MOTOR TRANSPORT: USE IN TIMBER INDUSTRY

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1790, 8 November 1919, Page 3 (Supplement)

MOTOR TRANSPORT: USE IN TIMBER INDUSTRY

The advance of the motor truck as an important means of transportation is illustrated by the following article, from an American paper:— The lumber industry of California, one of the State's greatest assets, is more dependent on motor truck transportation than any other single industry. Trucks are now hauling huge logs from the woods into the mills over some of the worst roads in the country. They can hardly be called roads, since they are merely paths cut into the virgin forests where the logs lie. Way up on top of the Sierra Nevada range are wonderful timber tracts. Here is pine in abundance. Mills are there to cut the

timber, but it is rather hard to get out the logs on account of Jhe steep grades and thick brush. In Fresno County, about 50 miles from the city of Fresno, near ihe summit of the lower ranges of the Sierras, are two mills now in operation. At one, the smaller, Routt's mill, a five-ton truck hauls the cut lumber up a hill with 20 to 22 per cent, grades, delivers it at the top of the hard climb and then goes back after more. Other trucks, unable to make the heavy grade, pick up the lumber here at the top and haul it 53 miles to Fresno. This truck is in use every day of the week, and is hauling enough lumber to keep four trucks busy hauling into

Fresno. Capacity loads are hauled up these hills day after day and week after week. The crew work seven days a week. They figure that they will have plenty of time' to rest when the snow flies. This lumber is fresh cut and weighs about 31b to the board foot. The machine hauls this lumber from the pile at the mill to the top of the hill, a distance of two miles, with heavy grades. It is a feat of hauling that shows the stamina of the modern truck. Then four miles from Routt's Mill, down a steep canyon called The Basin (and it is a true basin, with mountains on all sides), is Prescott's Mill. This is a larger property, with a railroad running up the mountains.

It is the San Joaquin and Eastern line. The cut is hauled out this way. At this property the real test of truck stamina is made. Trucks are used to haul in the huge logs from the forests to the mill where they are sawed up and shipped to the lumber yards in Fresno, by railroad. These are the conditions under which hauling of heavy logs is done on the "Rim of the World." These trucks go about two miles into the woods. The logs are rolled on to the truck by skids and chains, and horses. They are lashed in place with chains and dogs, and the truck goes. These men make seven and eight trips a day, front daylight to dark.