RailStar Corporation of Cape Vincent, New York, is excited to announce the undertaking of a feasibility study to construct brand new geared steam locomotives. The locomotive design would follow the Shay type with emphasis on 45 to 70 ton engines. In announcing the study, RailStar President Ron Trottier emphasized that new construction may provide a viable alternative to extend the presentation of steam railroading well into the future.

I posted the (brief) announcement above, which I received in an email from info@railstarusa.com, after first verifying that the source and the message were on the up and up. Based on that verification we know the planned study is serious but RyPN has no idea what the parameters of the study are and what factors, economics certainly being a major one, might, or might not, result in new Shays actually being built.

So, clearly this is a newsworthy item, worthy of a brief or article, but I am still in Korea, my time is very limited, and it would have been very difficult to try and contact RailStar to get more information. And, RailStar wanted the release posted, so here we are on the Interchange.

I assume there will be follow on discussion and more information about the study will be forthcoming.

Please don't contact me as I know nothing more than what's above. I assume it's OK to contact the email address RailStar sent the announcement from.

If the boilers are as good as the original shay boilers then they should be good for another century. Some of the existing shay boilers probably still are. As much as I love shays I can not help wondering if a similar size rod engine would be easier to market.

John Bohon

In a recent e-mail to a friend Here's part of it

...the wooden boat folks undertake huge projects all the time and succeed. Where is our large project? Well for one I'm thinking of replicating NN Ry #20. Its a 4-6-0. The reason being is that I can not continue to use our historic locomotives in excursion service. One day in the future they will need to be put up and only fired up for very special occasions. I'm not going to start on the 20 project for about 6-8 years, but it is in the back of my head...

I think this is an issue that we will have to look at sooner or later. After all where are the V & T fols going to get the loco's they need?

[quote="John Bohon"]As much as I love shays I can not help wondering if a similar size rod engine would be easier to market.[/quote]

The market for a Shay locomotive, new or used, would tend to be more limited than for a conventional side-rod engine, I'd think.

[quote="Mark S Bassett"] Well for one I'm thinking of replicating NN Ry #20. Its a 4-6-0.[/quote]

How would 'replicating' [from scratch, i.e. new construction] compare with 'authenticating' [i.e. kitbashing an extant locomotive]? I'm thinking in terms of relatively recently manufactured or rebuilt engines--the strategically mothballed Ten-wheelers from Scandinavia in particular come to mind ('Americanization')...

Oh, boy, where's the on line order form!?

Hmm.. do I want arch bar or cast steel trucks... superheater... cross compound... decisions, decisions!

jim

The replication project as I imagine it would serve a four-fold purpose. First it would bring modern construction techniques and boiler practices to the steam locomotive. Make no mistake; the replicas would be engineer to take advantage of today’s practices. The goal being that this would make the locomotive less expensive to operate and maintain, yet look historically accurate.

Secondly, we need to teach the skills needed to build and maintain steam locomotives here in this country. And yes we can do it. Big projects happen all of the time; the steam fraternity needs to look at best practices from other organizations and implement them in house.

Thirdly, if we are going to take such a big leap, I want to start from scratch and build American locomotives. About a year ago there was a photo layout in a national magazine on steam locomotives and the majority of them were Canadian locomotives. And of course we now have Chinese locomotives. My hat is tipped to all of these people who are keeping steam locomotives in operation. But if we are to go back to the drawing board, then I want an American locomotive, designed in this country and built in this country. (I’ll furl the flag now.)

Lastly, the appliances from such a program would be of immense help to our industry. Need a dynamo, air pumps, bell, drivers, wheels, axles, lubricators, etc.? They would be available.

In the next decade or so there is going to be a need for new steam locomotives. The V & T comes to mind. A new fuel efficient (read clean burning, smokeless) narrow gauge locomotive might be needed also. But in any case, the Nevada Northern will seriously have to look at putting up its century old locomotives, so hence the need is for us but anyone is invited to join in. (There is the historic preservation arguement that we are consuming the fabric of our original locomotives. I'll leave that argument for another day, but that's why we need new locomotives.)

I picked the 4-6-0 because it is historic to us and the article that TRAINS ran last year on how the six coupled locomotive was ideal for our applications. With enough forethought, the locomotive could be designed to be delivered to the customer in modules. For instance, just a boiler, frame, and drivers, the final customer would build a cab, lag the boiler, wrap it, put on the appliances, plumb, paint it etc. Imagine if you will a 1:1 model kit. This would take advantage of the volunteer labor force that some of our organizations have. The tender could be delivered the same way or maybe the organization has a tender that could be used.

With a little more imagination there could be options for a 2-8-2 or a 4-4-0 American. And remember the big narrow gauge locomotives started life as standard gauge locomotives. These are my musings. I haven’t developed a full program yet by any stretch of the imagination. But since RailStar started the discussion, I thought I would jump on the bandwagon too.

Hi Everyone,

If your going to take the time and design a new steam locomotive, why not make it standardized and design it with enough foresite that if someone wants a 2-6-2 or a 2-8-0 or a 4-6-0 or a 2-8-2, that it can be built and the majority of the pieces will work on any of the locomotives. More like and EMD... one peice fits almost all...

Just a thought,

Stuart

PS. Frisco 1506 and Davenport 2360 are still available.....

I guess the price of Trains Magazine is going up if the editor is ordering a new shay for his garage.

John Bohon

I suspect the reasons a Shay pattern locomotive is being looked at are many:

Frame is easy to fabricate (common structural steel).
Most parts are probably in production somewhere, or are easy to fabricate/cast--especially the three cylinder engine components, everything is rather small and simpler to fabricate, and one engine can be applied to any number of locomotives of any gauge.
Appliances are off the shelf items (with required tweaking) from China via Multipower or whomever.
Locomotive can operate over poor track and generally at speeds suited for many tourist/shortlines--in addition to hobby market (yep I suspect a lot of people would buy a 24" gauge Shay.
Boilers would be smaller and less costly to fabricate.

While a lot of people might think that Railstar should replicate a particular design of locomotive, they really don't need to. After all, new engines built in this day and age are history unto themselves. I am sure that if there was a rod engine design that could translate across multiple gauges and was not filled with complex castings (driver centers, cylinder block, etc) and large forged parts (rods), then they would look at building rod engines.

If Railstar can bring a decent two truck Shay to market for under $750,000 (and that is possible I suspect), then they would probably sell quite a few.

How this proposal would link to their involvement with the Georgetown loop is probably immaterial, since there are other operations that Railstar can become involved in (Argentine Central has been mentioned elsewhere) and other operators would be interested in well designed new power.

I wish them the best in this venture.

Michael Seitz

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folks,

How about leasing a locomotive from a museum, or taking one out of a park for your excursion needs. and keeping your natives for special occasions.

For example the two locomotives that run on the Grand Canyon Railroad never turned a wheel there; but they do fine in excursion trains.

How about a Canadian engine? Steamtown NHS seems to have several of them.

There are still too many locomotives from the steam period that are real to need to be building replicas.

Besides didn't the V&T commission just buy an engine for the time they have a place to run it?

Ted Miles