I read this in a camp newsletter. Can anyone help me with what happened to H-B #1 Shay?

"There is a missing Shay Locomotive somewhere near Hume. During the logging days, the Hume-Bennett Company owned three Shay locomotives, numbered 1, 2, and 3. Legend has it that one spring, locomotive #1 slid off of the track somewhere near Camp 7 and plummeted down the mountainside. Records of the locomotive’s existence have been verified by Hume Lake staff—three were purchased according to purchase slips, three were photographed throughout their time in the Hume Bennett fleet, and just two—locomotives 2 and 3—were sold with sale slips. The locomotives were a large asset to the company, rendering the sale of all three likely, especially given the sale of the other two and the sale of less valuable equipment. It would seem, given all of the proof that locomotive #1 did exist and the proof that it was not sold when the others were, that the legend of its demise is true. Despite years of searching, only one person has ever been documented to have found the Shay since it went missing—a Forest Service ranger in the district during the 1950s, as “verified” by a picture of him standing on the Shay shown to Bob Phillips, Hume’s Director At Large. Many believe that it’s out there, but no one now living has been able to find the legendary shay."

I do not know about the Hume-Bennett Shay. Which would be in the California Sierra Nevada mountains.

However, I wish to tell of a conversation I had with a logging line explorer up in the Sumpter, Oregon, area.

This gentleman reports to have traced and walked many of the logging lines that connected with the Sumpter Valley RR. He has also studied the locomotive rosters of these lines. He feels that a number of out-of-service (and needing repair) locomotives were left in the woods when the lines were abandoned and removed. This being because the metal value at the time was too low to justify their removal. From recreational hikers he has heard of these being seen in the woods and has tried to locate them during his hikes.

He continues his story that on several occasions he has come upon an apparent site of one of these locomotives. The adjacent ground and hillside is torn up with tracks of crawler tractors and signs of a large object being skidded up the hillside. Sometimes, the marks are fresh. He believes that the locomotive was there until a recent scrapper found it, and removed it.

So we have a lost locomotive that was found, lost and then found again by a salvager who removed it. How often has this happened and we and the Forest Service has lost an artifact?

I need the Hume-Bennett information because I have several friends (not scrappers) who want to look for it where it was rumored to have met its demise. The real question is whether anyone knows of any provenance indicating another end to the Hume-Bennett Lumber Company shay such as a sales slip of scrapper records or photo or something.

Brian, for what it is worth, I am a believer along with the person you mention that there is something out there in the woods in the Sumpter country. I talked to a fellow several years ago that I regarded as reliable that talked of things he, and or his step father had seen in a certain area many years before, which included a whole barrel full of brass parts. I assume the brass parts were spare or scrap jounal brasses. Unfortunately this particular locomotive and parts find was seen 40-50 years ago, and is one of the locations that may have been found by a scrapper. Other reports remain to be explored.

Based on what I've seen in the past few months with my other hobby, the thought of someone finding a lost loco and scrapping it is very plausible. I was at a salvage yard last week to inspect 2 vintage cars. They had been in the yard less than 12 hours and upon a quick inspection, I agreed to pay more than the going rate of $11/100 lbs (I offered 300 per car, with the hulk or roughly 75% of the weight, coming back in a week for them to recycle). The owner's wife asked that I come back the next morning as she wanted to make sure her husband was OK with the deal. I called him myself that night and found out that both cars were already shredded. He apologized and said that the scrap metal business was just moving too fast right now, and his crew didn't really understand to not scrap these two. He went on to tell me how anyone with any kind of load carrying vehicle was bringing in any metal they could get their hands on. The owner is a decent and honest man, I don't hold him at any fault.
The public awareness of the value of scrap is a real threat to anything not nailed down. Sorry - didn't mean to high-jack the thread, but I think it bears some revelance and I sure hope that this fate doesn't wait some great treasure out there waiting to be found.

Mike Stillwell
Buena Vista, VA.

Only book I've seen on the line is They Felled the Redwoods by Hank Johnston. And it does not have any roster information about either of the two operations (Sanger Lumber and Hume-Bennett) that it covers.

The book has a map that shows camp locations with numbers.

Any one have more information?

I consider the thread hi-jacked.

