Cass Scenic Railroad (vid)

To my knowledge, the Shay has never been bested for pulling power on logging lines. There are bigger steam locomotives with more tractive effort, but they cannot get where the Shay can. Even the three truck Shays were a little limited in the roughest areas, because of the radii required to get in and out. They simply could not negotiate the sharper curves, so the two truck Shays did it. I believe if I'm not mistaken, the only thing that ever bested them on a grade was a cable tram.....and that' cheatin. The Shay can pull grades greater than 12%. To put that in perspective, that's 12" rise in 12" length of track. Or another way, 12 miles rise in 12 miles length of track. That's pretty astounding. The Climaxes and Heislers were both good, but even they couldn't out pull the Shay. There was just something about that side drive shaft and vertical engine configuration that made them total badasses.