Our sawlogs have gone to 4 different mills, depending upon species. This load is going west, to Ames True Temper in Wallingford, where tool making began in 1808. It has mostly White Ash, but also some Red Oak. The oak surprised me, but Google says there are True Temper railroad weight shovels with Red Oak handles.
Never heard of such a beast but I doubt they have a sharpened cutting edge just like all new shovels are lacking. If it’s a railroad shovel I guess it probably wouldn’t need a sharpened cutting edge for moving rock or coal. Derail over, carry on.
I think the railroad shovel must be a historical item, but I was surprised to learn Red Oak was used for handles of tools. In Colorado, at farm dispersal sales, the shovels were typically half worn/sharpened away from use cutting in water for flood irrigation. Being a rainy Saturday, here’s a railroad tidbit related to the Ames name, copied from California Iron from the G. J. Graves Collection When Huntington went to New York, as a Vice President of the Central Pacific Railroad of California, he had a difficult time obtaining credit to purchase the first load of rails; after failing to purchase rail from any supplier in New York, he looked to the brothers Oliver and Oakes Ames, with whom he had done business since his first days in California. The brothers not only approved his purchase of Ames Brothers Shovels for the construction of the proposed railroad, but then referred him to the Bay State Iron Co. for his initial rail purchase. Hence, Massachusetts rail was the first laid on the Central Pacific Railroad of California. It is of interest to note that Ames Brothers shovels still litter the right-of-way between the desert East of Moor, Nev. and Promontory Summit, Utah, but few rails are found at this time (October, 2001).
Interesting to watch. We are about to move forward on a major harvest on our tree farm. I will post a similar thread.
Still doing some cleanup after the summer’s logging job. Originally there was a small-diameter, short culvert here. The loggers removed it and temporarily filled it with logs to make their crossing. Time for a better, long term solution, as this is a crossing we use quite regularly. 20’, 15”, $300. In short supply; other places sold them for about $275 but had none.
I got same thing but 5 footer in driveway.. boys when young after rain storm would go body surfing through it
Very interesting thread. Very different forest than what we have. Forests around here are all tree farm licenses by big companies. Firewood is starting to get hard to come by as we now have a couple of chipper plants working in the area.
The roads held up against erosion over the winter and spring. Things finally dried out late spring, and I’ve been able to drive on them to begin to ditch and slope so they dry out sooner. My wife gets an employee rental rate on equipment like this mini excavator, and I’ve had it here for a couple of weeks now. Primary building new trails - some big enough for the cabbed tractor, but some not. In the trail map picture, green were roads when we moved here, magenta are ones they added before they started logging, orange are what I’ve added this year, and white are some yet to be added. I have a gravel/sand pit and a dump trailer, and will haul some fill to improve the main roads.