Roots of Motive Power
The Roots Collection
Pacific Car and Foundry
16-wheel Donkey-moving Car

The announcement by Simpson Timber Company that they were pulling up their logging railroad from the Matlock Dry Sort Yard to the Frank Breymeyer Reload west of Shelton, Washington, was sad news indeed. It marked the end of an era for one of the unique railroad operations in North America. Chris Baldo of Roots of Motive Power contacted the company and made arrangements for the purchase of three Simpson cars:
(1) a Pacific Car and Foundry 8-wheel moving car that had been converted to a ballast spreader
(2) a Pacific Car and Foundry 16-wheel moving car
(3) a Pacific Car and Foundry log skeleton car

All of the cars were delivered to the Roots facility in Willits CA in the summer of 2003. The most unique car is the 16-wheel moving car.

John Taubeneck of Seattle, WA provided the following information:

In 1926 Pacific Car and Foundry introduced the 16-wheel donkey-moving car. These cars had the same load rating (100 tons) as standard 8-wheel cars but were designed to prevent broken rails and bridges. Half of the car and its load was distributed over 16 feet of track, almost 3 times the length of the truck of a standard car. The rated capacity of these cars was based on their safe loading on 56 lb. rail and traveling at mainline speeds. There are photographs of these cars in use with 150+ ton loads.

This list is drawn from the Pacific Car and Foundry photo collection. There may have been others built that are not shown here. A car was designed for the Caspar Lumber Co. of Caspar CA. As far as is known it was never built.