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The Goldendale Sentinel, Goldendale, WA., April 2, 1964, page 1

FINAL EXCURSION RUN TO BE MADE BY SHAY LOCOMOTIVE

     Klickitat county citizens and old-time railway buffs will be given their last opportunity Saturday, April 4, to ride on the Shay logging locomotive-powered train before the engines are retired from service by the St. Regis Paper Company at Klickitat.
     At press time Wednesday it was reported that tickets were still available for the excursion over the 18-mile track from Klickitat to the re-load station near the Leidl bridge on the Goldendale-Glenwood highway. Cabooses and gondolas for the Saturday excursion will be furnished by the S.P. & S. Railway and stops will be made along the way for photo fans.
     The train will leave Klickitat at 11:30 a.m. and return around 6 p.m. At the reload passengers will be treated to coffee and doughnuts by members of the Goldendale Chamber of Commerce and tentative plans are to take some of the visitors to scenic spots along the highway to Glenwood.
     To commemorate the end of the Shay logging locomotive, which will be replaced by logging trucks, the excursion is sponsored by the St. Regis Paper Company and the Puget Sound Railway Historical Association. Fare is $7 for adults and $5 for children. All proceeds from the trip will be used to support the association's operating, non-profit railroad museum at Snoqualmie.
     The sponsoring groups, in their literature advertising the event said:
     "Logging railroads and Shay-geared locomotives have been pretty much synonymous ever since the day back in the 1870s when Ephraim Shay, a Michigan logger, had his famous brainstorm. Mr. Shay's steam locomotive, instead of using rods to connect the cylinders to the wheels, used a line shaft and bevel gears along the side of the engine. This produced a powerful machine that could run on any old track. Top speed-"11 MPH an hour over the edge of a cliff" -- somewhat less on the level.
     "It's appropriate that the last 100 percent steam-powered logging railroad in the west should use nothing but Shay's on its 18 miles of track. However, this operation, which has for many years supplied all the logs for the St. Regis Paper Company sawmill at Klickitat, Washington, is being displaced this spring by diesel-powered logging trucks. The railroad has lasted this long only because it is in such rugged country. There are places in the bottom of the Klickitat River Canyon with the line is five miles from the nearest road of any sort."

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©  Jeffrey L. Elmer