Large Scale Central

A small load of Redwood

General Discussion
#1

Ran across this picture and it reminded me of when I was a kid growing up in the logging woods of Humboldt County, CA.

When my Step-Dad sold his logging trucks in 55’ he went to driving for Simpson Timber in their off road rigs just like this one for a few years.

I went on a couple of trips with him and man that was exciting sitting up in that monster truck wheeling down the mountain roads.

The logging road was left hand drive for what ever reason, I think it had to do with getting those monster loads around the curves, any way on this

one particular trip down the hill Dad looked across the canyon and saw a pickup coming up the road, said he didn’t recognize the rig and they were on the wrong

side of the road. Sure enough a few turns later that pickup came boiling around the turn and headon into the log truck. Knowing what was probably going to happen

Dad had slowed the rig way down and we were probably only doing 10 mph when they ran into us, good thing too as the bumper on the log truck went right over the hood

and into the windshield of that pickup. Nobody was hurt but it sure scraped up the paint on that pickup.

The two guys in the pickup were all pissed off and excited until Dad explained to them that they were trespassing on private road, driving on the wrong side of the road,

obviously they had missed the posted signs, and had damaged the property of Simpson Timber Co. About that time the woods boss showed up and took over and Dad and I went on down the hill to the mill.

Great memory of the old days.

#2

Whats a Spalding? I can only think of Captain Spaulding…

I bought my grand mothers Studebaker Lark in Everson Washington. it had a logging truck crease across the trunk lid.

1st $100 bill she ever saw 1977 ish

#3

John,

Spalding is one of the methods/formules used to scale logs to figure the number of board feet they contain before sawing.

Here is an explanation, sort of,

https://www.timbertax.org/publications/irs/auditmanual/chapter600/620/

#4

Gotcha,

thanks.

#5

I’m 50 yrs old …so what does that make Rick and John ?

Dust ?

Artifacts?

Dinosaurs ?

Old?

“Ancient Railroadians” on history channel ?

Good stuff and always learning what others forgot or never cared to look at!

#6

Rooster ’ said:

I’m 50 yrs old …so what does that make Rick and John ?

Dust ?

Artifacts?

Dinosaurs ?

Old?

“Ancient Railroadians” on history channel ?

Good stuff and always learning what others forgot or never cared to look at!

Older, but not necessarily wiser(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif) Speaking for myself only of course.

#7

Rooster ’ said:

I’m 50 yrs old …so what does that make Rick and John ?

Dust ?

Artifacts?

Dinosaurs ?

Old?

“Ancient Railroadians” on history channel ?

Good stuff and always learning what others forgot or never cared to look at!

Experienced!

#8

This Old Dinosaur worked at the mill in Fort Bragg 49 years ago, after “graduating from the USAF”, when you guys were still in diapers. Georgia Pacific and Louisiana Pacific had bought out Union Lumber. GP had the Redwood Mill and LP had the Plywood plant. GP was cutting the Redwood “high cut stumps”, they were cut high because they had no way to cut the huge diameter trees in the 1800’s. One stump would fill an Off Hwy. rig. They were dumped on the ground next to the log pond and a D-8 Cat with a wedge would slit them to a size that would fit in the mill. GP closed down in 2002 after 117 years. Now it’s all gone.

Thanks Rick

#9

My wife was born and raised in Fort Bragg, I have been there a few times, I recommend people to visit the city, that is where the Skunk railroad ride is, many log oriented museums,and a GREAT G scale railroad that is next to the Skunk Depot, it is mostly inside with great details, that also extends outside. Mendocino Model Railway.

I got a personal guided tour of the GP mill in 1986, for this ole Missouri boy, that was a WOW impressive tour. As said above All gone fenced off with a walking trail along the oceanfront now.

Dennis

#10

Good memories Dan,

As a child we had a smalll “stump ranch” east of Arcata near Blue Lake (Humboldt County) and there were quite a number of the old High Stumps scattered through the pastures and woods. A number of them were hollow in the center with easy entrances between some of the root swells. Most of them were covered with ferns and huckleberry bushes on top and a few up near the house had climbing roses planted around them, quite a site. As kids we use to “camp out” inside some of these stumps, plenty of room for 5-6 kids, their stuff and a camp fire.

Great times back then, no viruses to worry about, well except maybe; polio, mumps, measels, chickenpox and a few others but we were kids we didn’t worry about anything except maybe getting “caught” doing what we weren’t supposed to be doing

#11

Rick said: “Great times back then, no viruses to worry about, well except maybe; polio, mumps, measels, chickenpox and a few others but we were kids we didn’t worry about anything except maybe getting “caught” doing what we weren’t supposed to be doing.”

When I was a kid, I had every one of those diseases except Polio and got caught doing what I shouldn’t 99% of the time.

#12

Yep(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

#13

Dan DeVoto said:

Rick said: “Great times back then, no viruses to worry about, well except maybe; polio, mumps, measels, chickenpox and a few others but we were kids we didn’t worry about anything except maybe getting “caught” doing what we weren’t supposed to be doing.”

When I was a kid, I had every one of those diseases except Polio and got caught doing what I shouldn’t 99% of the time.

Rooster narks on Dan for smoking corn silk !

#14

Rooster said: Rooster narks on Dan for smoking corn silk !

I guess that makes it 100%(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-embarassed.gif)

#15

Another small load of redwood:

And one more…

[edited to re-insert the next pic properly…]

But these guys are nut jobs! Imagine one chain breaking… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)

#16

Nice Pictures Cliff, thanks for posting them.

The first one is Excelsior Redwood Company pulling out of Freshwater Camp, near Arcata, Humboldt County , CA. If I remember correctly that is all one tree on that train.

Don’t recognize the second picture but it is not Redwood(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif). Looks more like Suger Pine probably somewhere in the Sierra Mts of CA.

Notice there are no chains over the peaker (top log) they would loosly attach the chains over the 2 bottom logs these chains/cables were referred to as “gut wrappers” then the top log was set in place

and pushed the chains down by it’s weight and forcing the bottom logs outward tight against the cheese blocks and chains, locking in a very solid load.

If we could see the 5 log load to the left a little better we’d probably find 2 sets of Gut Wrappers one for the 2 bottom logs and a second set for the top 2 logs with the Peaker dropped in to do it’s job.

It’s interesting though not suprising how so many terms, expressions, and names transferred from railroad logging to truck logging back in the day. If they still use any of these terms in the modern woods, I couldn’t say. Went on a couple of hauls with my Son-in-Law a few years ago and recognized what was happening out in the woods and at the mill dump but the terms and slang were all unknown to me.

Edited for some spelling