DIXIANA SHAY
The Dixiana, Roaring Camp Engine #1, is one of three engines designated a National Mechanical Engineering Historical Landmark.
It’s not built for speed but rather tremendous torque to climb the 11% grades. Most modern trains max out at 3%!
The Dixiana has an historic and varied past. The “Dixie,” as she is affectionately called, was built by Lima Locomotive Works, Shop No. 2593, on October 12, 1912. She served on six different short line railroads before coming west to California. Although she saw service on the famous Smokey Mountain Railroad in Tennessee, it was a little narrow-gauge mining railroad (now abandoned) in Dixiana, Virginia, that gave her the name “Dixiana.”
A two-t...