LOGGING HIGH LINES

[bopdoc]

Well, that will be my next field of endeavor....I'm a real dinosaur when it comes to computer-type stuff (I retired a year ago, and bought my first computer at age 65)....so no, I don't have a computer-pluggable camera....or even a cell phone! Right now my layout is static, but as I read more and more about logging operations, I can see where I'd love to have mechanized/animated stuff....Western Scale Models is working on a sawmill interior for G, and some Australian firm has a BEAUTIFUL line of working steam equipment (in On3, though)...and a couple of people put out sound cards with sawmill noises. Good luck finding 1930's logging material....I haven't seen any, but then again, I've been looking primarily at earlier stuff.....cheers!

[Rex in Pinetop]

Wow that's a lot of work.  It's taken me several years and I'm nowhere close to what you have.  My steam donkeys are very much toys that the kids can turn the cranks on to haul logs up the hill.  I'll try and find a picture or two.  I'd love to see what your layout looks like.

Rex

[bopdoc]

Didn't mean to ignore you, Rex...somehow I missed your note. I just got started in garden railroading last October, and knew I wanted a logging operation from the git-go. I live on 2 acres of woodsy land, and had some trees cleared out, then after I raked out the mess the skidder made, I made a kind of trail, and thought "gee, I could almost put a railroad along this line"....and voila! here I am. Working alone, things are moving slowly. I had to build a retaining wall for a yard/lumber mill area, haul in yards and yards of sand, gravel, dirt and ballast, then graded the roadbed (max is about 4%), planted a bunch of stuff, built dozens of trestles and retaining walls, built more retaining walls after the first heavy downpour, and made a few stream beds and culverts. I just got my loco( a 38-ton Bachmann Shay) back from Throttle Up in Portland, who installed batteries, sound, and R/C...it runs great. I built a logging disconnect from aNortheast Models kit, and have another in the box. I bought 2 custom log flats (2-axle), a work caboose, a pair of Bachmann disconnects, and 2 Hartford Ely-Whitney-type logging cars off of eBay. I finished a sawmill kit from Garden Textures (a tedious, but beautiful craftsman-type kit), and am working on a millpond for it. My lumber camp, about 100' away, up the hill in the woods, has only 2 buildings, a bunk house and a dining hall, from Comstock models, plus a supply tent. I have hammered a couple dozen sawed-off log stumps into the ground, and littered the area with cedar shavings. I have 3 axe men, a couple laborers, and a couple of hangers-on. I am also working on an Ozark Miniature steam donkey, and am planning on scratchbuilding a heel boom for unloading the logs at the mill. Right now, a lot of what goes on is still in the "make believe" category...my imagination works faster than my hands can keep up with! Cheers!

[Rex in Pinetop]

I'm also interested in high line logging.  I've build a couple of steam donkeys with hand cranks for the winches and I have planted the forest for the logging operation.  I have a logging spur at the summit and a bunch of skelton cars for the operation.  I bought some logging equipment from Ozark including pullies and logging tongs.  My brother-in-law is a logger in Oregon and has provided many pictures of early logging operations that his father was a part of.  My town has a saw mill to bring the logs to be made into lumber.  Right now my operation is under several feet of snow so no real work on the ground until spring.

I'd really be interested in how you plan to put your operation together.  Are you going to build a log camp?  Is your operation going to be dynamic or static?  How many "loggers" are you going to have and what are you going to have them doing?

Rex 

[g. gage]

Glad to be of help, both Labbe and Goe worked in the woods, years ago I talked to Mr. Labbe on the phone, very interesting fellow.

 

Have fun, Rob   

 

[bopdoc]

Thanks, Rob...I have seen "Railroads in the Woods" cited many times, and I do intend on getting that book.

[bopdoc]

THANKS!!! I tried Google (Yahoo wasn't that good), and there ARE thousands of sites; not many were that useful, but one was OUTSTANDING ("High Lead Logging on the Olympic Peninsula", which included another excellent source of illustrations, "Diagrams in the Young Iron Works catalog")....dynamite material for anyone interested in logging.

[g. gage]

If you are interested in Western logging, transportation and mills I recommend two books; RAILROADS IN THE WOODS, by John T. Labbe & Vernon Goe and LOGGING RAILROADS OF THE WEST, by Kramer Adams.

 

Good luck, Rob

 

[ttrigg]

Google "logging high line" and you will find them by the thousands.

[bopdoc]

Anyone out there familiar with a site that illustrates a logging high line and/or Skyline (arrangement of pulleys, blocks, etc.)?