Columbia River mouth and museum

More Maritime Museum pix

The Columbia River Maritime Museum features both river and ocean displays, and specifically highlights the Coast Guard and their history. It is a well-done museum, probably better viewed on a day when 2 NCL ships, the NORWEGIAN STAR and NORWEGIAN PEARL, weren't in port though...Astoria is a regular port of call, but this was the only day when 2 ships were there at the same time.
Picture 1 shows the area where the riverboat pilothouse which Keith saw years ago probably stood. Picture 2 shows one of several excellent steamboat models, this one of the BAILEY GATZERT. Picture 3 is a collection of whistles and bells.

More Maritime Museum pix

Picture 1 is a collection of beacons and lights.
Picture 2 shows the lightship COLUMBIA, which is part of the museum tour. A crew would serve a two to three week shift on the ship, which was at a stationary point the entire time, and was used in lieu of a land-based lighthouse. Picture 3 aboard the COLUMBIA shows the light.

More Maritime Museum pix

And finally, here is a view of the very busy port of Astoria, taken from aboard the lightship COLUMIBIA. That is the NCL NORWEGIAN PEARL at anchor. Her passengers were lined up by the lightship dock to board the tenders to return to the ship. There is one freighter upbound and one downbound. Just out of the picture is another downbound cargo ship, and 3 ship tenders. Those are the hills in the state of Washington in the background. Oceangoing vessels can go up the Columbia as far as Portland, which is about 100 river miles - a similar situation as the Mississippi and New Orleans (but ships can go up another 134 miles as far as Baton Rouge, for a total of 229 miles).
And simply because I have space for another picture, here is an old unidentified steam locomotive stored at the Tillamook Air Museum, an old WWII blimp hangar.

Museum

Hi Judy,

Nice pix of the museum. I cannot remember the name of the museum's site, but if you find it, there is a web cam mounted on the roof. The cool thing about it is that YOU get to control it. What direction and zoom level. I used to focus on the Empress of the North when she was docked there, so I could see, and then call, my crewmates right from the comfort of my home.

In addition, Astoria itself is a very nice river town.

Paul

OK railroad buffs, what is that?

Is it a Shay locomotive? Just a guess.

Close, Bob...I believe it is a Heisler. A Shay has vertical cylinders arranged on the right side of the boiler only. The balloon stack indicates a wood-burner, methinks. Shays and Heislers were much used by the timber industry on steep grades and poor temporary trackage as well as on main lines. In some instances logs themselves were used as railroad rails...the train wheels looking much like a modern car wheel sans tire! Being geared and not direct connected, they had great power (torque) for their size. Jim Herron will set us straight Cap'n Walnut

Paul,try,
Welcome to the Columbia River Maritime Museum
to link to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. There is a link to the webcam on this page. It is a great webcam if you are in control. If not you must watch someone else play with it. John

I had emailed pix to both Jim Blum and Jim Herron. JB immediately noted it was a lumberyard worker, and here's what Jim Herron wrote: " It is a 42 ton Heisler 2 Truck locomotive number 2 from Broughton Lumber Company. The two cylinders turn a crankshaft that is connected to the two trucks. Heislers were found mostly on logging railroads because they could operate over very minimum quality tracks." He also pointed out the Oregon Coast Scenic RR in Garibaldi OR, which runs a 60 ton Heisler Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad This runs along the coast, between Garibaldi and Rockaway Beach, where we stayed, but I didn't see it. By the way, JH is busy today in Ft. Myers for the first firing of the new boiler for his sternwheeler, so I imagine we'll get a report on that later.

Thanks, Judy! And, best of luck to Jim Herron with his new sternwheeler boiler. Does that mean that the boat is finished, or, just the boiler at this point? Cap'n Walnut

Well, since Judy mentioned it, today was the first firing of the new boiler for the 23 ft sternwheeler I'm now building. Actually, we're re-using the engines and sternwheel from the previous boat which is shown at the end of our video, "Iron Crowns & Paddlewheels".

The old boat suffered to a bad case of dry rot so it was decided to build a new one. I had hoped to re-use the old boiler but it, too was in bad shape, having been an old boiler when I got that boat. The new one is bigger, 24 " diameter and over 4 ft tall and it has copper tubes. It has been water tested to 400 psi so our operating pressures of 90 - 100 lbs should be no problem. Here are some photos from the first actual firing earlier today. The safety valve on it was a temporary one set at 90 psi. We fired it on wood today.
-Jim Herron

1. A view of the boiler.
2. The fire is lit!
3. Burning good and so was the pallet since the heat shield on the bottom was yet to be fitted!

