Recent content by LE BARON

The San Joaquin & Eastern Railroad was one of the very few common carrier railroads that used Climax Locomotives in regular service. The grades on the upper end of this railroad required geared locomotives and both Shays and Climax locomotives were used. Here we see SJ&E #106 and her train on...

nman-Polson Lumber 2-truck Shay #4 and her crew stop at the yards at Keasey, Oregon long enough for Clark Kinsey to snap this photo.

The Western Pacific roundhouse in Portola, California was a wonderful place for railfans to visit during the age of steam on the WP. We can see that in this early view showing WP 2-6-6-2 #206 on the Portola turntable on a fine spring day in the late 1920's.

The proud crew of Western Pacific 2-6-6-2 #202 stands by their charge at the servicing track at the WP yards in Portola, California in 1926.

Western Pacific 2-6-6-2 #201 certainly fills the turntable at the SP roundhouse in Portola, California in the late 1920's.

Here we see the afternoon ritual of steam railroading being played out. Pacific Coast Railway narrow gauge 2-8-0 #108 has completed her work for the day and her crew is tucking her away for the night into her stall in the roundhouse at San Luis Obispo, California. In a few minutes her fireman...

By April 7, 1936 when Charles Caine visited the S. Tacoma shops of the Northern Pacific, he found little NP 0-4-2T pushed out back in the scrap yard. What a shame she could not have bee saved.

Built in Chicago, this vehicle offered a quiet, refined alternative to the loud and often unreliable gasoline-powered cars of its era. While early combustion engines required dangerous hand-cranking and constant maintenance, the Woods Electric eliminated these concerns entirely. With its smooth...

Celebrating the 70s!! When CARS had balls....and GIRLS DIDN"T!

The year is 1940 and a couple of railfans ar visiting Modoc Point, Oregon where they have discovered a pair of Lima logging locomotives in the form of Lamm Lumber 2-truck Shay #2 and 2-6-0 #4. Both of these locomotives are kept hot from steam being piped to them from the nearby Lamm Lumber mill...

There were only a handful of railroads in the West that lasted into the late 1950's that were all steam until the end. this is one such line. We see here the C.D. Johnson Lumber Co. yard in Siletz, Oregon in June 1952. Baldwin 2-6-2T #2 is stopped in the yard before proceeding on to the landing...

She was the second to the last of the famous fleet of cab-in-the-rear articulated Lima Superpower locomotives built for the Southern Pacific in 1939. She was power style and grace when she arrived in Texas to be set up and was still a formidable piece of motive power when she was transferred in...

Very few steam locomotives that were built in 1884 were still in active service as late as 1949, however this particular one beat the odds as we see here. The date is June 1, 1949 and this product of the Lima Locomotive & Machine Works is still going strong as she switches the...

There is a reason why there are summer and winter blends or than enviro regs.

Good thing Enviro Can makes them switch. Their customers would be in deep dodo otherwise. I've seen pumps taken out by summer blend fuel because it was too hot. Winter blend in the summer would be a very expensive proposition