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Type: | Climax B |
| Wheel Arrangement: | ? (twin-bogie) | |
| Weight: | 25 tons | |
| Built: | February 1924 | |
| Builder: | Climax Manufacturing Company of Corry, Pennsylvania | |
| Builder's Number: | 1650 | |
| Notes: | Ellis & Burnand, Ongarue, NZ |
Click here for The Climax Locomotives Web Page
These locomotives had perfectly good reasons for their apparently eccentric design. Steel rails cost money. But in lumber camps there is one thing you have plenty of- trees. The practice was therefore to lay down tree trunks as "rails". Obviously conventional railway wheels would just fall off the tree trunks, so big concave wheels were used, rather like car wheels with no tyre's on. These gave very little grip, so the only way to get some tractive effort was to make sure that all the w heels were driven.
Unlike the Shay locomotive, the Climax had its cylinders in the usual place, driving a cross-shaft that was beared to central drive-shafts. It looks a neater arrangement than the Shay, but did it work any better?
Click on a thumbnail to see the full sized picture
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