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21-592: The Sumpter Valley Railway , or Sumpter Valley Railroad , is a 3 ft ( 914 mm ) narrow gauge heritage railroad located in Baker County , in the U.S. state of Oregon . Built on a right-of-way used by the original railway of the same name, it carries excursion trains on a roughly 5-mile (8.0 km) route between McEwen and Sumpter . The railroad has two steam locomotives and several other pieces of rolling stock. Passenger excursion trains operate on weekends and holidays from Memorial Day through

42-659: A track gauge of 3 ft ( 914 mm ) or 1 yard . This gauge is a narrow gauge and is generally found throughout North , Central , and South America . In Ireland , many secondary and industrial lines were built to 3 ft gauge, and it is the dominant gauge on the Isle of Man , where it is known as the Manx Standard Gauge . Modern 3 ft gauge railways are most commonly found in isolated mountainous areas, on small islands, or in large-scale amusement parks and theme parks (see table below). This gauge

63-436: A Heisler locomotive in 1943 from Ogilvie and Co, sawmillers of Hokitika , who wanted to purchase a Heisler locomotive but were unable to do so as production of Heisler locomotives had ceased in 1941. The resulting locomotive, maker's N 148 of 1944, was the last Heisler-design steam locomotive to be built, and closely followed Heisler practice but with the addition of a Belpaire firebox and front-mounted water tanks that featured

84-587: A number of the U&;N's Brooks 2-6-0 locomotives, along with a large number of boxcars and flatcars. In 1906, the railroad also acquired four locomotives from the Tonopah Railway (later the Tonopah & Goldfield Railroad). By 1891, the line had reached McEwen, 22 miles (35 km) west of Baker City , and the railroad began offering passenger and freight service. To reach uncut forests further west,

105-426: A prototype in 1891. Somewhat similar to a Climax locomotive , Heisler's design featured two cylinders canted inwards at a 45-degree angle to form a ' V-twin ' arrangement. Power then went to a longitudinal drive shaft in the center of the frame that drove the outboard axle on each powered truck through bevel gears in an enclosed gearcase riding on the axle between the truck frames. The inboard axle on each truck

126-611: A unique curved leading edge. Heislers were produced mostly in two- and three-truck variants in sizes ranging from 17 to 95 short tons (15.2 to 84.8 long tons; 15.4 to 86.2 t). There was one single-truck, narrow gauge Heisler built, Lake Shore Stone Products Co. #7 for the Lake Shore Stone Products Co. Lake Shore Stone Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Roughly 625 Heislers were produced, of which some 35 still exist. Approximately eight of these survivors are currently operational. The Heisler locomotive's gearing

147-760: Is also located at the railroad. In 2018, #720 was added to the railroad operating fleet after an overhaul. It previously was used by the Chiquita Banana company. In 2007, the railway opened its reproduction of the original Sumpter Depot, within sight of the Sumpter Valley Dredge State Heritage Area operated by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department . The railway operates a number of historic Sumpter Valley Railroad and adjoining 3 ft ( 914 mm ) narrow gauge logging railroad steam locomotives and equipment on

168-471: Is also popular in model railroading (particularly in G scale ), and model prototypes of these railways have been made by several model train brands around the world, such as Accucraft Trains (US), Aristo-Craft Trains (US), Bachmann Industries (Hong Kong) , Delton Locomotive Works (US), LGB (Germany) , and PIKO (Germany) . The Ferrocarril de Sóller and the Tranvía de Sóller are located on Majorca in

189-536: The Balearic Islands . The other railways of the Majorca rail network were also 3 ft ( 914 mm ) gauge, but with expansion and reconstruction of the network in the early 2000s, they were converted to 1,000 mm ( 3 ft  3 + 3 ⁄ 8  in ) metre gauge . Heisler locomotive Charles L. Heisler received a patent for the design in 1892, following the construction of

210-685: The Dunkirk ), of which the Heisler could be considered an improvement. They did not adopt the Heisler design, but in 1894 the Stearns Manufacturing Company of Erie, Pennsylvania started to produce Heislers, and did so until 1904. Reorganised as the Heisler Locomotive Works in 1907, it produced locomotives of the Heisler design until 1941. A & G Price of Thames, New Zealand received an order for

