I recently found some exceptionally nice wood when working on a project for my wife, adding on some bookcases and a system of catwalks to keep our 3 cats from getting completely on each others nerves this winter. Part of the project was building 2 catwalks, like this 12' long one made of a 1x6 and 1x4 T-ed together, very much like an L-girder.
It actually created a very short hall by extending the bookcases to the door between the LR and dining room. You can see the beautiful knot-free Select Pine grading on display here.
It comes from New Zealand and I found it at Menards. A recent thread here got to discussing wood grading for benchwork. I thought it was nice, but probably a bit pricey for benchwork wood, but I just can't quit bragging on how good this stuff is. Others said not at all, it would be great for benchwork, as it makes things easy to have straight, clean lumber, well worth the cost. I noted I'd composed a peaen to this NZ stuff and wanted to ask our friend JaBear if any of it might be hauled by rail, but my computer ate it early one morning last week...
Turns out another NZ resident forum member, Bill "bagal" of Dunedin, NZ knew that yes, considerable lumber on the North Island is hauled by RR, offering up a video and noting this was up near where Bear lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6GTU8j0cGqQ
Sweet! Thanks, Bill! BTW, the wood grading threard is here: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/251971.aspx
So this is a New Zealand logging RR thread (not a cat furniture thread, although I gotta do something with a history degree .) Bear or others may be able to help here, but feel free to add to an interesting topic that has a few American connections, because geared locos were used in the past there, Shays and a Climax, IIRC. Maybe someone can set that straight after I mangled it?
I'm curious if logging RRs ended, only to be revived by modern demand.?
Are any NZ logging RR models available?
What about links and/or exhibit lines?
What gauges?
Are these farmed trees or wild?
Etc, etc, inquiring mind want to know.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
mlehman Shays and a Climax,
mlehmanI'm curious if logging RRs ended, only to be revived by modern demand.?
mlehmanAre any NZ logging RR models available?
mlehmanWhat gauges?
mlehmanAre these farmed trees or wild?
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Bear,
Thanks so much for the info. Guess I was way off on geared locos. Nothing wroing with having a Heisler instead.
That book sound interesting, but the price...!
I'll have to give the video, etc a closer look in the morning, falling asleep...
Wow, Bear, that was a great video. A somewhat familiar, but in the end a bit oddly different landscape than what I'm used to when I think of logging. Those railcars are to die for, very cool. Neat little layout. I don't recall seeing it in the NG&SL Gazette, but maybe my memory is playing tricks on me.
But you don't need old or steam to go logging. That lineup of tough looking diesels shows you can do modern logging, too, if you please (and don't have a crew rounding up the diesel salesman for a lynching, a la John Allen .)
Makes a lot of sense that the gauge, 3'6", was the same for everything, showing a practical side. It sounds like an odd gauge, but it's one that was used on one of the more extensive, but little known NG systems in North American, the Newfoundland Railway (consolidated into CN after WWII.)
A great logging tradition to be sure, and one where anyone might be able to still participate in when building that next piece of nice square benchwork. Look for the tag that says NZ Select Pine.
Thanks again!
Other contributions to this tale of logging railroads far away are gratefully solicted.
Cheers, the Bear.
Neat pic.Thanks!
So I take it what we call loggers are "bushmen" in NZ?
Or is bushmen a more generic term, but often applied to loggers?
mlehmanSo I take it what we call loggers are "bushmen" in NZ?
I was just going to mention the Climax and Heisler locos but Bear beat me to it. Many of the bush locos were ex NZGR rod locos and there were a number of locally built geared locos. One loco I find quiet interesting is an American Locomotive Co 2-4-4-2 Mallet. It is in preservation but I am not sure if it is currently operational but several of the Heisler and Climax ones are.
At least one of the larger bush tramways is now a cycle trail and it includes a spiral loop.
Bill
Bear and Bill,
Had a chance to digest the NZ geared loco link Bear sent earlier. Wow, now that's a bunch of fascinating locos I knew nothing about. Lumber was clearly a pretty big part of the economy with so many builders involved over such a long time.
Is the marvelously big-footed "Ollie's tractor" prototype or a modeler's creative invention?
Who would've thought the Little River 2-4-4-2 had a distant cousin?
Lots of neat Great Stuff out there to explore
Holy cow, I would have for sure said that double ender thing with C-C trucks was a figment of the modelr's imagination, but there it is, real live picture of the actual thing.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy,
Even more amazing...It seemed at first that yes, a very active imagination and one heck of a junk pile out back resulted in such an offering. But it was part of a line of similar machines, some in multiples and some distinctively singular. And that was just one builder's production.
I guess people got pretty inventive when the supply line is as long as it is to New Zealand. Creatively crazy!
rrinker Holy cow, I would have for sure said that double ender thing with C-C trucks was a figment of the modeler's imagination,......
That one looks like one of several of the "Galloping Geese" that the RGS had. Perfectly normal. And the ones that are essentially over the road trucks with railroad wheels applied, there's even modern equivalents of those. But to weld two cars back to back and then put railroad wheels under the whole thing - and not just railroad wheels, but 3 axle trucks at each end.... must be the air down there in NZ.
That White railtruck looks like it was cruising on the best track it may have ever seen. I suspect MOW in the bush was somewhat more iffy. Looks like everyone was having great fun.
New Zealand's experience is probably no different than elsewhere. We've our own share of oddities. It's just a much bigger place in the US, so things ended up rather more standardized. In NZ, I suspect the market was pretty much satisfied by what was created initially.
Gotta take the decline of steam into account also. The trickle of production in the prewar period opened wider once war surplus was available and labor with skills to build such items became more freely available with demobilization. The supply of affordable secondhand steam dried up with the war (and it couldn't be used everywhere, thus the demand for specialized logging locos). After 1945, that and the scrapping of anything not immediately useful in the war effort meant that it was either a very pricey, likely imported diesel -- or something more inventive.
Then there's the fact that the parts supply, err, the "junk yard" tends to determine how you think of designing such critters. Throw in a healthy dose of war surplus material and it was easy to get creative.
mlehmanNew Zealand's experience is probably no different than elsewhere.
What didn’t help matters and I think it applied to all new machinery purchases from off shore, but not only did you have to have the money but you had to have actual Overseas Funds!! This was phased out in the very early 70s.
Ouch,
Yeah, that would put a premium on local inventiveness and undoubtedly contributed to the knack of turning sow's ears into silk, errr, wooden purses