By the time the diesel era came around most logging railroads were either already dead or on their last legs. Logging railroads made sense only in cases where you had a large number of trees being cut in one place that went to the same destination. By the dawn of the 1950's forestry and logging practices had shifted away from the swaths of clearcuts so common in the boom years- with the result that a sawmill might havest a few acres at the bottom of a watershed, then go father up the watershed for a few more blocks, then jump to the next watershed for a few patchwork cuttings, and then the next harvest might be many miles away. This kind of logging- both the scattered nature of the harvest activities and the relatively low number of trees coming out of each area- made logging railroads economically unfeasible. Those logging railroads that did survive generally had a few things in common- they had been cut back to just a trunk line, with few if any spurs. Trucks moved the logs from the woods down to landings established on the rail line...at the landing the logs would be loaded onto railcars. The only job the logging railroad had was to take empties up from the mill to the landing and then take the loads down to the mill...the very definition of a unit train. Many argue that these operations were not logging railroads at all...but I tend to disagree with that view.
Another consideration is the tremendous weight difference between diesels and the steam locomotives they replaced. Most logging railroads were built just well enough to support the equipment operated by the company- imagine the havoc created when you suddenly drop a 120-ton diesel switcher on a line designed to support a 70-ton logging mike or Shay? Many logging railroads that did make the transition to diesel had to be extensively rebuilt to accomodate the new power, and the less track that you had to rebuilt the better!
By the dawn of the diesel era the Straight Hauling that Mountain Man refers to saw little if any use. Almost all log loading was highly mechanized. Here are some examples:
- McGiffert Loaders. McGifferts consisted of a loading boom and hoisting mechanism mounted on a platform supported by a large frame shaped like a C opening downward to the tracks. Empty log cars fit underneath the loader and were dragged underneath the loader either by a switcher or a block and tackle system, or were gravity fed. The boom would then be used to hoist the logs onto the cars. For shots of McGifferts at work, see the first several photos on this page...
http://www.trainweb.org/highdesertrails/onw/LoadingLogs.html
and this page...
http://www.trainweb.org/mccloudrails/LumberCompany/McGiffertloaders.html
The first page is the Edward Hines Lumber Company in central Oregon...their big sawmill sat in Burns, with a 51-mile long common carrier shortline owned by the company (the Oregon & Northwestern Railroad) running north to the little town of Seneca. Up until 1958 Ed Hines had a private logging railroad that ran quite a ways into the timber from Seneca. The second link is to some McGifferts operating on the McCloud River Lumber Company in northeastern California. Note that most McGifferts were steam powered; several diesel powered McGifferts were built, including one of the models shown on the Edward Hines page. Another eastern Oregon logger- Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company in Bend- created their own diesel McGifferts by mounting shovel bodies and booms on the platforms.
Another common loader was the slide-back model. If you go to this page again...
http://www.trainweb.org/highdesertrails/onw/LoadingLogs.html
...and scroll down to the bottom of the page you will see a slide back loader at work. Note that this is just a shovel body mounted on a giant sled...the loader would simply drag itself from one flatcar body to the next on the sled, with the boom loading each car as it works its way down the line. These are also the Edward Hines Lumber Company, but many other operations used this type of loader. Obviously either of these loaders did not permit the use of stakes to hold the logs onto the cars, meaning that the railroad either had to have cheese blocks and chains or collapsable stakes on the log cars. McGifferts would be appropriate until the very late 1950's...very few saw any use after that. New requirements for rigid stakes on log cars helped to kill these older technologies off.
A variation of the highline was also common at landings. In this case a tall spar tree would be placed right next to the tracks...it would have some sort of a boom on it. Some sort of a hoist (like a donkey) would be used in conjunction with the spar tree and the boom to load logs. These could also be used to skid logs into the landing...but their use became less and less with the introduction of more modern logging equipment.
The ultimate log loading involved any piece of equipment- such as a loader or excavator- equipped with grappling hooks or other specialized equipment to pick up and move logs. Some examples of these can be seen at the following links:
http://www.trainweb.org/highdesertrails/onw/HinesPond.html
Scroll down to the bottom pictures. This is also on the Edward Hines operation, but this time we are at their mill in Hines, OR, just south of Burns. This picture shows unloading the logs...but the same principles and equipment would be in use at the landing to load the logs. Note that the flat cars have received stakes to hold the log loads on the flats while in transit. Another example can be seen at:
http://www.trainweb.org/highdesertrails/oce/JBWoodsRailroad.html
Scroll down to the fifth photo down...this picture is on Weyerhaeuser's East Side unit, tributary to their giant sawmill in Klamath Falls, OR. These machines worked at a number of different landings and reloads in the block...their Woods Railroad connected the reloads with the Oregon California & Eastern Railroad, which transported the logs into K-Falls. This operation lasted until 1990 before folding. These machines were on the large end of the spectrum and often depended on oversize trucks (WAY too big to be highway legal) to bring the logs from the woods to the landing over private truck roads. These machines would then transfer the entire load to the railcar.
Lastly, a few operations used locomotive cranes to laod cars, a few of which were equipped with highly specialized booms specifically designed to handle logs.
If you are searching for more inspiration I would like to recommend a few resources to you. The first is to find yourself copies of the January, February, March and April 1984 issues of Railroad Model Craftsman. RMC ran a Pacific Coast Logging series in those four issues...January covered a general history and overview of the timber industry on the Pacific coast...February covered the steam locomotives...March covered the specialized equipment used in railroad logging and a few design pointers...and April covered the diesel era. These issued should be readily available through back issue dealers such as
http://www.railpub.com Next...I don't have the specific issues at hand, but between 1986 and 1990 CTC Board ran a seven part series on the diesel logging railroads left at the time (St. Maries River in Idaho; Camas Prairie in Idaho; Weyerhaeuser-Springfield, OR; Weyerhaeuser's Chehalis Western in Washington; Simpson Timber in Washington; Canadian Forest Products on Vancouver Island, B.C.; and Weyerhaeuser's Woods Railroad and the Oregon California & Eastern in Klamath Falls, OR). A number of books have some pretty good coverage of specific diesel loggers- Logging Railroads of Weyerhaeuser's Vail-McDonald Operations by Frank Teleweski and Scott Barrett (Oso Publishing, 2005) has quite a bit dedicated to the diesel years of these operations. Logging to the Salt Chuck by Pete Replinger and John Labbe (Northwest Short Line, circa 1990) covers the Simpson Timber railroad, with quite a bit of diesel coverage. There are many other sources as well that I am leaving out...but these should get you quite a ways.
I'm sure I could think of more to say if I thought hard enough...but I have probably already said too much. Please ask away if any of this confuses you!
Jeff Moore
Elko, NV
