Haulage

“ Man and Animal Haulage. Animal haulage is employed chiefly in Collieries and large metal mines; sometimes for main haulage lines, but oftener for distributing empty cars and making up trains for mechanical haulage. In mines operated through shafts the animals are stabled underground, and when well fed and cared for, thrive notwithstanding their rather abnormal conditions of life. Mine cars are sometimes run long distances, singly or in trains, over roads which are given sufficient grade to impart considerable speed by gravity, say from 1 to 21/2%. ”

“ To bring the shipper and truck owner together serves the interests of both. It doubles the efficiency of the motor truck, enables business men to make prompt shipments or secure deliveries in a day instead of several, relieves the railroads of much short-haul freight, and thereby releases cars for necessary long-distance haulage of munitions, equipment, and other supplies for our Army in France, and for foodstuffs, fuel, etc., for the civilian population at home. ”

“ Several haulage systems were considered for this work, but not one of them was thought to be flexible enough to be used with the constantly changing conditions, and it was eventually decided to move all the cars by hand, because, practically all the work being down grade, the full cars could be run down by gravity and the empty ones pushed back by hand. ”

“ He takes upon himself, moreover, all repairs of buildings, enclosures, &c., supplies night watchers, executes annually at least three haulages over thirty-eight miles of ground, and seldom works less than twenty-eight or thirty days for his landlord, often as much as fifty or even sixty. ”

“ The kind of bodies available should be studied, remembering that he may wish to haul grain on one trip, hogs or sheep on another, then cream and vegetables. He will want, probably, to haul back groceries, flour, feed, lumber, hardware, implements, fertilizer, cement, and gravel. In looking ahead he should estimate the increase in the quantity of hauling that more rapid transportation, the going to more distant markets, and the possible raising of different products which may come about through the owning of a truck, will bring to his farm. ”

“ If the owner desires to do his own hauling of the feed from the railroad and the other necessary trucking he would, of course, have to keep more horses, a team at least, or an automobile truck. Where only one horse is kept, this trucking must be hired done. ”

“ Commuters and truck-wagons ain’t any sweet haulin’, but I tell you they’re a heap better ’n cuttin’ out refrigerator-cars or oil-tanks. Why, I’ve hauled—”
“Haul! You?” said the Mogul, contemptuously. “It’s all you can do to bunt a cold-storage car up the yard. Now, I—” he paused a little to let the words sink in—“I handle the Flying Freight—e-leven cars worth just anything you please to mention. On the stroke of eleven I pull out; and I’m timed for thirty-five an hour. Costly-perishable-fragile, immediate—that’s me! Suburban traffic’s only but one degree better than switching. ”

“ Most of the freighters had arrived with their stores of building materials and merchandise—all the diversified paraphernalia of a brand-new, booming mining camp of the northern placer fields. With the arrival of each new craft at the landing, whether it were canoe, poling boat, or slender barge, new white tents sprang up on the flat, goods were piled up, men, and not a few women rushed about, entering into “deals” of all sorts—buying or leasing lots, contracting for log buildings, or earnestly discussing, and often squabbling over, “lay” agreements to work ground on the creek. ”

“ There is accommodation for the unloading of the animals from the vessels at any height of the tide all along the front of the import warehouses, and this operation can be carried on at the same time as the unloading of parcels and the perishable goods traffic from the same boats, while, close at hand, is a covered pen set apart for the reception of lame and distressed animals who are unfit to walk to the cattle yard, such animals being loaded up and taken by an engine to the yard. ”

“ In other words, in averaging the length of haul of second-class matter, nine-tenths of the people served are in closely settled territory, where they are reached by the short haul, and only one-tenth in the thinly settled western half of the country, to be served by the long haul, and oftentimes by the most difficult and expensive methods of transportation. ”

“ Before Papa got his freight line from Hamlin to Stamford, he had one truck and was looking for anything to haul that would help us make a living. He took one job of hauling that shouldn't happen to a dog. There was a man buying maize heads one summer and shipping them by rail to somewhere. This was the surplus maize farmers had left from last year's crop, after they had used all they needed for feed through the winter and spring. The man bought the maize from farmers and then told us where to go pick it up. Then we hauled it from the farms and loaded it into railroad boxcars. ”

“ To the eastward is the railroad terminal with its panting engines and its medley of noises, while nearer at hand but in the same direction is the transport headquarters with its ceaselessly moving caravan of rumbling, grumbling army trucks. All combines to make a picture that holds one spell-bound. ”

“ Immense freight-wagons, with ponderous wheels and axles, heavily laboring under prodigious loads of ore for the mills, or groaning with piles of merchandise in boxes, bales, bags, and crates, block the narrow streets. Powerful teams of horses, mules, or oxen, numbering from eight to sixteen animals to each wagon, make frantic efforts to drag these land schooners over the ruts, and up the sudden rises, or through the sinks of this rut-smitten, ever-rising, ever-sinking city. ”

“ In this aspect the facilities for transportation, whether by land or water, by pack-animal, cart, canal boat or steamer, are of great importance. It has been estimated that a human burden bearer would require more than a day and a half to move a ton of goods a mile; a strong pack-horse can carry three hundredweight a considerable number of miles in a day; while on first-rate level roads a horse can drag a ton even further. ”

“ One angle of the transportation problem to which too few men are paying attention is this useless hauling of material. If the problem were tackled from the point of ridding the railroads of their useless hauls, we might discover that we are in better shape than we think to take care of the legitimate transportation business of the country. In commodities like coal it is necessary that they be hauled from where they are to where they are needed. ”

“ The story of docks and harbours, of the loading and unloading of the war freights merits a chapter of its own. To understand it you must remember that ships are of many sizes and of very varying draught. The depths of water in the ports, the tides, the quay accommodation, the provision of cranes and sorting sheds, of available railway trucks have in each case to be considered. Grain requires one type of machinery for unloading, timber another, fruit or meat yet another. ”

