Dear Foxes;

Over the past several years, I have become quite interested in the locomotives that our ancestor, (my grandfather) David Burney Fox, Sr., owned and utilized in association with his lumber mill business in the early part of this century. My interest was triggered by pictures of the engine I found among my mother's and Estelle Fox White's family material. One picture showed David Burney Fox, Jr. standing on the front of the engine as a teenager. Another picture showed David Burney Fox, Sr. standing on the left hand side of the engine with an unidentified man. Two other pictures showed the engine with the crew, one from the left side, and another from the rear. Most of the pictures showed D. B. Fox's name clearly printed on the side of the fuel tender. To my disappointment none of the pictures showed the right hand side where the propelling mechanisms are located.

My interest was again stimulated when in 1993, Lester Fox, son of D. B. Fox, Sr., mentioned to me that the engine was a 'sidewinder.' What was a 'sidewinder' and why was it important to the lumbering industry?

To answer these and other questions I have read everything I could get my hands on about steam locomotives in general and the 'sidewinder' in particular, which I have come to find out was the Lima-Shay Locomotive, invented in the late 1870's by a Michigan lumberman named Ephraim Shay and manufactured by the Lima Machine Works of Lima, Ohio.

In addition, on a trip I made to south Mississippi in the fall of 1995, I vectored by the two Jones County, Miss., courthouses, and the Monroe County, Alabama, courthouse to see what I could glean from the public records about the purchase, ownership, and/or sale of the Fox locomotive(s).

In the last several weeks, I have been very fortunate to get my hands on a book, "The Shay Locomotive, Titan of the Timber," written by Michael Koch and published in 1971 by the World Press, Inc. of Denver, Colo. This book is very rare. My library here in Burlington found one at the University of South Carolina Library in Columbia and another one in the Henrico County Library in Richmond, Virginia. They found none in North Carolina libraries. The one that I have been able to see was the Richmond volume, and had been signed by the author, himself. This book represents a fantastic piece of work, not only on the author's part but also on the part of many people that helped him collect and compile data and pictures over at least a 25 year period. Research was done into the lives of the men involved, the history of the companies involved, and very importantly into the biographies of the individual locomotives manufactured by the Lima Machine Works, all 3354 of them. It all was a tremendous job. {Note: Since I first wrote this letter, other authors have proven that a little less than 2800 Lima-Shays were produced, over 100 of which are still in existance}

The data on each locomotive was compiled in the Shay book according to manufacturer's shop numbers (serial numbers). There is no index of owners. To find an individual owner, it is easy to find him in the material if one knows the shop number of his locomotive. I knew only one of D. B. Fox's shop numbers. So I just started reading to find him, and I found him in two places in the book, but do realize he could have owned other machines that I just missed. Following is what I found.

Shop Number 1814:
This Shay was built May 23, 1907, would run on standard gauge track, had cylinders 10" diameter with 12" stroke, and had drive wheels 29.5" diameter. It's first owner was listed as C. S. Bentley, of Ovett, Miss. D. B. Fox of Laurel, Miss., was listed as the second owner having purchased it in August of 1930. I have much information on this locomotive in Fox deed material. It was a 42 Ton machine that D. B. Fox bought from Bentley and Emory Lumber Co., of Ovett, Miss. Per a sales receipt I have, the locomotive was purchased July 12, 1929, a date which is earlier than that given in the Shay book. The Foxes never made use of this Shay. It remained on the Bentley and Emory Lumber Company side tracks until after D. B. Fox passed away. His son, Francis, sold it, as administrator of the estate, in 1932 to J. M. Griffin Co., a saw mill corporation of Estes, Miss., for $700.

Shop Number 1846:
This Shay was build February 8, 1907, would run on standard gauge track, had cylinders 7" diameter with 12" stroke, and had drive wheels 26" diameter. It's first owner was listed as Richton Lumber Co., of Richton, Miss. D. B. Fox Lumber Co. of Ovett, Miss., was listed as the second owner. I believe this to be the Shay that I have pictures of and the one that several of us, including myself, remember having seen, in the late 30's, rusting in the woods at the Fox mill near Moselle, Miss. I believe D. B. Fox bought this Shay between 1910 and 1915 when D. B. Fox, Jr. would have been a teenager (remember the picture). I have gotten the impression that it was first utilized with the mill at Fox near Ovett because I remember someone showing me some old crossties in the ground near that mill. Since this Shay was of standard gauge, it would have run (or been pulled) on commercial track to the Moselle location when the mill operation was moved there. The deed records are strangely silent about this Shay. It was not included in the estate records as was No. 1814 described above. I believe it was among some saw mill equipment included in a mortgage to Commercial National Bank and Trust Company of Laurel, Miss., and was included in foreclosure proceeding by that bank in 1931-32. I believe the Fox Brothers, (Francis O. Fox and D. B. Fox, Jr.) bought this Shay back from the bank in 1932 when they bought the foreclosed property. A deed was recorded for their purchase that included the Moselle saw mill equipment; however, no locomotive was listed. I would surmise that it was worn out and the two Fox brothers felt it was not worth being recorded. I have gotten the impression that Francis O. Fox sold this Shay for scrap sometimes during the early 40's to go toward the war effort.

