The "4" Truck Shay Engine Project

I have yet to build anything of this magnitude. I am in the process of building and gathering the tooling to start my venture into the live steam hobby. Before I tackle this project I need to get some machine time and building experience under my belt. That's why I'm going to build an electric loco first and then the Clishay. As I get experienced I'll probably work on this project in conjunction with the Clishay. It'll be a while before any real progress is made on this engine, so stop back once in a while to check if any progress has been made.

While working on this part of the web site and gathering the materials to build a set of trucks I came to the conclusion of building a class "D" Shay. Not much has ever been written in the model press of these behemoths. I did find a source in "Outdoor Railroader", a magazine for large scale models. It was a 5 part article on Shays. The series was written by Robert A.M. Stephens. It was a very interesting article describing how the 4 truck class "D" Shay came about. The C & O was a major buyer of these large 165 to 180 ton engines. They were mainly used to haul coal up steep grades on the C & O. Since I've never seen a class "D" Shay in model form, let alone in 1.5" scale, I decided that this is what I wanted to build. All that it entails is lengthening the tender frame for an extra set of trucks. No modification to the engine is necessary. Below is a drawing of what the Ken Schoerder Shay would possibly look like as a 4 truck Shay. It represents a Shay of about 110 tons. Disregard the balloon stack and cow catcher.

The site that inspired me to purchase Ken's castings can be found here at Nelson's Locomotive Works. This site is well worth taking a look at even if your not building one of these engines. Nelson Riedel is doing a fabulous job at building both the web site and the engine.

Below are some of Ken's pictures that he provides with the drawing set.

	These are the beautiful engine castings that Ken Schoerder provides. For a larger view click on the picture.
	These are the beautiful truck castings that Ken Schoerder provides. He also provides a set of springs for each truck. For a larger view click on the picture.

I had started this project way back in 2003. At that time I had a Grizzly 9 X 12 lathe and the Grizzly Mini-Mill. I started with getting the raw stock for the trucks. I cut enough stock to make one truck and that's were the project seemed to have died and I don't recall for what reason. Now it's 8 years later and my shop has been built up with a couple of more machines. This will make it easier to produce the parts for the Shay. SO I plan on starting on this project this year as time permits.

Also I've gotten to the point of being able to stay focused with one project. So with that said I'm going to put a restarting date of 6-18-11 so I can remember when I restarted this project.

I must warn you though that it'll be a slow start. After all it is in the middle of summer with many outdoor activities taking place. Hopefully by this winter I can spend more time on this project. The house project is still the main project and is coming along with about 85% to 90% of completion. Hopefully next month (July or August) I can order the complete wheel sets from Ken Schoerder.

Updates will be added to the "What's New Page" as I make progress on this build.

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