This video picture is worth a thousand words. Way to funny. We could run it on our abandon trackage year round. James

Here's another idea for when the roads are drier (and it goes faster!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TOxxZQy7FQ

There is precedent. About 1980, Jimmy McHugh wanted to explore the abandoned St. Peter's (Pa.) branch of the Reading Company's Wilmington & Northern RR to see if the pipe culverts were worth buying from the bankruptcy trustee's scrap dealer for reuse on the New Hope & Ivyland RR. When he found that the rails and ties were already gone so a Hi-rail vehicle or truck couldn't be used for the excursion, he got the idea of borrowing off road motorcycles from his son's girlfriend's family. If the pipes were worth buying, earth moving equipment would be used to make an access road.

Alex, I'll take "Lombard Log Hauler" for 500 please...

"What do you get when you cross a Climax Locomotive and a Half Track?"

Gentlement:

For your summer road-locomotive needs, I give you the Kramer Road Locomotive:

http://youtu.be/4TOxxZQy7FQ

Just as a bit of background....

The wonderfully restored Lombard is the result of 13 years of work by Dave Clark and Don Johnson with the help of a few others. Dave's family owns Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln, New Hampshire - home of the standard gauge White Mountain Central Railroad which Dave maintains in meticulous condition. Steam motive power includes a Baldwin 2-4-2t and a Climax. Non-operable locomotives include a Heisler, a Shay and a Porter 0-4-0. They also have the ex-Rumford Falls & Rangley Lakes Rail bus among other goodies.

In addition to the Lombard, Clark's has a Erie "B" steam shovel in operating condition as well as a Linn tractor. During their annual September steam-up you can see most if not all of their operating equipment under steam.

In regards to the Lombard. Dave and Don literally built it from pieces. It was probably built in about 1913 and was abandoned (along with a companion) at Knowles Brook on the St. John River in 1926. Sheet metal thrown over the machines and sled runners leaning against the sides formed a crude shelter.

From the few records that survive there are hints that it may have been one of three Lombards purchased by the Eastern Manufacturing Co. in 1908 and used in township 9-14 until abandoned on-site in 1913. The St. John Lumber Co. records show that during the summer of 1918 John A. Morrison (a contractor) swamped a 30 mile road at a cost of $20,500 dollars into the site and salvaged three of the Lombard's which were used extensively until 1926. This gives you some idea of the value placed on these machines.

In the late 1960's a gentleman using a D8 tried to remove one of 20 ton machines from its resting spot. Unfortunately it was frozen in and he only succeeded in ripping it into pieces. Than to facilitate the removal of the second machine he bulldozed it under. He than thawed the ground around the second Lombard and managed to remove it - today it is housed at the University of Maine's Forest history museum and is nearing the end of a long restoration back to operation.

Anyway, in 1977 Dave, Don and friends salvaged the remains of the destroyed Lombard and began the very, long and painstaking restoration. They figure they used the remains of at least five different Lombards to build a complete machine. Today its only one of two steam Lombards in operating condition out of a total of 5 surviving machines.



Best regards,

Terry Harper