I feel with a great deal of confidence that D. B. Fox owned at least one more locomotive that was probably a Shay. Deed records in Monroe County, Alabama, document that he owned timber and sawmill equipment there that included railroad equipment plus right of way agreements. Railroad equipment would have necessitated something to pull it, which was probably a Shay since D. B. Fox and his employees were familiar with the operation and maintenance of that type of machine. In early 1931 he sold all his Monroe Co., Ala., operations, including the railroad to W. T. Smith Lumber Company. Some records I found in the Shay book indicate that W. T. Smith Lumber Co. was of Chapman, Ala., which was about 70 miles from the D. B. Fox Monroe Co. mill at Fountain.

It has always been a curiosity to me that my mother's generation referred to the family locomotive as the "dummy" locomotive. Why? I always thought it was because it was small. However, I have some relatives who put a different spin on it. They seem to remember there was another locomotive that was utilized just around the sawmill area that was called a "dummy" and the implication was that it did not have a fire box. It would fill up its pressure chamber at the mill boiler, and then complete its rounds before it needed a recharge. Interesting, eh what? I have seen one of these oddities and have a picture of it somewhere among my plunder. I saw it many years ago either at the transportation museum in Roanoke, Va., or at Steamtown in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

And now a few words for us engineering type who love the details:

The first Shay was manufactured in 1878 and the last one in 1945. Continuous improvements were being made and one gets the impression that no two were exactly alike. They varied in size and details of construction but they all had the same basic power chain design--two or three vertical power cylinders connected to horizontal drive shafts that drove all the wheels of two or three trucks, the number dependent upon the length of the engine and its tender. All of the drive mechanisms where located on the right hand side of the locomotives and the boilers were offset to the left to make room and to implement mechanical balance. Each truck had four wheels, two to each side with the power to the left ones being applied through the axles. Each truck, which remind me of the ones on the eight wheel Lindsey wagons used by my grandfather, was able to rotate both horizontally and vertically underneath the engine to facilitate the tight turns and uneven tracks demanded in a lumbering environment. A gear was attached to each right hand wheel, much as some disk brakes of today are attached to the wheels of cars. A beveled gear applies power to each gear to turn the associated wheel. A horizontal shaft turns each beveled gear. The horizontal shafts of trucks are connected together by a drive shaft that reminds me of the drive shafts that connect the transmission to the rear wheel universal of current rear wheel drive vehicles. The drive shaft on the Shays must have the same universal joint action that our current automotive drive shafts must have to allow for both vertical and horizontal relative movements between the Shay trucks.

Now why did the Shay design that was so radically different from the traditional steam engine design catch on in the late 1800's and maintain dominance in the timber industry environment for almost 70 years? To answer this question, let's delve into a little history. In the early years, lumbering was a summer time job. In the winter, snow and rain made log transportation, with mules and oxen, so difficult and inhospitable that lumber crews found other things to do that time of the year, especially in our northern states. In an attempt to solve these problems, in the mid 1800's lumbermen laid down wooden and steel tracks in the woods and at first attempted to use mules and oxen to pull cars over these tracks. Later they tried to be more efficient by utilizing small traditional locomotives. For wooden tracks, they modified the engine and car wheels to fit the round shape of the small wood tree trunks or tree limbs they staked down on cross ties. For this application they discovered that the traditional engines had two serious deficiencies. First, the solid inflexible frame and big central drive wheels would not negotiate the tight turns required in the woods and mountain environment. In addition the large drive wheel design with the usually associated non-powered smaller wheels to the front and rear would excessively wear out the wooded tracks. This was a serious problem for Ephraim Shay in his Michigan environment, and in the late 1870's, he began to solve it. He noted that the lumber cars with their flexible four wheel trucks located one at each end of the car did not wear out the wooden tracks as much and were able to make tighter turns than the engines that pulled them. He reasoned that if he were able to mount an engine on four wheel trucks only and was able to apply power to the wheels of those trucks, he would have a better designed engine for his application. Also, whether he realized it or not, he was getting better traction by applying power to all engine wheels, achieving the same advantages we get today in our 4-wheel drive vehicles. Over several winters, Mr. Shay spent his spare time developing the drive mechanism I have described above. He then tested and modified his design during the next timber cutting season. It is not emphasized in the literature, but I feel his design gave one big additional advantage, that of pulling torque provided with the gearing mechanism employed by Mr. Shay. In the woods, the lumbermen were not interested in high locomotive speed; they wanted pulling torque from small horsepower engines, and the Lima-Shay gear mechanism gave them that. In addition by having the working 'guts' of the engine on the outside, it was easily maintained and repaired. I imagine that lumbermen kept spare parts on site, and in the event of a breakdown were able to be up and running again in a few hours.