Bringing it back to Hume-Bennett

The only book on the subject, They Felled the Redwoods by Hank Johnson is light on roster information but reading it the shut down was a long protracted process. The line was operated under a lease/option and there was some confusion over which assets were controlled by the Hume family vs. the lease holder. Shaylocomotive.com lists all three locos as scrapped, but does note one had its running gear scrapped first then its boiler scrapped later (this could be a good origin of a survivor story)

The area the railroad ran is now mostly National Park or recreation area, and is well hiked and explored. The Flume from the saw mill to the SP railhead is another story. In placed its high on the canyon wall in steep river canyons. Its tough country to get around in (not to mention the presence of world class rattle snakes)

As someone familiar with the area, I suspect that this is mostly story, but it may be a reason to go hiking in the area. The other informed possibility would suggest looking at the nearby San Joaquin & Eastern railroad used to build the Southern California Edison Big Creek Project. It ran through rougher areas, and had lots of construction locos with less certain histories, along with cable inclines in very rough country, much more likely to produce a lost loco.

I frequently track down stories of stuff left in the woods, both on foot, and on paper. In most cases I find that there is a basis for the origin of the story, but the origin story is just that, an origin. Most of the time the story had a middle and end, and the end includes removal of the object...

On the other hand, I have found a complete narrow gauge flatcar with trucks and link and pin couplers sitting in a national forest, sitting next to a second flat car body on disconnect trucks. Several years ago our group located a 1903 flatcar wreck, complete with trucks. 40 miles from my home there is a rubber spring standard gauge disconnect truck in a creek.

Additionally I have seen two steam engine wrecks which occasionally show at low tide, both very far gone...

I have also search for car bodies, described as a early narrow gauge coach, only to find a steel caboose body. The worst one was two narrow gauge flatcar bodies with very exacting directions which turned out to be a PFE reefer.

Good luck looking for the beast...

Sorry to dissapoint you all, but my Shay records clearly show that H-B #1 (Shay c/n #350) was scrapped in 1929.

Jump over to the NG Discussion board for a photo I posted of her there.

Martin

Randy,

Was there ever any archaeology at the site of the Alameda ferry terminal fire?

I understand that it is known exactly which cars and locomotives were in the terminal when it burned?

Has anything been found there?

For those out of the Bay Area the South Pacific Coast was the most profitable narrow gauge railroad in California.

Ted Miles

At the risk of contributing to the hijacking of the thread, again...

We worked with the Navy when they were doing the Base Closure EIR. They included the site of the 19th century SPC ferry terminal as an archological site in that document, so if in the future there is development planned the historic artifacts need to be taken into account.

For those of you not familiar with the site and its history, this was the northern terminal of the South Pacific Coast Railroad, a narrow gauge line connecting San Francisco via ferry from Alameda with Santa Cruz 80 miles to the south in competition with the Southern Pacific.

In 1883 they built a new ferry terminal well out into the bay. By 1887 the line was leased to the Southern Pacific.

On November 20, 1902 a fire destroyed the Ferry terminal, including 31 narrow gauge and 16 standard gauge passenger cars. No locomotives were lost. We believe no freight cars were lost.

Those cars still lay on the floor of San Francisco Bay in a large mound. This was confirmed by the Navy.

For railroad preservationist, this is a problem... While there is information and artifacts to be found, they won't contribute to our operations, and anything found will be unrestorable. Our collective model does not work well with a salvage project of this magnitude.

Did you ever get out looking for this? Any luck? I am a staff at Hume Lake and was recently talking to Bob Philips about it. There is a group of us that want to go look around. Was wondering if you could share where you looked, how far you scaled down the ravine, etc. I did find that 2 Shays have records of being scrapped, however Shay #2 only shows the running gear and boiler as being scrapped. Shay #3 does not have any record of being scrapped, just that it was the newest one the Hume-Bennett company owned having it built in 1916.

I see that you posted this about 5 years ago, so you may not get this message, but if you do feel free to contact Lucas at Hume. Just call the general number and ask for me, I would love to talk to you.

I have seen the photo of a man standing on the turned over Shay. The photo was shown me about 15 years ago.

I was not wearing my glasses when I saw the subject.

Harve Bennett was a director for a number of Star Trek Movies.

GAD!!! I thought it was way off topic........ <embarresed grin)

Doug vV
Exit Stage Right - Snagglepuss.

Do you remember where you saw the photo or who showed it to you? I was talking to Bob Philips about this and he seems to remember seeing this photo but couldn't remember where he saw it.