Vaction Station and Little River Rail Road

Part of the Garden Rail Road's theme will center around the Little River Rail Road and Lumber Company Museum here in Townsend. We discovered the Little River Rail  Road after we had already decided to use the G-Gauge equipment I inherited from my father to have a tie in to the Vacation Station kennel name for our home business.

The presence of the Little River Rail Road Museum in town was just an added bonus tie in. However that will have a lot to do with my little rail road. I have already added skeletal log cars to my collection of rolling stock along with a 4 wheel lumber caboose.

But at the museum they have an steam engine am jazzed about. And Bachmann is in the process of releasing a model of it.  The engine is a three truck narrow gauge Shay engine. And it sits right out front visible from the main road in town. Here are some poor quality photos from my phone of the prototype Bachmann is using.



The Shay type engine is special. The pistons are on the right hand side and mounted vertically. They tie into a drive drive shaft which runs to gear driven wheels in each set of trucks. This generates a whole bunch of power that lets a shay engine handle heavier loads and steeper grades then a standard engine with the pistons driving the wheels directly. It won't set any speed records but boy can it haul!

Needless to say, when Bachmann does finally release it's model of this engine, I'll be wanting it :)