Morgan, Kenneth

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East Texas Historical JournalVolume 33 | Issue 1 Article 113-1995Shay Dinky in the PinesKenneth MorganFollow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethjPart of the United States History CommonsTell us how this article helped you.This Article is brought to you for free and open access by SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in East Texas Historical Journal by anauthorized administrator of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact cdsscholarworks@sfasu.edu.Recommended CitationMorgan, Kenneth (1995) "Shay Dinky in the Pines," East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 33: Iss. 1, Article 11.Available at: http://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj/vol33/iss1/1156 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONSHAY DINKY IN THE PINESby Kenneth MorganThe old timers say if you have ever seen a Shay locomotive thrashing itsway up a steep. piney woods grade and pulling three or four cars heavilyloaded with virgin pine logs. you will remember the sight as long as you live.The little engine with three seLs of cylinders, crankshaft, and gear box mount-ed on the right, and the boiler off center to the left, lacked beauty when com-pared with the bigger, more powerful piston-and-rod main-line engines, but itsperformance and durability was never questioned. Some of these little work-horses of the timber industry still brought in log trainf'. after three or fourdecades of servke.Ephraim Shay, a white-pine lumbennan in Michigan. was responsible forthe design of the locomotive. He first took his plans to the Lima LocomotiveWorks in Ohio in 1880 where the design and specifications were drawn up. Inthe course of more than sixty years, the company turned out about 2700 ofthese steam-powered engines. On a flat, level surface they could pull a longstring of loaded cars. Several inches of slack, built into the couplings betweenthe cars, enabled the engine to start the first car to rolling; then the second car,third car, and so on, until the whole string was in motion. However, in hillycountry they could move only three or four loaded cars because their lightweight allowed the wheels to spin on the track.Many of the Shay locomotives found their way into East Texas late in thel800s and early in the 1900s during the great logging bonanza instituted bysuch men as Simon Wiess, Alexander Gilmer, David R. Wingate, Henry 1.Lutcher, G. Bedell Moore, John Henry Kirby, Joseph H. Kurth, and ThomasL.L. Temple.John Henry Kirby built his Gulf, Beaumont, and Kansas City Railwayfrom Beaumont to Roganville in 1895, then in 1902, under the name Gulf,Beaumont, and Great Northern, extended this line northward through the mag-nificent longleaf pine forest to Jasper and San Augustine. A year later it wasextended to Center.Main lines branched off the railroad at various points to enable the biglumber company to cut and transport the prime timber to their mills efficient-ly. One such main line left the railroad at a point between Roganvillc andJasper and extended westward, crossing the Spring Hill Road approximatelyseven miles south of Jasper, near the double-pen, split-log house of my great-great-grandfather, David Dunn, and just to the north of the Dunn-OldsCemetery, known later as aIds Cemetery. The line continued westward withspur lines branching off approximately cvery half mile or so into the compa-ny's holdings. These tram lines were hurriedly constructed with little gradingand without benefit of a built-up road bed. The cross-ties, usually oak or pine,were laid flat on the ground by the steel gang, with many crooks and turns toKenneth Morgan lives in Jmper. Texas.EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 57miss obstructions along the way_ Then came the sections of rail, laid andspiked precisely four feet, eight and one-half inches wide amI connectedtogether with bolted splice bars. Kirby did not use narrow-gauge rails (threefeet wide), on his spurs and main lines. Any rolling stock that could move onthe trams also could travel on the main railroad.The steel gang, usually consisting of twelve black men, had their quotaof spur line to lay each day. The work was difficult and required much strengthand teamwork. They sang together to set the pace or rhythm of their work andperhaps to relieve the drudgery of their repetitious tasks. Normally two menwould drive the steel railroad spikes together, alternating their blows withnine-pound hammers. After eight rails had been picked up and laid on a newspur by each man in the twelve-man gang, their day's work was completed andthey could sit and relax until the train took them home in the evening to themill town or logging front.My mother, Dollie Olds Morgan, remembered the steel gangs well. As aneight-year-old girl, she and her family traveled by wagon to a logging frontnear Manning in Angelina County, Texas, where her father, Amy GIds, took ajob as mule tender and blacksmith for the Carter-Kelly Lumber Company. Onone occasion she saw a black man break his leg while attempting to jump onthe cowcatcher of a moving train that was taking the work crews home in theevening. She will never forget his screams of agony when the large bonesnapped between his knee and ankle.Early in the 19008 steam skidders and loaders camc into use on the tramlines of East Texas, relieving the mule and ox teams of some of their hardesttasks. It still fell the lot of these beasts of burden to drag big logs from placesout of reach of the 800 foot cables played out from power-driven drums on thesteam skidder. Many mules, oxen, and a few men were crippled or killed whenstruck by a log being skidded through the brush and timber.A pair of big mules could pull a twenty-foot log with an average diameterof eighteen inches and weighing approximately one ton when freshly cut.Larger logs were pulled by two or three yoke of oxen. Bulls were used ratherthan steers because they developed more massive necks, chests, and shoulders.Unlike mule teams, the oxen normally had no lines atcached to them for guid-ing. They worked by voice commands alone, and most "bull punchers" spokesoftly to their animals."Uncle" John Bevil was one of the best known locomotive engineers inthe Jasper-Kirbyville area. His young flagman was killed instantly when heleaned far out of a locomotive to check the track ahead as they approached acrossing on Big Creek. Apparently his head struck a tree or some otherobstruction near the track. A bad wreck occurred near this same area whensome heavily loaded log cars got loose from the locomotive and piled up at atrestle crossing.I recently walked to the old tram crossing on Hurricane Branch near myhome, attempting to recapture a feeling for the history of this land where my58 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONancestors lived and toiled. The trestle timbers have been gone many years butthe road bed is ~ti]] vio;;ible on both sides of the branch. Traces of the bar ditch-es remain where slip teams scooped dirt to build up low-lying areas of theright-of-way. It has been eighty-five years since huge virgin pine logs passedover this spot on their way to Kirby's big sawmill in Roganville, but some-times late in the evening, when the only sound is rippling water below and awood thrush's soft call as he seeks a safe haven for the coming night, I canalmost see a Shay locomotive under a cloud of black smoke, slowly thrashingits way up the steep grade beyond the branch, with a heavy load of logs and aweary crew looking forward to supper and a little rest before returning to thepiney woods at daylight.

Shay Dinky in the Pines

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Shay Dinky in the Pines

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