One more boiler picture... popping off

One more photo- the first popping of the safety valve! Although only at 90 psi, this thing really shot out a LOT of steam. When it popped, the thing turned from a straight up position to one angled down toward the ground. Good thing everyone was standing back.
We should have put a whistle on it but none were available at the shop.

a steam powered STERN-wheeler?! Sounds like my kind of project, Jim. Is there anyway you could put up some pictures of the engines (and maybe the boat they came off of before). I'd really like to see them, and I'm sure people on here who haven't seen the video would like to see them as well. Thanks!

Thanks. I knew it wasn't a Shay, or at least not like one I've ever seen. I've never been to that part of the country, so hope I can make it to see some of the sights before I fade away.

Check out the Cass Scenic Railroad website:Cass Scenic Railroad State Park - A West Virginia State Park.

The railroad is owned by the State of West Virginia as a tourist attraction. The website has photos of two of the three types of logging locomotives mentioned. The Shays had an offset boiler to accomodate the two or three vertical cylinders which connected via bevel gears to the shafts which powered the driving wheels.

When running the Shays sound like the end of the earth is happening and run at very slow speed.

If in Lima Ohio, home of the deceased Lima Locomotive Works (where these beasts were built) there is one on display in a glass fronted building in the downtown area.

I have not been to Cass since 1971 but have glorious memories of riding, photographing the operation and sleeping in my car in the parking lot for two nights. The only visible electric light then was one mercury vapor yard type light in the distance. The locomotives were coaled by hand using a wheelbarrow. The main building of the old Mower Lumber Company was still standing then along with some of the drying sheds, all of which I understand are gone now and have been gone for some years.

I somewhat expect that they don't run their Heisler or Climax locomotive(s) nowadays.

Jim: It looks like a dandy. Does it have a "wet" firebox? I note that you are firing with scrap lumber etc. MISS FORTUNE seems to like that too. This is the first time that I've fired with solid fuel and, as suspected, it is a different world! Old shipping skids can be had for nothing locally, but are awkward to buck up into usable pieces and leave lots of off-fall if you don't use the parts with nails. Have you fired with charcoal? Cap'n Walnut.

There was a Shay on the Georgetown Loop RR, here in Colorado and you are right, it doesn't sound even remotely like a conventional locomotive. The Loop has changed ownership and the previous owners took the Shay with them as well as the cars.
The new owners are in the process of restoring 2 ordinary steam engines, which have to be narrow gage. In the meantime, the train is being pulled by a "D" word.

Tom, the wood used was provided by the shop where the boiler was built. However, it did seem to work well but it took a lot of it. We fired it up from cold and only fired it for about 50 minutes before letting it burn out and I was amazed how much it burned. Harry fired the old boiler with coal as well as wood. He bagged the coal in fairly small paper bags prior to taking the boat out which removed the mess of shoveling. I've got a small supply of coal here but will have to find a source for more once we get the boat going. There's a big lumber mill nearby and I'm thinking of asking them for any scrap lumber they have as a source for that. Cutting up pallets is an idea but I think removing the nails could become that just a "chore".

Maybe I should convert to oil. Hmmm.

-Jim

Shay locomotives use vertical engines, 3 on the larger ones and 2 on the smaller ones that look like marine engines. They are mounted on the engineer's side and the boiler is offset on the frame to accommodate the engines. So, if an engine were to make two exhausts per revolution, the 3 cylinder Shays would exhaust 6 times per rotation of the wheels and the 2 cylinder Shays would do so 4 times per revolution. However, since they are geared, the wheel revolutions would vary depending on the gearing, wouldn't they? Whatever, the chugging on a Shay doing 15 MPH is like a regular locomotive 50-80 MPH. depending on the drive wheel size of the regular engine.
Whatever, the Shays are impressive machines and the best place to experience them is indeed at Cass, WV where they climb incredible grades.
-Jim Herron

Stick the wood in, nails and all. Then rake the nails out with the ashes. We got our wood from a cable spool factory, which had a lot of scrap. It was almost all the right size. Some of it was dunnage consisiting of nailed together 2 x 4's. If nails were sticking out, we pounded down the ends. It was mostly pine. In my launch I used split oak and the occasional bag of charcoal, which will revive any ho hum fire into a steam making inferno. Stick the whole bag in at once, and you can read a book or enjoy the scenery for a while. Look around for a source of solid fuel before you do the oil thing, which gets complicated and messy and hazzardous. A good hot wood fire, even pine, will not build up creosote in the smokestack. If your solid fuel fire is smoking heavily, consider lengthening the smokestack. Or cut back to a pack a day.