231-705: The company extended the line in stages. It reached Sumpter in 1896 and continued southwestward to Whitney , Tipton , Austin and Bates . By 1910, it arrived in Prairie City , a ranching and mining community along the John Day River in Grant County . The railroad continued to use wood fuel for their locomotives until converting to oil fuel in June, 1940. Diamond-shaped smokestacks were replaced by cabbage-shaped Rushton stacks after 1916. Ten years later,

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252-691: The end of September. The railway was incorporated in 1890 by David Eccles . The 3 ft ( 914 mm ) narrow gauge railway's purpose was to haul logs to the Oregon Lumber Company sawmill in South Baker City. The sawmill and railroad remained separate corporations of the same owners for the life of the railroad. The builders of the railway also owned the Grande Ronde Lumber Company in Perry, Oregon , and

273-821: The line every summer. In Prairie City at the western end of the original line, the Sumpter Valley Depot Restoration Committee renovated the Sumpter Valley Railway Passenger Station in the 1970s. The City of Prairie City has used it to house the DeWitt Museum since 1984. Its collections include lanterns, lights, and other railway artifacts, and photographs of train wrecks and of life along the rail line. [REDACTED] Media related to Sumpter Valley Railroad at Wikimedia Commons 3 ft gauge railways Three foot gauge railways have

294-541: The main engine trucks, connected to it through spur gears . This patent also covered use of a 4-cylinder ' V4 ' cylinder configuration. The Heisler was the fastest of the geared steam locomotive designs, and yet was still claimed by its manufacturer to have the same low-speed hauling ability . The first Heislers were built by the Dunkirk Engineering Company of Dunkirk, New York , at the time producer of their own design of geared locomotive (called

315-463: The new railway opened for business on July 4, 1976, over a track of less than 1 mile (1.6 km). The Sumpter Valley Railroad Restoration Inc. was created and 6 miles of track were reinstalled by hand over the next 15 years, to connect the McEwen, Oregon station with Sumpter, Oregon. SVR No. 19, a 2-8-2 steam locomotive built in 1920, was restored to operating condition in 1996. Sister locomotive 20

336-584: The original equipment came from the Utah & Northern Railway in Idaho and Montana. The Union Pacific owned the line and began converting it to standard gauge around 1887. Eccles owned a significant amount of Union Pacific stock, exerting enough influence to acquire the now-unneeded narrow gauge equipment. The first locomotive to arrive was a small 4-4-0 numbered 285; the Sumpter Valley also purchased

357-617: The railway began losing business to automobiles and trucks, and in 1933 the 20 miles (32 km) of track between Prairie City and Bates were abandoned. Scheduled passenger service on the remaining line ended in 1937. Freight service remained, however, and in 1939 the railway purchased two 2-6-6-2 T Mallet locomotives from the Uintah Railway in Colorado. These engines were converted from coal to oil burners and given tenders from two 2-8-2 locomotives. As traffic declined,

378-571: The railway sold off the other, unneeded locomotives. In 1947, the railroad ceased all operations except for 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of track in the Oregon Lumber Company yard in South Baker City. This last section was abandoned and removed in 1961. In 1971, a group of volunteers set out to rebuild the Sumpter Valley Railway. Locomotive No. 3, a 1915 Heisler steam locomotive , was restored to operation in 1976, and

399-535: The railway was financed by Mormons in Utah . The line was built over terrain originally considered as part of a railway from Denver, Colorado to the Pacific coast; but the Union Pacific Railroad opted for a different route to avoid bypassing growing communities which might provide an attractive opportunity for competition by the rapidly growing Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company . Much of

420-591: Was inside the frame and thus protected, unlike that of a Shay locomotive . However, the Heisler's drive shaft, which was located in the center of the frame, limited firebox space. For this reason, when A & G Price built their Heisler, in 1943, they used a Belpaire firebox , to mitigate problems with burning wood and accommodating the drive shaft. Similar to the Climax , some Heislers, especially two-truck ones, were converted to diesel or gasoline power, retaining their gearing and drive shafts, but their steam boiler

441-463: Was then driven from the outboard one by external side (connecting) rods. In 1897, Heisler received a patent on a three-truck locomotive. As with Class C Shay locomotives , the tender rode on the third truck. Unlike the Shay, Heisler's design did not have a continuous string of line shafting running the length of the engine. Instead, the tender truck was driven by a line shaft above the shaft driving

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