Cass Scenic Railroad No. 5

Design and Construction

No. 5 is a three-truck Shay, a geared locomotive design built around a vertical cylinder arrangement driving a longitudinal crankshaft, rather than the horizontal cylinders and connecting rods found on conventional steam engines. That design trades top speed for enormous low-speed pulling power and the ability to negotiate light, rough, and sharply curved track, exactly the conditions found on the logging railroads of the Appalachian mountains in the early twentieth century. Lima Locomotive Works of Lima, Ohio built the engine as construction number 1503 and delivered it in November 1905 to the Greenbrier and Elk River Railroad, the common-carrier logging line operated by the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company, a subsidiary of the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. Classed as an 80-3 (three trucks, roughly 80 tons), No. 5 was built specifically for the steep, twisting grade up Cass Hill, one of the most demanding pieces of logging railroad in the region.

Logging Service, 1905 to 1942

For its first several decades No. 5 worked as a road engine on Cass Hill and on branch lines radiating from company bases at Spruce and along the Elk River, hauling loaded log cars down the mountain and empties back up to the cutting operations. It was heavy, hard-running work on track that was maintained to industrial rather than common-carrier passenger standards, and until about 1939 the locomotive came back to the Cass shops only when it needed major repair work rather than routine servicing. In 1942, ownership of the Cass operation passed to the Mower Lumber Company, which continued running No. 5 in the same kind of service. That same year the locomotive was fitted with a power reverse mechanism to bring it into compliance with Interstate Commerce Commission rules governing locomotives over 100 tons, a requirement tied to its occasional use on trackage connecting with the Western Maryland Railway.

The 1942 Spruce Collision

No. 5’s operating record includes a serious incident: on October 2, 1942, it was involved in a head-on collision with a Western Maryland Railway H-8 class 2-8-0 at Spruce. The locomotive survived the wreck and returned to service, but its heavy weight combined with the steadily deteriorating condition of the logging railroad meant it saw progressively less work over the following decade, and by 1953 its use had become quite limited.

End of Logging Operations and Transfer to the State, 1960 to 1966

Commercial logging around Cass wound down through the 1950s, and in 1960 No. 5, along with other surviving Mower Lumber Company equipment, was sold for scrap to a dealer, Midwest Raleigh Inc. Rather than being cut up, the locomotive and much of the rest of the Cass operation were rescued through the efforts of railfans and the state of West Virginia, and ownership was conveyed to the state in 1962. No. 5 entered service on the newly formed Cass Scenic Railroad, operated as a state park, in 1966, this time hauling passengers up the same mountain grades it had once hauled logs down.

Excursion Service, 1966 to Present

In its second career No. 5 has become the senior member of the Cass fleet, recognized by park staff and rail historians alike as the oldest and longest continuously operating Shay locomotive still at work anywhere, and by extension one of the oldest operating steam locomotives of any type still working regularly in the United States. It typically serves in scheduled excursion service up Cass Hill and to Bald Knob, and is also used as a helper or pusher engine on heavier trains climbing the steepest grades of the route, a role well suited to the Shay’s gearing and low-speed torque. The locomotive continues to be maintained by the park’s own mechanical staff, cycling through boiler inspections and running repairs typical of any operating steam engine subject to Federal Railroad Administration rules.

Recognition

In 2004 the West Virginia legislature designated Shay No. 5 as the official state steam locomotive, and the following year, 2005, was formally proclaimed the Year of the Shay No. 5 in recognition of the engine’s centennial and its role in the state’s logging and railroading heritage. That designation reflects the locomotive’s unusual status: unlike most preserved industrial steam power, which ended its working life decades ago, No. 5 has essentially never stopped working, moving directly from hauling timber to hauling tourists over much of the same right of way, and remaining a living, operating link to the logging railroads that once crisscrossed the West Virginia highlands.