Art & Words by
HOWARD B. TAYLOR

The Heisler locie was on roads where I surveyed, but I did not often see one go up the hill. It sat around. It was later purchased by J. H. Chambers. It sat there also. While doing drafting I became better acquainted with J. H. and Vic and suspect that they bought several old locies as a hobby. Their main line road was built to handle Southern Pacific branch line trains. My surveys anticipated that Siuslaw Bay would become their seaport. One Heisler was used by the Hammond Lumber Company out of Mill City and still sets on a siding there. A friend supplied me with a photograph of this engine in service. It is my recollection that is this locie could not get up the hill with the men in a crummy car during a freeze so we clustered over the locie like apes would be expected to and rode as near a steam pipe as possible without burning ourselves too much. On such mornings, it would spin out a few times anyway. So not being treated like men, we called ourselves swamp apes and made changes when in charge.