{"id":5105,"date":"2026-10-18T13:06:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T18:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/?p=5105"},"modified":"2026-10-18T13:06:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T18:06:30","slug":"heisler-3-in-ferriday-louisiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2026\/10\/18\/heisler-3-in-ferriday-louisiana\/","title":{"rendered":"Heisler #3 in Ferriday, Louisiana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sifting though the photo collection of Ron Findley, I spotted these images that he had made of an old Heisler steam locomotive back on June 30, 1988. This would have been a Thursday, so I suspect they were taken while en-route to\/from a job assignment in his occupation as a medical instrument tech. The locomotive was the 3-spot for the Fisher Lumber Company (later absorbed by the Angelina Hardwood Lumber Co. out of Texas).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The little Heisler geared locomotive was a 42 tonner built by Heisler as construction number 1513. She spent her life in the Ferriday area, and has been sitting under the rickety shed on private property for many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Heisler#3<\/a>
Fisher Lumber Company Heisler locomotive #3.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Heisler#3<\/a>
Ron zoomed in to the left cylinder of the locomotive. Heislers have a similar cylinder on the right, forming a vee, with the drive rods connecting to a crankshaft under the locomotive’s boiler.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Heisler#3<\/a>
Ron recorded this view from the rear of the locomotive, the water tank. I don’t know if she is coal-fired or an oil burner . . . all the photographs I’ve seen aren’t clear enough to tell. Not visible in this image, the tank has faded lettering for both the Fisher Lumber Co.<\/em> and for what looks most like Angelina Hardwood<\/em> (to my eyes).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mike Palmieri photographed this locomotive on April 9,1983 and labeled it being at the Rogers Brothers lumber mill. Brian Allison recorded a view on March 26, 2012 and said it was at the J.M. Jones Lumber Co. Since all of these images show the same shed, it’s reasonable to assume that these are all names for different ownership of the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, Everett Lueck posted a thread on Facebook Group Louisiana Railroad History<\/em> some years ago, along with yet more images and with a bit more information about the status of the machine. See it here: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/584254628420511\/posts\/710714012441238\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ron and I took a road trip sometime after this, its goal being to follow the old Louisiana Midland Railway between Vidalia and Georgetown. We stopped at the property here to take more photographs of the Heisler. Mine were all lost in the Great Flood of 2016, but I’m hoping to come across Ron’s images as I go through the many binders of slides in his collection. If I do, I’m hoping there will be views of the other side, and perhaps other “detail” shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sifting though the photo collection of Ron Findley, I spotted these images that he had made of an old Heisler steam locomotive back on June 30, 1988. This would have been a Thursday, so I suspect they were taken while … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos-i-like","category-proto-research","category-railfanning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5105"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5114,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105\/revisions\/5114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}