The Alaculsy Lumber Company No. 3 is a three-truck Shay locomotive that was built by Lima in 1912 as the standard gauge #3 for the Alaculsy Lumber Company in Conasauga, TN.
It was sold to the Atlanta, GA, dealer Southern Iron & Equipment, in 1919 and then became Smoky Mountain Railroad #3 at the W. M. Ritter Lumber Co., in Proctor, NC, where it was converted to 36" gauge.
It moved to McClure, VA, and was then sold to the Coal Processing Corporation in Dixiana, VA, in 1938.
In 1958, F. Norman Clark found the engine abandoned near a coal mine in Virginia, and he brought the locomotive to the Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad in 1962, where the locomotive was restored to operation to haul to tourist trains. The locomotive was converted from coal to oil burning, regauged back to 36", given the #1, and was christened "Dixiana", after the location of the Coal Processing Corporation. The locomotive has a H.Bellfield Co. 3-chime whistle, and a distinct-sounding bell. Today, it serves as the railroad's flagship locomotive.
As of today, the locomotive is at the Roaring Camp & Big Trees railroad hauling tourists up to "Bear Mountain".
Trivia[]
- In July 1970, the locomotive operated with deer horns on the headlight. Prior to the railroad's initial opening in 1963, the locomotive had a wooden pilot, but this was smashed to pieces due to the crews grossly underestimating the grade transitions of the railroad.