Ladder truck

“ All makes of trucks are more or less alike in general construction, differing only in minor details, so that the personal whims of the buyer will largely determine the kind he will select. It is advantageous to have as long a distance as possible between the driver’s seat and the bunk over the rear axle, in order to allow more of the load to be carried by the truck, and less by the trailer, giving better traction to the drive wheels, but necessitating extra strong rear springs and axles. ”

“ Wherever the item of road construction is important, it may be stated in general that the time required and the cost of building roads for motor trucks are very much less than for a logging railroad. This is due to the lesser importance of grades, curves, ballasting, bridges and other construction work, all of which is much cheaper and takes less time. In case a pole road is built the [8] material found adjacent to the right of way can be utilized for what it costs to fell it.
From the standpoint of adaptability the motor truck is very flexible. ”

“ She found herself getting out of her small camp bedstead at night, to peep through the blinds, and to watch a clumsy, over-grown goods train which went blunderingly and noisily along at about a certain hour, every truck in a temper with its neighbour, with sometimes a set fight between all when the engine tried to check them. ”

“ Objection to the trailer that it tends to shorten the life of the truck is hardly worth consideration. According to a careful analysis it has been estimated that the use of the trailer does not shorten the life of the truck by more than one year, which is of little consequence when the saving due to the size of the load that can be carried is taken into consideration. ”

“ Road-motors, comfortably furnished, will therefore be mounted upon low railway trucks of special construction, designed to permit of their being run on and off the trucks from the level of the ground. The plan of mounting a road vehicle upon a truck suited to receive it has already been adopted for some purposes, notably for the removal of furniture and similar goods ”

“ When a light truck is used for a small body of timber such a wide and heavily constructed road is not practical. In this case, a four inch plank with a fifteen inch surface and an eight inch pole for a guard rail would be used. Here again the track must be made wider on the sharp curves, often as wide as three and a half feet. Usually, the inner rail is made wider than the outer one. On very sharp curves the track may have to be planked solid to keep the trailer from running off. ”

“ In order to carry the weight of the firebox, which, with the new driving wheel location, overhangs the rear driver too much to be properly supported, a two-wheel trailer truck was used. This trailer truck, which is fulcrumed a short distance back of the main driver, is so designed that it has lateral motion, and provision is made for ash pan as well as firebox clearance.
By the use of higher steam pressure, larger heating surface and grate area, the use of passenger locomotives of the three-coupled type, with the troubles incident to the use of long parallel rods, was put off for a decade. ”

“ Designed for well-ballasted track with large-radius curves and gentle gradients, they all too frequently left the rails, and the unsuitability of the essentially rigid British design soon became apparent.
The challenge posed by the American roadbed was met by American mechanics. By the mid-1830’s a distinctive American locomotive had evolved that might best be described by the word “flexible.” The basic features of its running gear were a bar frame and equalizing levers to provide vertical relief and a leading truck to provide lateral relief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wagons were made wholly of wood. The wheels were without hub, spoke, or felloe; they were simply short sections of large trees, three or four feet in diameter, sawed off and holes made in the center for the axles. This wagon was called a truck, a very clumsy affair, which without a load, a small yoke of oxen could not draw with ease even on level ground. The friction on the spindles in the wheels, though they were well tarred, was such that, even with a load of rails requiring three yoke of oxen to draw them, the truck did not need any brake going down a steep hill. ”

“ As they are sometimes very steep, chains on the wheels are necessary to prevent slipping and assist in braking.
The average load that a logging truck and trailer will haul is from 3000 to 5000 feet. Larger loads are hauled over snow on sleds, but when distance and time are considered the truck is claimed to be more efficient. F. W. Fenn states that a lumber camp truck to be efficient “must have maximum traction, ample clearance, and proper service and care and be stout enough and strong enough to [298] stand the severest strains.” ”

“ The development of the trailer has made motor truck logging practical. Every truck has greater tractive power than it can utilize in the propulsion of the ordinary load. Its limitations are due to a short-bulk carrying capacity and not to any lack of pulling power. The ordinary truck has a draw-bar pull of 2600 pounds. The draw-bar pull per ton of load varies from the minimum of 50 pounds on a level pavement to 250 pounds on a level dirt road, depending upon the character of surface. ”

“ I try to crawl over the top of the truck, between the truck and the bottom of the car. But the space is not large enough for me to squeeze through. This is new to me. Down in the United States I am accustomed to going underneath on rapidly moving trains, seizing a gunnel and swinging my feet under to the brake-beam, and from there crawling over the top of the truck and down inside the truck to a seat on the cross-rod. ”

“ But as the decade advanced, the need grew for heavy freight engines that could be safely run at speed. Without a pilot truck, the leading driving axle of the freight engine was generally overloaded. While the application of a 4-wheel truck reduced this front-end overload and permitted faster running it materially reduced the traction of the drivers by bearing too great a portion of the total weight. ”

“ Laid nearly flush with the ground the guard rail can be eliminated with this width of track, except on sharp curves and other locations where there would be danger if the truck left the track. On such a road the traction will also be increased, better time can be made, the truck will be easier to steer and hence safer to operate, and there will be less wear on the tires. Such a road can be very easily and cheaply built by bringing in a portable sawmill and slabbing the material on two sides to the desired face.
The life of a good pole road is from three to four years if kept in good repair. ”

