration Park.
The oldest operational shay is located at the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park in West Virginia as their locomotive No. 5. It was first bought in 1905 by the West Virginia Pulp & Paper Co. at Cass. Number 5 is in fact still running on its original rail since it first ran in 1905.
The Camino-Placerville & Lake Tahoe No. 2, a three-truck Shay, is on display at the Travel Town Museum in Los Angeles' Travel Town Museum.
The Roaring Camp and Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad operates the No. 1 Dixiana (Class B, s/n 2593 of 1912) and the No. 7 Sonora (Class C, s/n 2465 of 1911).
Railtown 1897 preserves a class C Shay, Sierra Railroad No. 2, and occasionally runs it as part of its excursion trains.
The Colorado Railroad Museum holds two Shays, Nos. 12 and 14 which operated on the Georgetown Loop Railroad for about 20 years.
The New Jersey Museum of Transportation at Allaire State Park is currently restoring the 36-inch gauge Ely-Thomas Lumber Company No. 6. This locomotive ran on the Pine Creek Railroad from around 1955 through 2002, when she was taken out of service for boiler work.
The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad owns and operates two former West Side Lumber Company Shays, Nos. 10 and 15, on its line just south of Yosemite National Park.
Stephen F. Austin State University has a Shay locomotive (s/n 2005 of 1907) on display outside of the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture in Nacogdoches, TX.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum owns one operational engine constructed from two locomotives, numbered engines 3 and 4 built for the Merrill & Ring Lumber Co., Ltd and used in their forestry operations at Theodosia Arm on the British Columbia mainland. This Shay is operated by volunteers of the Bytown Railway Society.
The Graham County Railroad No. 1925, (Class C, s/n 3256 of 1925), survives at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, NC. It ran at the museum 1997–2005 when the engine needed more boiler work. Since then it has been stored in the roundhouse as a static exhibit, and the universal joints have been removed.
Serial number 3345, a class C Shay built for New Mexico Lumber Co. in 1929, survives at the Hesston Steam Museum in Hesston, Indiana. This was the last narrow gauge Shay built. It was acquired by the LaPorte County Historical Steam Society and moved to the Hesston Steam Museum, where it was damaged in an engine house fire in 1985. It was rebuilt and resumed operation in 2006.
West Side Lumber Company No. 9 (Class C, s/n 3199 of 1923) was purchased by the Midwest Central Railroad in 1966, and with a minor refurbishment in the mid '90s, continued to operate at their southeastern Iowa location. The locomotive was used during the MCRR's three operating sessions (the Midwest Old Threshers' Reunion, Midwest Haunted Rails, and the North Pole Express). In January, 2011, the MCRR and the Georgetown Loop Railway entered into a 7 to 10 year agreement where the 9 has been refurbished by the GLRR staff. It went into revenue passenger service at the Georgetown Loop Railway on July 14, 2012.
Cadillac, Michigan also features a Shay Locomotive in a downtown park, in homage to the city's importance in the locomotive's manufacture.
The Illinois Railway Museum, the largest railroad museum in the US, runs a three truck three cylinder Lima built in 1929, a veteran of the J. Neils Lumber Company.
The last Shay built, Western Maryland Railway No. 6 (s/n 3354 of 1945), still operates on the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. The second largest Shay ever built, this 150 ton Class C locomotive was in service only five years when it was retired and placed in the B&O Railroad Museum. In 1981 it was removed from static display, in exchange for a smaller Shay and a Porter locomotive, and placed in service on the Cass Scenic Railroad, as their No. 6. Nicknamed "Big 6", it has now served in tourist and enthusiast service for a longer period than it did for its original owners. It is the largest Shay currently in existence. Cass Scenic Railroad is also the home of the largest collection of operational geared steam locomotives in the world
There is a 28 Ton, narrow gauge Class B Shay locomotive No. 31, restored at the Alishan Forest Railway in Taiwan. It was the second of the Alishan Shays to be restored and is to be used with restored Shay No. 26. Most of the Alishan's Shays survive on display in Taiwan, although one (No. 14), has been exported to Australia's Puffing Billy Railway.
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Famous quotes containing the word survivors:
“I want to celebrate these elms which have been spared by the plague, these survivors of a once flourishing tribe commemorated by all the Elm Streets in America. But to celebrate them is to be silent about the people who sit and sleep underneath them, the homeless poor who are hauled away by the city like trash, except it has no place to dump them. To speak of one thing is to suppress another.”
—Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)
“I believe that all the survivors are mad. One time or another their madness will explode. You cannot absorb that much madness and not be influenced by it. That is why the children of survivors are so tragic. I see them in school. They don’t know how to handle their parents. They see that their parents are traumatized: they scream and don’t react normally.”
—Elie Wiesel (b. 1928)