Logging Shovels

[John C.]

Here is a video of a couple of log shovels in Weyerhaeuser's Vail sorting yard back in 1996. The yard was in process of being shut down at that time. The video was done because a dealership in Canada wanted to show people up there how our type of grapples worked.

 

[JPV]

Nice, almost looked like a couple Cook trucks mixed in with the Weyco trucks there, kind of a blast from the past!

 

[Hallback]

I miss the sort yard & all of the big trucking companies.

 

[John C.]

I worked in that yard fixing Drott 80 and Link-Belt 98 shovels close about thirty eight years ago. The rail road shops were there along with the truck shops and the double sorting yard. Now there are just a few buildings and mostly grass and alder growing. Those were Cook trucks and plenty of others in the raw footage that didn't make it into this program.

 

[Hallback]

Ernie Cook just moved my yarder for us two weeks ago.
My grandfather retired from Vail in 85 & I worked on the farm until around 2011 off & on.

 

[John Shipp]

John C., thanks for posting that pair of link belt shovels working, good video. Look like smooth machines, wonder if they're still running now 22 years on. All the best.

 

[Crummy]

Columbia Granite still open up there? Me & a friend looked at moving an EX1200 from RB down south (Vegas? can't remember) & then big rocks for the Columbia Jetty Project a while back but never heard back from him.

 

[John C.]

Haullback, I had an uncle retire out of there in the early nineties. He spent a lot of years driving truck and then finished his time running stacker.

Crummy, I'm pretty sure Columbia Granite is still working up there. It's been more than a year since I've been up the main line though.

John Shipp, All the C2 machines have been gone from that tree farm for at least ten years that I know of. They went into the Quantum models first and then into Hitachi and John Deere machines after that.

The Vail Tree Farm, like all of the Weyerhaeuser holdings in Washington State, is in a gray state of being in that no one knows it it will keep operating or be sold like Snoqualmie and White River Farms. It is certainly being changed.

 

[Hallback]

The Vail farm was so badly overcut in the 80s & 90s that it is a struggle to keep one tower busy. It will be that way until 2027 they figure.

 

[Hallback]

I did see a CII at the Raymond log yard yesterday though.

 

[John Shipp]

I did see a CII at the Raymond log yard yesterday though.

Was it in good shape, look healthy?

 

[Hallback]

Yes,
It looked to be a 5800 but I wasn't close enough to get any photos or verify.

 

[John C.]

I'll have to look if I ever get back down in that area again. I think I only remember two 5800 CII loggers in Washington State. As I recall they were in Tacoma in the Edman yard. The CII line transitioned into the Quantum line in the 1995 or 1996 time frame.

 

[Hallback]

Longview had a bunch of CII 5800's on their treefarm.

 

[John C.]

Nice, Triad handled Longview out of the Portland store.

 

[Hallback]

Yessir.
In 91 or 92 one burned up at Ostrander. I salvaged alot of the pins & such from it for metal working tools.