Logging Accidents: And They Walked Away.........

[Murk100]

Madill 120 broke one of her guylines, somewhere on south Van Isle

 

[JDOFMEMI]

So now I have to ask, what in the world is the ???? on the top of the boom on the sunken Hitachi?

 

[spitzair]

So now I have to ask, what in the world is the ???? on the top of the boom on the sunken Hitachi?

I believe, and I could be wrong of course, that you're looking at a backspar setup. What some outfits did is instead of hooking the skylines and such from the yarder to a stationary object like a stump or a tree, they hooked it to an excavator and thus were able to reposition the back spar to reach the next bunch of logs very easily without having to tear all the rigging down, move it over, set it all up again, yard some logs, repeat... With this thing you simply fired up the excavator, moved it say 100 feet, put the bucket down again and you're logging again in a matter of minutes. Hope this helps.

 

[JDOFMEMI]

I learn something new every day. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Thanks

 

[mitch504]

There is a highline swamplogger here who uses an old Bucyrus-Erie 350H hydraulic excavator (105,000 lbs) for that purpose. Around here whatever holds the tail of the highline is called a "tail hold" but a lot of the same fellows who think they cut "pup wood" call it a tail-hole.

 

[tyyota]

Story is lowbed lost its trailer brakes. Last corner on the grade. If he could have held on through this one he would have made it to the bottom safe and sound.
Thats why they don't chain these machines down eh!

 

[Ryan Rønning]

There are some crazy pictures in this thread. Hope to see more posted.

 

[Jumbo]

Since I never carried a camera in the 70’s, there are no photos. But I gotta ask, how often on a swing yarder with a tail cat did people tip the tail cat over as they were changing the road? At Weyerhaeuser Snoqualmie, it seemed like it was a monthly occurrence down in the alder patches. I have heard that Longview apparently did it regularly also.

Another experience I was able to avoid, I was hooking on a cat and we needed to move a 30B down to where the transport could take it to the shop for a re-build. Cat skinner wanted me to run the Cat I said NO THANKS! The way they did it was to put the blade of a D8 up against the front of those old flat pads and back down the hill. Theory being that if the shovel got away it would run into the blade forcing it down into the grade and stop. This time it did not work that way, there was too much ice and compact snow, it was quite the ride. Thank God, I was on foot watching.

The only other wreck I saw was moving a 38B out the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie, the road was the old Northbend Timber RR mainline with a rock face about a half mile from good road. We had a contract lowboy hauling it and he got in a hurry sniffing out the decent road just ahead. He came around that face and hooked it with the boom. There it sat, hanging over the river just balanced. We hung rigging for a day or so, packing those 16” Ropemaster tail blocks up that rock face. Finally, with everything set, we used the haulback of the yarder and the drum line on the side cat and sucked her right back up onto the road, trailer and all, Slicker 'n cow slobbers. Stripping the rigging was easy, gravity was on our side.

 

[BDFT]

I pulled a D8 off a backspar trail with a 78-40 once. Yarding downhill and couldn't see the Cat. The haulback kept going slack and I kept sucking it up and pretty soon it all went slack and the yelling started. That took two hoes and another Cat to sort out.

 

[jackd]

I spent a year working as a Landing Man on a Madill 044 Grapple Yarder - back in the late '70s. We used to use an old D9 Cat with a a tail spar pipe on it - the thing had worn out tracks. I used to take turns with the Hooker and move that thing. No one had any training. I remember the trickiest times were when we would be up in the rocks up above the Yarder and it came to changing roads. Lots of times the D9 would be sideways to the Yarder and we would ask the operator to tighten the lines to clear them. I saw that thing bugger off sideways more than a few times but it never went too far. The Yarder Operator was a bit of an animal but he always seemed to have the sense to not pull too hard and drag the Cat off the rocks. There were several of these Cats operating in our Division and I never heard of one going over. Lots of fun back then.

 

[oldtanker]

Guess you loggers are keeping Fruit Of The Loom in business!

Rick

 

[furpo]

mobile tails

The mobile tails only really move if they are not dug in properly. Get the machine behind a big stump or the blade/bucket in the ground and they take a lot of pulling. You soon learn how much interlock pressure a given tailhold can handle so you just keep an eye on it if you are getting up there. It is good practice to put the machine somewhere that if it does move its not going to do any harm. Not always possible though. The yarder operator has to think about these things when cranking back on the regus.

 

[BDFT]

Good advice. I worked with an backspar mounted on an old excavator that would slowly creep ahead if it wasn't parked at the right angle. One day the boss left a brand new chainsaw under the front of the tracks. When we finished the road the hoe was parked on top of the saw.

 

[Born2clearcut]

I was watching this truck pull out of the landing he made it to first corner and trailer got sucked off the side and rolled over . It was a new driver to the company (andy byrnes trucking ) when i got their he was hangin upside down and all he would say was " hope i don't get fired for this " he was ok not a mark on him . We flipped it back on to it wheels , put a 1/2 gallon of oil in it , loaded it back up and off he went .

 

[J&R_INC.]

322 rollover

Stacking slash and fell over.In the first photo the operator is in the yellow shirt. I can't see that well but I think his pants are "BROWN"

 

[JTL]

A friend sent me this one the other day from his job. Operator found a high stump.

 

[RonG]

Time to grease them U joints!!!.LOL.I hope he wasn't hurt from flying debris.
Ron G

 

[JTL]

The same friend has sent me a couple more that I found in the archives. Seems them Johnny Popper skidders like to be on thier side's!

 

[John C.]

I think the pin ball of an operator caused the machine to go tilt. Might be he needs a little more finesse on the flappers

 

[Jdigger4130]

That is A hilarious telling of A great story man.. I am laughing at loud! Somewhere between the speed of light AND sound... CLASSIC! I am poaching that one!