Willamette locomotive

[Chris9017]

I would love to see a Willamette locomotive sometime down the road.  I know only 30 were made, and that they look a lot like shay engines.  The thing is Willamettes and Shays were completely different.  All Willamettes were super heated, even the 2-truckers, the shays were mostly not until the Pacific Coasts came out.  All Willamettes used Walscherts Valve gears.  Shays use Stevensons.  Only 1 Willamette was a coal burn, the rest of the 29 were all oil fired but Bachmann can still offer coal or oil fired models.     All Willamettes had their cylinders facing in the same direction and pointed outside, where as a shay only had 2 facing the same direction while the number 3 cylinder faced the opposite of the number 1 and 2 cylinders.   Also no Willamette locomotive had a cylinder enter inside of the cab where as shay had the number 3 cylinder in the cab.   

I sure a Willamette is made sometime down the road because I have never seen one in a Large scale model, and it would be really neat to see one.  I would also love to add a Willamette geared steam locomotive to my collection.

[Kevin Strong]

Did Willamette do narrow gauge versions? I've only seen photos of standard gauge ones.

Later,

K

[Chris9017]

There might have been plans for narrow gauge engines, but never really came to play, like that of the Baldwin Mallets.

[tac]

Although not of the Shay configuration, if you MUST have a Willamette product, then Regner make a live-steam NG version of the first Willamette geared loco.  It has an over-type twin-cylinder engine on top of the boiler driving a geared chain to a right-angled cross-drive with Shay-like crown and pinion final drive to the two trucks.

You can see one in action on Youtube, looking suitably gawky.

AFAIK that is the only Willamette loco ever made in ANY scale.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
[ovgrs.org]

[Nathan]

On a chat room with some guys they said that NWSL did a Willamette in HO probably around the 1970/1980 time frame.

[glennk28]

there is one undergoing restoration at the Medford, OR Railroad Park--boiler went to a shop in Washington a few weeks ago.  The Willamette was the forerunner of the Pacific Coast Shay--Willamette Iron Works was the Western repair center for the Shays--developed improvements that resulted in locomotives when the Shay patents ran out.

I believe there are a couple on display on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington--and one is "stuffed and Mounted" at the Railroad Park Resort just off Interstate 5 south of Dunsmuir just north of the Shasta County line. 

[J3a-614]

I believe the Willamettes may have been standard gauge only, although it's not impossible that one would have been built for narrow gauge if there had been an order for one.  The big problem for narrow-gauge modelers is that the Willamette came along so late in the railroad logging era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Iron_and_Steel_Works

http://www.gearedsteam.com/willamette/willamette.htm

http://www.gearedsteam.com/willamette/components.htm

http://www.gearedsteam.com/willamette/different.htm

Amazingly, of the 33 built, 6 survive:

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/lists/searchdb.php?whyte=Willamette3Tr&country=USA

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80651083@N00/3093509620/

Best of all, one is now operational, on the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad:

http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/blogs/staff/archive/2010/05/03/much-anticipated-ride-on-a-willamette-geared-locomotive.aspx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_OmVvJePVg&feature=related

Have fun.

[Chris9017]

The Willamette at Mount Rainier operates almost all the time with Polson Logging Mikado number 70, since those 2 seem to be the primary engines on Mount Rainier while the Heisler and the Climax are the back up engines that come out on special occassions or when the Willamette and Mikado are down.

[scottychaos]

I would love to see a Willamette locomotive sometime down the road.  I know only 30 were made, and that they look a lot like shay engines.  The thing is Willamettes and Shays were completely different.  All Willamettes were super heated, even the 2-truckers, the shays were mostly not until the Pacific Coasts came out.  All Willamettes used Walscherts Valve gears.  Shays use Stevensons.  Only 1 Willamette was a coal burn, the rest of the 29 were all oil fired but Bachmann can still offer coal or oil fired models.     All Willamettes had their cylinders facing in the same direction and pointed outside, where as a shay only had 2 facing the same direction while the number 3 cylinder faced the opposite of the number 1 and 2 cylinders.   Also no Willamette locomotive had a cylinder enter inside of the cab where as shay had the number 3 cylinder in the cab.   

*completely* different? well, that's a stretch!
the differences you describe are very minor, and most people wouldn't even notice them..
(most people would look at a Willamette and say "that's a Shay"..unless you REALLY know the details, most people cant tell a Willamette from a Shay)
you say "completely different"..from a modeling perspective I would say "95% identical!"

Personally, I dont care for Wilamettes..because they basically just cloned the Shay after key Shay patents had expired..yes, with upgrades and some minor differences, but still..a Willimatte is basically a Shay.
yes, it was perfectly legal, but morally questionable IMO..the whole concept just bothers me..it feels like stealing to me.

Scot

[mickeykelley]

Thank goodness we now live in an era that companies don't do that sort of thing.  . The more things change the more they stay the same.

[glennk28]

Willamette was the "Factory Authorized Service" for Shays--including rebuilding those that the occasional logger took downhill sideways.  Willamette developed many improvements in the course of these rebuilds, which eventually came to be incorporated in the "Pacific Coast" model Shay.

gj

[Kevin Strong]

...yes, it was perfectly legal, but morally questionable IMO..the whole concept just bothers me..it feels like stealing to me.

Scot, that's precisely why patents expire, though--so the technology can be used by others after a certain amount of time. In the hobby world, look at all the Kadee clone couplers that are now made by the various manufacturers (in HO scale, at least). Kadee's patent expired, and now instead of the modeler having to replace factory couplers with Kadees, they now have compatible couplers already installed. How many more years until the G-scale coupler patent expires? Would we be so lucky as to enjoy the same benefit? (Pharmaceuticals are another very common example of the benefits of limited time for patent protections.)

If you want to talk "morally questionable" practices in railroading, I'll offer my favorite prototype as an example... throughout its history, the EBT shop was very good at "reverse engineering." The railroad bought very few cars from the carbuilders. Most were copies of those cars built by the EBT. Perfectly legal, as freight cars (in their entirety) couldn't be protected by patents, but I'd bet the sales departments at the carbuilders weren't exactly pleased with the practice.

In terms of morality and geared locos, read the story of the development of the Climax loco. The chap who actually designed the loco definitely got the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

Later,

K

[Old John]

Well put Kevin!

[Loco Bill Canelos]

Well said Kevin!

I am an old timer and I hate to think what I would be paying for a lot of my medicine if it were not for companies making generic version of popular medications after the original patents expire.  There is nothing immoral about it, it is the law.

Bill