Thread: Geared steam locos

There's a 2' gauge Shay very slowly under construction at the Illawarra Light Railway at Albion Park Rail, NSW. It uses 2' gauge bogies from a scrapped cane tram Shay, sister to the one posted above (Mapleton/Nambour), and various components from a pair of 2'6" gauge Shays recovered from QLD many years ago, that had been dynamited by scrappies to get the copper firebox out. The 2 cylinder engine unit is being built from some marine engine cylinder castings, crankshaft is finished, bogies restored, frames complete, boiler (from a 2' gauge Davenport loco) is sitting on the frames too. Lots of other projects to be completed first and four other steam locos to keep running!

The Wolgan Valley Shays were the only standard gauge Shays in Aus, #1 was a 65 tonner, #2 & #3 were 70 tonners and #4 a 90 tonner, the largest in Aus. After those four, the next largest was around 42 tons and 3'6" gauge, owned and operated by Bunnings in WA, back when they were a timber milling concern and not just a tool supermarket. I think that one started its working life in Tasmania on the North Mt Lyell Railway, along with a 20 ton Shay that ended up at Lahey's Tramway, Canungra, QLD.

There is also most of a Shay in private ownership in Melbourne, a 3' gauge 32 tonner originally from the Lloyd copper mines of Burraga in NSW, then later the Powelltown timber co operated it in Victoria. AFAIK this loco is only missing the bogies.
All bar the first proof of concept Shays were built by Lima. When the patents expired the Willamette engineering works built some very similar locomotives though with technological and servicing enhancements.
I think the smallest Shays ever built under patent were around 9 or 10 tons, the smallest in Aus was the 12 tonners of Mapleton, later Maroochy and Nambour.

The live steam Shay at Galston is 5" gauge and is based on the Wolgan Valley #2 or #3 Shay, but with #4's larger engine unit.

If you want weird and wonderful contraptions, google New Zealand Geared Locomotives, they were incredibly ingenius, with 16 wheel drive locomotives and a variety of cylinder layouts. There were a couple of internal combustion contraptions too, a pair of truck cabs welded back to back with a pair of 6 wheel powered bogies underneath for example.

Further to the tank that Ron wrote about, the bridge girders just below the glow worm tunnel are the main frames of Shay #1, you can see the cast iron truss rod mounts on them amongst other details.
The brass bell from, I think, number 3 was or is used in a church in Ainslie in the ACT and a few other parts (builder's plates/smokebox wheel) survive in private collections.

There are actually parts of a Shay or two dumped in a mainline railway embankment in QLD, but they are very much rotten and very hard to extract due to being under the railway!