Assuming the covers over the wheels are for keeping branches (and fingers) from being ground-up grist mill style, are there any preserved examples with these "wheel skirts?" The photo comes from a story in the latest edition of Smithsonian Magazine. http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/index.php
Also, is it my imagination or is that 35 lb. rail under there???

Also intersting is that each cylinder has a seperate exhaust line. I don't recall ever having seen such an arangment.

What railroad?

Truly odd - I think there was a Shay built as a street railway dummy that had an enclosed gear train, as well as the usual dummy enclosure to keep it from scaring the horses. Can't remember where I saw the photo.

Or, it could be the beginnings of EPA regulation to prevent crater from being flung off onto the ROW - is this in California by any chance?

dave

Lackawanna Lumber Company.

The article was about the discovery of a cache of glass plate negatives taken by William T. Clarke, sort of a Darius Kinsey for the forests and logging operations of north-central Pennsylvania. Clarke is previously known from photos taken in lumber camps between 1910 and 1915. Most of his work was lost when stored in a barn with a leaky roof.

The collection discussed in Smithsonian was found in a tool shed in the early 1970s. Locations and dates (1897 and 1898) had been scratched onto the plates, but not the identity of the photographer. The finder was curious about the negatives and saved them, but only started actively investigating them in 2004. With the help of a Pennsylvania state archivist, the photographer was identified as Clarke.

The early Shays had an exhaust line for each cylinder. The one in the picture likely dates before 1890.

Go to this website and see the shop numbers in the 200 range (bolded s/n's have pictures). Many had the gear covers in that range and one in the picture appears to be S/N 242 built June 1889,

http://www.shaylocomotives.com/data/dataframe.htm