Photo and text courtesy of Martin E Hansen
Shared with permission.
Many people forget that Rayonier Inc. once boasted both Heislers and Climax locomotives on it's roster along with the more well known Shays, Willamettes and Rod-type logging lokies. Several of these lesser known engines were inherited by Rayonier when they took over the Bloedel Donovan logging operations out of Sekiu, Washington in the early 1940's.
One such lokie was Bloedel Donovan Climax #1 that became Rayonier #1 on the Clallam County operations. She had been built new in 1924 and had served her whole life in the woods. By 1949 when R Biermann came along to visit the Sekiu operations she was tucked away behind the enginehouse on a short section of track. While still under steam, her current role was that of stationary boiler for the shops. With her boiler built to maintain 200#s psi, she was more than up to the task. By 1949 her days in the woods were over as she was replaced by the 3 mallets on the roster and a pair of Pacific Coast Shays and several Willamettes and 3-truck Shays.
After this photo was taken she would serve on in this humble role for just a couple more years until finally she would be taken to near-by Port Angeles where as scrapper would finish her off. No one could say she did not give her all to the company.