Around 1880, Ephraim Shay patented his design. Several companies obtained licenses to build various versions of the Shay, however, over the years the Lima, Ohio, organization become the dominant player.

The first Shays utilized vertically placed boilers. After a very short time, the traditional horizontal boilers came into use, but the uniqueness of the wooded environment necessitated special design evolution. Imagine, if you will, how the rough terrain would cause the water in the boiler to slosh around. Special boiler designs were utilized to keep the sloshing water from getting into the steam lines to the power cylinders. On many of the pictures of Shays one can't help but notice that the steam domes (located on top of the boiler just to the front of the cab) are especially tall. This design was used to move the steam valve, that controls the steam flow to the cylinders, to a high enough point above the high water level that water would not be carried to the cylinders when the valve was on. For the same reason, on some of the early machines, the rear of the boiler was made into a T or L shape to raise the steam valve even higher above the water level. On some of the later machines, the rear of the boiler was expanded several inches larger in diameter than the rest of the boiler to the front. And while we are on the subject of steam, it is interesting to note that on most of the Shays the steam to, and from, the cylinders is by piping external to the boiler. Whether intended or not, this certainly allowed for easier maintenance.

In all steam engines with horizontal boilers, embers are blown through the boiler tubes from the fire box to the "smoke box" at the front of the engine where they are suppose to accumulate. If one looks closely he can see that the front of a steam engine has a round door attached to it that can be easily unbolted to allow access to the smoke box for access to the spent embers which must be removed every week or so. Anyway, the hot embers can often be blown up locomotive chimneys from the smoke box to the outside world, and the last thing a lumberman wants is hot embers scattering throughout his woodlands. A variety of techniques were utilized by the Shay designers to prevent this from happening. Some of the engines shown in the Shay book employed what looks like a cylindrical screen over the smoke stack. The pictures we have of the D. B. Fox engine No. 1846 show a smoke stack that is greatly expanded at the top. This expansion lowers the velocity of the ejected smoke and steam and allows the heavier pieces of cinder material to drop back into the smoke box. Also, a donut shaped piece of material is usually placed in the center of these expanded chimneys to impede the passage of solid material but to let the smoke and steam go by.

The domes located on the top of most steam locomotive boilers have always been a curiosity to me. Typically, there are two of these. One is the steam dome discussed above. The second one, that is closest to the front of the engine, holds sand that is blown by air pressure through pipes to the underside of some of the wheels to enhance traction between the wheels and rails. Often the pipes can be seen running downward from the dome to the lower part of the wheels. Both the steam dome and the sand dome can be seen in the pictures we have of the D. B. Fox Shay.

I have wondered how the Shay locomotives would have sounded when compared to their traditional cousins. I'm sure all of us remember the labored slow huff-----hufff-----hufff at low speeds of the steam passenger trains of our youth. I can imagine that the shay would have had a faster, even staccato, sound with its three cylinders exhausting at a more rapid pace per distance traveled. Such a sound would have meshed well with its small, peppy, pinto character.

According to the Shay book there are a number of Lima Shays that are on display across the country. Whether all are still on display I do not know but here is where some are claimed to be located:

#2143, Haywood lumberjack Museum, Haywood, Wis.

#2194, Last Chance Museum, Las Vegas, Nev.

#2366, Tenn. Valley RR Museum, Chattanooga, Tenn.

#3197 "On display in Natchez, Miss. 1966." (I wonder if it is still there.)

#3354, B & O Transportation Museum, Mount Clare Roundhouse, Baltimore, Md. (This is the last Lima-Shay manufactured)

#3288, on display at Allentown Museum, Lima, Ohio, as Lima Stone Co. No. 10.

At the North Carolina Transportation museum in Spencer, N. C., which in just off I-85 between Greensboro and Charlotte, is a 1925 built Lima-Shay, shop number 3256, which is lovingly being restored to working order by North Carolina craftsmen and railroad enthusiasts. Even though this is a bigger locomotive than the D. B. Fox Lima-Shay, it has the same basic components. Within the next year or so, it should be pulling a visitors train around the museum freight yard. Please do stop by and take a ride.

With very best regards,

Albert H. Spinks