Oil burning Potlatch Forests three truck Heisler #92 was built by the Heisler Locomotive Works in Dunkirk, NY, for the Ohio Match Co., as #1 in 1924. At some point it was bought by Potlatch in Headquarters, ID. In 1959 it was moved to Lewiston, ID, and in 1963, was donated to the City. It is on display in Locomotive Park.
#92 weighs 180,000 lbs. It has 40” drivers and 18” x 16” piston valves and is equipped with a superheater. Operating at a boiler pressure of 200 psi, it delivered 49,410 lbs tractive effort.
During the 1890s, in northern Idaho's Palouse, Potlatch and Elk River basins, thousands of acres of timberland were being purchased by Midwestern companies, but most went to two men, William Deary of Northland Pine Company, a firm established by the Weyerhaeuser syndicate, and Henry Turrish of the Wisconsin Log & Lumber Company. Although competitors, the owners of the two railroads saw the value of collaboration and, in 1903, merged their Idaho timberland under a new firm, called the Potlatch Lumber Company. The name, derived from the northwest Indian word “patshatl”, which referred to an elaborate ceremony of gift-giving, was selected because the Potlatch River cut through the company's land.
Wood Briquettes, Inc., which manufactured
and leased Pres-to-log machinery and marketed the logs, was a subsidiary of the Potlatch Corporation.
Pres-to-logs were made from compressed wood shavings, sawdust and chips. The first machine began production in 1936. The patent for the machine expired in 1960 and the company eventually lost control over the machines and producers and in 1984 the directors consented to dissolve the company. All assets were transferred to the Potlatch Corporation.
Instead of vertical cylinders and pistons with a
side drive shaft geared to the trucks as on the Shay, the Heisler's cylinders were set at 45° angles on each side of the boiler. The piston rods form a "V" connection to a central crankshaft that attaches to gears in an enclosed gear box on the furthest axle on each truck. Power was transferred to the other wheel on each truck by external connecting rods.
Right, #92 is displayed with Camas Prairie
Railroad Cupola Caboose #1000 (formerly BN #10532).
