Diamond Match Co. 104, apparently somewhere in the Bay Area, 1957. Did it survive? I can't find it listed.

http://abpr2.railfan.net/abprphoto.cgi?july03/07-12-03/Diamond_Match_Shay_104_1957-001-Anderson.jpg
ryarger@rypn.org

> Diamond Match Co. 104, apparently somewhere
> in the Bay Area, 1957. Did it survive? I
> can't find it listed.

This locomotive did not survive.

For starters, although it looks like a Shay, it is not a Shay...this is a Willamette. Willamette Industries in Portland was a major manufacturer of logging equipment to the northwest. Ohio is a long ways away from Oregon and Washington, and quite often the local loggers would send their Shays to Willamette for major maintenance and rebuilds instead of shipping them back to Lima. Willamette thus had a deep understanding of how Shays were put together...they also had a good understanding of the shortcomings of the Shay and what the west coast loggers would like to see done to improve the locomotive. When the patent for the Shay type locomotive expired in the early 1920's Willamette was able to start producing it's own line of locomotives based off of the Shay design.

Diamond Match #104 was one of 33 shay-type locomotive built by Willamette between 1922 and 1929 (31 3-truck models, 2 2-truck models). While the company built a comparitively small number of locomotives, it had a huge imapct on the geared locomotive market. The manufacturers of the geared steam locomotives (Lima and it's Shays, Stearns and it's Heisler, and the Climax Corp.) had all done very little to upgrade their products in the two or three decades leading up to the introduction of the Willamette, but after the Willamette was introduced Lima responded with it's Pacific Coast Shay and Heisler came out with it's West Coast Special, both of which incorporated all of the most recent technology in locomotive power. It is doubtfull that these upgrades would have happened if it were not for the Willamette locomotive.

Diamond Match Company had a huge match factory just south of Chico, California. They had a common carrier railroad (the Butte County Railroad) that ran east into the mountains from Chico through Paradise to Stirling City, where the company had a huge sawmill. The Butte County Railroad was eventually sold to the Southern Pacific to become the SP's Stirling City branch. Diamond Match had an extensive logging railroad system, a good part of it built to meter gauge. The #104 was purchased new by the company in 1927, and it served it's entire life out on the Diamond Match logging railroad. The entire area of Inskip/Butte Meadows/Lyons in the mountains east of Chico is littered with old Diamond Match roadbeds.

This picture could not have been taken in 1957, as the #104 (along with the rest of the Diamond Match Railroad) was scrapped in 1953. The Stirling City sawmill continued in operation until 1958, when it was closed down for good (although a stud mill was later built on the site in 1964; it operated until 1974). The Stirling City branch came out a short time later.

There is a good book about the Diamond Match operations in California, Matches Flumes and Rails by Kent Stephens (Trans Anglo books, 1977). Fascinating book about a fascinating operation.

One last note...of 33 Willamettes built, 6 remain in existence today. They are:

1. Western Lumber Company/Anaconda Copper Company Lumber Division locomotive, currently on display at Fort Missoula State Park.

2. Crown-Willamette (later Crown Zellerbach) #6, on display in Cathlamet, Washington.

3. Rayonier Inc. #4 (ex-Long Bell), on display in Port Angeles, Washington.

4. Medford Corporation #4, currently undergoing restoration in Medford, Oregon.

5. Medford Corporation #7, on display at the Railroad Park Resort near Dunsmuir, California.

6. Rayonier Inc. #2...last steam locomotive to operate on that company's Sieku, Washington line. Stored for many years in a private collection in Port Angeles, Washington, but was recently moved to the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad in Elbe, Washington, for potential return to operation.

Hope this helps.

JD Moore
Elko, NV

http://www.trainweb.org/mccloudrails
jamoore@elko.net