Re: TPL Climax 33- pretty grungy woods engine
Author: Tom Moungovan
Date: 03-20-2011 - 07:48
Chris Collins and I ventured out to Yager Creek in September, 1971. Besides Baldwin 105, there was a G.E. 80 tonner for switching. I remember both as being wiped and clean. If you look at older photos of 2-8-2 35, you'll likely see a bit cleaner locomotive than the Climax here. 35 operated over the NWP from Carlotta to Scotia and was a lot more visible to highway motorists.
On the other hand, the 33 was woods power and seldom strayed from the obscurity of Camp. You can see parallels on other logging operations...the road power being a little more presentable and the woods engines being ignored when it came to appearance.
Heck, this same situation even occured later in Guatemala when I visited in the 70's. Road steam power might be really dirty, but anything that operated out of Zacapa to the Salvador border was kept wiped and clean. The Guatemalans didn't want Salvavador rails thinking that they had a run down operation.