Long before dawn, the crew of Mt. Emily Lumber Company #1 slowly brings their 90-ton, oil-burning Shay up to operating pressure by the sand tower in the City of Prineville Railroad Yard. The locomotive will depart at first light with a train of log bunks, on a Lerro Productions photo charter.
Mt. Emily #1 was built in 1923 by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, OH. She was originally built as a stock locomotive and was first sold to the Independence Logging Company of Aberdeen, WA. In 1928, she was resold to the Mt. Emily Lumber Company in LaGrande, OR, where she worked for the next 30 years doing what Shays do....hauling logs on steep grades. In the mid-1950s, modern trucks took over the log-hauling business, and #1 was retired. She was first donated to the Oregon Museum of Science....but they didn't quite know what to do with her. Later, she was transferred to the Oregon Historical Society (OHS), which eventually leased her to the Cass Scenic Railroad, where she ran for 20 years. When that lease expired in the early 1990s, the OHS again went looking for a home for #1. With the help of attorney Martin Hansen and the City of Prineville Railroad, she has indeed found a home. She is stored by the railroad and occasionally operates on passenger excursions as well as photo charters on this very pretty line in Central Oregon.
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