“ Suppose, for example, that some men are engaged in the business of hauling freight of all kinds from the water-front to the various parts of a city. The owners and chief managers are doing the best they can to deliver coal, merchandise, and other freight promptly and cheaply, though every pound must be hauled with difficulty over slippery streets and up heavy grades. ”

“ A two-seated rig was secured, and accompanied by four men, I started for the cabin. Following us was a four-horse wagon, in which were six or eight additional men, the idea being for them to attach the tongue of our four-wheeled cabin to the larger vehicle and haul it off the land. It was pitch dark when we reached the vicinity of the cabin, and I called a halt, telling them that I would get out and go on ahead so as to apprise Joe of our coming. ”

“ It is one thing to find that a movable, such as a railway car, a stock of merchandise, or a herd of cattle, has become a part of the permanent mass of property in a particular state, and quite another to attribute to a sea-going ship an actual situs at any particular port into which it goes for supplies or repairs, or for the purpose of taking on or discharging cargo or passengers. ”

“ On those occasions we sighed for tramways over which we could run swiftly with cargo and canoes. Every portage has its name, and so, indeed, has every point, stream, and isle, for ages the fur traders’ canoes have been traversing this country, and to these people every mile is known. We indulged in small tents for sleeping; but our beds were the hard rocks sprinkled with spruce-fir-tops and covered with rugs. ”

“ The jingle of the anchor chains, the rattle of the links of the trucks that bring down the cargoes, the metallic clank of sheets of iron falling on the stone pavement, the dull thud of wood, the creaking of the carts plying for hire, the whistles of the steamers, piercingly shrill and hoarsely roaring, the shouts of dock laborers, sailors, and customs officers— all these sounds melt into the deafening symphony of the working day, that hovering uncertainty hangs over the harbor, as though afraid to float upward and be lost.
And fresh waves of sound continually rise up from the earth to join it ”

“ The same bulletin gives the average length of wagon haul for these products to be 9 miles, and of motor truck haul, 11.3 miles; furthermore the average number of round trips by wagon per day was 1.2 while by truck it was 3.4.
Whether or not the truck on the farm will release any horses will depend on what determines the number of horses kept. To do his hauling does the farmer keep more than is necessary for farm operations alone? The passenger automobile, no doubt, did release many driving and riding horses, but will the truck release many more? ”

“ Of course, the camping parties, which are legion, are houses on wheels! Aside from the tents, poles, bedding, and cooking utensils, we have seen stoves, sewing-machines, crates of tinned foods, trunks full of every conceivable incumbrance they could buy, strapped to the back and sides and even on the top of the car, and usually the personal luggage jammed in between the mud-guards and hood of the engine. A traveling circus is an orderly, compact miniature in comparison. ”

“ The wear and tear upon a road is not likely to be heavy when the haul must begin at a town without railroad facilities, must end at a like town, and must not pass through any town which does have them. Not many carriers for hire will be tempted to do business in such neighborhoods exclusively. ”

“ Men in ugly gray clothing, their faces shaded with broad, ribbonless straw hats, were working at loading a boat with large boxes, which they carried to the quay from a truck on a miniature local railway line. ”

“ Imagine a steamer deck piled high with trunks, valises, bundles of blankets, furniture, tent equipment, and things miscellaneous, stopping at a dozen points along the lake to have its cargo assorted and put ashore—is it strange that some baggage was left at the wrong place, and its owner wandered around looking vainly for his property? ”

“ And indeed it is, or should be, apparent to the least observant that the caravan transport is one thing, and an Englishman’s luggage is another. I have watched hundreds of times the arrival of caravans at their camp for the night: the weight of the loads (salt, potash, kolas, cloth, etc.) is regulated to an ounce, each one is packed in exact similarity to its fellow in size and shape, so that the [86] two form a perfectly equally balanced burden, which never slips, falls, nor worries the donkey ”

“ A cargo of 200,000 bushels can thus be unloaded in two hours, while spouts on the other side of the elevator reload it into cars, five to ten at a time, filling a car in from five to ten minutes, or the largest canal boat in an hour. The entire work of unloading, storing and reloading adds only one cent to the price of a bushel of wheat. ”

“ When it comes to delivering the lumber to the consumer a wagon known as a dolly is of great assistance for collecting materials to load on the delivery truck. Most retail yards now deliver their lumber by truck even to a distance of 15 or 20 miles. ”

“ Nowadays, however, the truck itself has chains attached to it, by which it is drawn up, with the aid of a windlass, to the surface. By this method more earth can be taken up in one lift, and time and labour are not wasted in transferring the contents of the truck to the bucket. ”

“ In addition to each man's private luggage, each mess, generally composed of from five to ten men who were drawn together by similar tastes and associations, had its outfit, consisting of a large camp chest containing skillet, frying pan, coffee boiler, bucket for lard, coffee box, salt box, sugar box, meal box, flour box, knives, forks, spoons, plates, cups, &c., &c. These chests were so large that 8 or 10 of them filled up an army wagon, and were so heavy that two strong men had all they could do to get one of them into the wagon. ”

“ The carrying of cheap freight will be the special province of the apparatus, and it will therefore be an object to secure the form of truck which will give, with the least expense, the greatest degree of rigidity over the longest stretch of span from one support to another. ”

“ To be honest with you, she’s old and leaky, and none too safe. But she’s got a valuable cargo aboard, that must be safe delivered if we can manage it, and we are all of us well paid to do our duty by the owners. My instructions are to hug the land and make a harbor if bad weather comes. At the worst we can run the ship on the shingle and save the cargo in that way—for the cargo is worth a dozen such tubs. ”