“ The Amos log loader is described as an efficient loading machine in which a friction drive takes power directly from the drive shaft of the motor truck and by means of a worm gear transmits it to a long winding shaft, or small diameter drum, which extends the length of the truck bed, being mounted parallel to it just under the bed. Loading chains are attached to this drum either at the ends or middle as the driver wishes. The movement is regulated by means of a lever just over the truck step. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Two hours lost at the landing due to a spring slipping out of place, which made it necessary to unload and load again.
Many loggers who have used both the steam railroad and the motor truck claim that the latter is preferable in some cases and often is the only method by means of which logs can be gotten to the mill at a reasonable cost. Where the stand is scattered and of poor quality, the building of a railroad is not practical. In such a case the motor truck may offer the only solution. ”

“ The wheels are bored to fit a one-inch steel axle and have wide boxings bolted to the main timbers of the truck frame. Like the two-wheel bag truck, the wheels of the platform truck are under the frame so they do not project out in the way, which is a great advantage when the truck is being used in a crowded place. ”

“ No pleasure car can ever stop the driver of the truck.
He sits his seat in confidence, serene and quite content,
His heavy wheels are never dished, his axles never bent;
A locomotive engineer might jolt him from his place,
But nothing short of that would bring a tremor to his face.
He laughs his cheerful way along, too big for men to buck,
And even millionaires must dodge the driver of the truck. ”

“ For economy of construction, the line of rails and cartway are both placed outside the building. A small goods-office is built at one end, in which is fixed the pedestal and lever indicator of the cart-weighing machine. The roof is projected outwards over the doorways for the railway trucks and for carts. The railway truck doorways are spaced to correspond to the length of the trucks. A narrow platform, about 3 feet wide, is formed outside the shed alongside the trucks for the convenience of the men when loading or unloading. ”

“ The light ones are a great nuisance when running them over uneven floors. The wheels are too narrow and too close together and the trucks tip over under slight provocation. Platform trucks for use in moving boxes of apples or crates of [228] potatoes or bags of seed in the seed house or warehouse also should be heavy. The most approved platform truck, the kind that market men use, is made with a frame four feet in length by two feet in width. The frame is made of good solid hardwood put together with mortise and tenon. ”

“ Most of them, however, simply clear off a right of way and put in a gravel bottom for the road as the waiting truck at this point is empty and will not ordinarily sink into the ground and get stalled. A few heavy planks laid fore and aft in the form of a track are sometimes used. The construction of passing places is very simple—the only important thing to be taken into consideration is the proper point at which the trucks should pass in order to keep the operation going at maximum efficiency. ”

“ By the use of the trailer and the Government-made good roads the truck is able to haul logs of almost any length down from the logging grounds. Trucks and tractors are utilized in the forests, too, for snaking logs and pulling stumps. In places where the grades are steep or on the interior where the roads have not yet penetrated causeways have been built of timber; these usually being cross-ties, and under trussing across draws, with lengthwise planks for the wheels to run on and side planks or logs to keep the machine on the track. ”

“ Track in bad condition will also tend to increase the wheel resistance, and improperly constructed trucks and wheels will entail the use of more power to move the train. Where trucks are so defective that they do not maintain the wheels revolving in parallel planes, the flanges of some of the wheels will rub on the rail, increasing the resistance. Wheels out of round; those having the axle out of center, however slight; wheels of different size on the same axle; and numerous other car-truck disorders,—all contribute their share in making a train pull hard. ”

“ Some walked steadily and easily along with a load that would have filled a horse-cart, others tore past with a barrel or large box not only perfectly balanced but carrying them along with one foot on the axle of the truck and their bodies suspended from the truck handles by the armpits. The trucks seemed to shoot here and there, even almost at right angles into a car door, without any effort on the part of the truckman or without his so much as touching his foot to the floor. ”

“ It could be attached to a simple horse frame for transport into the fields. There the farmer would load his produce, and when the body was full it would be returned to the road, picked up by a crane attached to the tractor, swung on to its carriage and wheels, and taken away to join other cars. By making the bodies of such dimensions as to fit three into an ordinary railway truck, they could be entrained easily. On reaching their destination another tractor would lift them out, fit them to wheels, and trundle them off to the consumer. ”

“ This method of logging in a small way will continue to be carried on by small operators who will haul only during three seasons of the year or even less. However, the big future for the motor truck for logging is in the larger tracts of timber where it would not pay to put in a railroad but where a good type of motor truck road can be built cheaply and loads as large as the truck can handle be carried with no road restrictions as to the weight. ”

“ A spring attached to the reach clamp pulls back the equalizing bar when the brakes are released. A heavy spring on the drum in the center of the shaft on the truck allows for curves so that an even pressure is always maintained.
The use of a trailer equipped with brakes will do away with the numerous devices for snubbing a load of logs down a grade not steeper than twelve per cent. Grades up to this degree of steepness are safe to operate over in dry weather without added braking power if the trailer is properly equipped. ”