The Shay, on display at the Lima Ohio museum, went airborne yesterday as it moved from one location to another. It traveled to a new resting spot in a display building under construction.

http://www.limalocomotiveworks.com/Shay_10.htm

I find it interesting they moved it still on the panel track. Good idea because it puts less stress on the wheels and trucks.

Putting it under cover! Somebody is thinking!

If you look closely at the picture, they are lifting by straps under the centers of the trucks, the track is chained to the locomotive! Also note the blocking underneath the water tank. If you look at the bottom of the tank you'll notice something got a little bent before they stopped to put the blocking in.

Still, good the the engine to get under cover. Not sure what the white building was, save a temporary enclosure.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Now this is a flying Shay:

Santa Cruz Lumber No. 2: Unloaded off the SP in Felton, CA, and "flown" by cable into Saratoga Gap, where it was reassembled and put into service. There were no roads ad the time, and the rugged Butano redwood county didn't afford a better option, so off it went. No such worries about getting it out of the canyon; the company had it cut up on site, despite the objections of CMO/engineer Ed Paulson, who salvaged the cab sand box, throttle linkage and a few other odds and ends for Roaring Camp's "Dixiana."

The engine has been under cover for years at the museum. I guess they are finally adding the addition to the museum and moving the Shay to it.

If Shays could fly..... dreams would come true!

Nice to see that little girl get a new home!

Still on my list of places to go!

Jim

That little shelter that it is being lifted out of was its home for many years. One side was plexiglas so it could be seen from the street, but you couldn't get inside the building to see it. I would imagine that the loco will now sit inside the main museum where it can be seen from all sides without scratched up plexiglas in the way.

I knew a shay was designed for rough truck but isnt this overdoing it?

8-P

interesting choice of manuever rather than roll it out, perhaps it saved a lot of mechanical work on the engine to roll it out. Just pick it up and move it.

waitaminute, didnt Lima build its last lokie in 1949 the NKP 779?
Stopframe here. probably the last full engine but this shay gets the distinction of the last steamer outshopped by Lima, I'll bet the ole steam builders there put their talents on this shay to bring it back to condition.
They had to build a new smokebox at least.

If I remember some old news items correctly, the Allen County Historical Society went looking for a Shay in the mid-1950's, and found one right in town. Its owners had already started cutting it up when the museum asked for it. Their museum is a very nice one, with lots of local color, a NKP 2-8-4, and some Lima material.

Aarne Frobom
Sheet Steel House, Michigan