The “Samson” and its two sisters were among the first steam locomotives in Canada. They had been ordered from Hackworth in Durham for the Albion mines in Nova Scotia. In May 1839 they arrived disassembled by ship in Canada and were then taken to their destination and assembled. The three coupled axles were driven by vertical cylinders. The boiler had a return flue, meaning the firebox and chimney were both at the front. Thus, the positions of driver and fireman were at opposite ends.

Despite its primitive design, the “Samson” remained in regular service at the Albion Mines until 1867, during which time it also had to pull passenger trains. Up until 1885, it was used to assist other locomotives when needed and had a higher tractive effort than more modern, faster locomotives. In 1883 it made a trip to the Chicago Railroad Fair.

Only in 1893 it was rescued from the junkyard and preserved with a passenger car by the Baltimore & Ohio until it came back to Canada in 1927. Today it can be seen in the museum in Stellarton, Nova Scotia. This makes it the oldest surviving locomotive in Canada and also is almost in its original condition.

The “Edward Patterson” was built in May 1872 by Baldwin with the works number 2819 for the Ashland Iron Co. in Kentucky. It later came to Maryland Steel. It was a small two-axle saddle tank locomotive that was nevertheless powerful thanks to its small drivers. Locomotives in this size were built by several manufacturers and were used from the second half of the 19th century in large numbers by industrial, agricultural and forestry operators. In many places, they replaced draught animals, which increased transport capacity and reduced costs.

Originally built for Larson Lumber in November 1927, this 2-6-6-2 Mallet went to Bloedel Donovan Lumber Mills in Washington instead. Although being standard gauge, it was fairly small for a 2-6-6-2, optimized for logging service. Nevertheless it was much more powerful than the Mallet tanks of the same wheel arrangement then in use by this company. It had drivers of 51 inches and cylinders with diameters of 20 and 31 inches, at a stroke of 28 inches. Later it came to Rayonier, Inc. and still carried the number 14. It was retired in 1964 and scrapped four years later.

The locomotive that is today known as Cass Scenic Railroad No. 4 is a 70-ton three-truck model built in 1922 with works number 3189 for the Birch Valley Lumber Co. at Tioga, West Virginia. Its empty weight is actually 141,250 pounds and with three cylinders of 12 by 15 inches and a gear ratio of 2.25, it produces a starting tractive effort of 30,375 pounds. In its revenue service, it came to two other operators until 1962.

The first was the Mower Lumber Co. of Cass, that bought it in 1943. From 1960 it was owned by Midwest Raleigh Inc. of Charleston, later known as Midwest Steel Corporation. There it was used to salvage the remains from the logging railroad. On June 7, 1962 it came into possession of the State of West Virginia that brought it to the Cass Scenic Railroad where it still today. So it spent all of its revenue and heritage in West Virginia.

The largest type among the Heisler locomotives was the 90-12-40. This meant a service weight of 90 short tons, twelve wheels and a wheel diameter of 40 inches. With this, an additional tender was stored on a third, four-wheel bogie, which was also connected to the drive shaft. Although Charles L. Heisler's patent originally included four-cylinder locomotives, the largest locomotives were also built with two cylinders and an increased boiler pressure of 200psi. The maximum train weight was around 600 tons on a gradient of two percent and 225 tons at five percent. In theory, up to 4,000 tons were possible on the flat, but these geared locomotives were not intended for the flat country.

A surviving example of the large design is the standard gauge number 6 of the Cass Scenic Railroad. The latter operates an eleven mile long, very hilly line in the Allegheny Mountains in West Virginia, which was built in 1901. On the Cass Scenic Railroad, the Heisler, built in 1929, is the only one of its kind, while the other engines consist of a Climax and otherwise only Shays. Today, like the rest of the fleet, it is still owned by the state of West Virginia, but is now used in Durbin by the operating company Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad. The locomotive was originally built for the Meadow River Lumber Company, which at the time operated one of the largest sawmills in the world.

El Dorado Lumber Co. No. 8 was a three-truck, three-cylinder Shay of type C-65-3 that was delivered in 1904 with works number 885. It was originally coal-fired with a coal capacity of five tons, but was later converted to oil-firing with a capacity of 1,180 gallons. It soon became No. 1 of the Camino, Placerville & Lake Tahoe Railroad. In 1931, they ordered a similar, 70-ton Shay that had originally been built for the Little River Redwood Company. The photo shows both in 1951 hauling an excursion train. Both were retired in 1955 and No. 1 was scrapped, while No. 2 came to Griffith Park Travel Town Museum.

The J. Neils Lumber Co. had a total of five Shays, two of which were of the type C 60-3 with three trucks. No. 4 was originally built for the Western Pine Lumber Co. of Klickitat, WA in 1918 with the works number 2976. This company was bought by the J. Neils Lumber Co. in 1922. In 1929 they ordered the same type of Shay that was numbered 5 and carried the works number 3336. 5 was built as oil burner and 4 was also converted to oil.

Number 4 was scrapped in 1943, but 5 was used by its original owner until 1964, after the company had been renamed to Klickitat Log & Lumber Co. and had been bought by the St. Regis Paper Company. It then came to the Illinois Railway Museum which started to restore it in 2002. Restoration was completed in 2018 and the locomotive is today in working order.

One of the standard models of the Shay built in larger numbers was the class B in the version with a service weight of about 50 short tons. Like all B, C and D class models, they had three cylinders. Some of the B-50-2 model locomotives already had a boiler pressure of 220 psi, while most others were still operated at 200 psi. In the meantime, the gear parts on the right side of the locomotives were covered to protect them from dirt while working in the forest. Empty weight was 85,800 pounds for early examples and approached 99,000 pounds for locomotives from the mid-twenties.

The Lake Independence Lumber Company in Michigan operated a total of five B-50-2 in addition to one B-42-2. Two of these had been built in 1910 and 1911 for other logging companies and came to this company later. Two more had been built directly for the Lake Independence Lumber Co. in 1914 and 1925 and an identical 1923 example had been purchased from Lima stocks. All five were sold in the 1920s, four of them to the Brunswick Lumber Company.

The Shay with the works number 3172 was a 70-ton three-truck model that was built without a specific order for the Lima stock and completed on June 5, 1922. It was then sold to the Little River Redwood Co. at Crannell, California and became their No. 4. This company became Hammond & Little River Redwood in the early thirties, but soon sold the locomotive to the Camino, Placerville & Lake Tahoe where it became Number 2.

This company already operated a 65-ton three-truck Shay they had bought from the El Dorado Lumber Co. in 1912. No. 2 was later joined by the identical Shay No. 2847 that had originally been built for the Finkbine Lumber Co. in 1916. But this one was only used to supply spare parts for No. 2 and was scrapped in April 1951. Four years later, No. 2 came to Travel Town in Los Angeles, California. There it is on display until today.

The last four steam engines the McCloud River Railroad purchased in 1925 were oil-fired and made by ALCO. The numbers 20 and 21 from 1924 already had the wheel arrangement 2-6-2 and came from Baldwin. Then numbers 22 and 23 with the same wheel arrangement came from ALCO. The numbers 24 and 25, which were again delivered in the same year, had two inches larger driving wheels and larger cylinders to compensate.

They were in service with logging operations until the mid-1950s, when steam operations ended at the McCloud. Number 25 was reactivated in 1962 for excursion trips. After operating on its original route with some interruptions until 2001, it joined the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad in 2011 and is still in service today.