LOGGING IN THE DOUGLAS FIR REGION, 217 



Per day. 



Engineer $4.00 



Fireman 3. 25 



Brakeman 4. 00 



(h) Maintenance of trucks: This includes the maintenance of 56 

 sets of trucks. 



RAILROAD INCLINES. 



Inclined tracks for lowering logs are becoming an important engi- 

 neering feature of logging operations. They have been used a long 

 time in the region, but only in connection with short inclines of light 

 grades and where ordinary logging engines furnished the power to 

 raise or lower the roads. It is only within the past six years that 

 operators began to consider it practical to lower loaded cars for long 

 distances over heavy grades and with specially constructed equip- 

 ment. 



Heretofore large bodies of timber standing on plateaus or on 

 mountain sides high above the main-line railroad were reached by 

 a series of switchbacks or detours. If the amount of timber did not 

 make such a railroad practical, chutes were used. In either case 

 the expense of moving the timber was large. At the present time 

 long inclines are used to transport logs from plateaus to the lower 

 levels, the incline in such cases connecting two systems of railroads, 

 one on the plateau and the other on the flat below ; or to lower logs 

 cut on mountain sides, such inclines running practically straight 

 up the slope, with lateral spurs radiating from them. 



The roadbed of inclines does not demand the heavy construc- 

 tion required where trains pass, because there is no pounding action 

 such as is produced by a locomotive. An uneven grade is not a se- 

 rious handicap unless there are portions where the grades are so 

 gentle that cars will not be pulled to the foot of the incline by 

 gravity. While it is desirable that inclines be built in a straight 

 line, it is not strictly essential. 



There are two systems of inclines in use; the one-way incline, in 

 which one or more loaded cars are lowered on the down trip, the 

 empties being returned on the up trip ; and the counterbalanced sys- 

 tem, in which a loaded car descends as the empty car ascends. 



COUNTERBALANCED INCLINE. 



The first long railroad incline to be used in a logging operation on 

 the Pacific coast is of the counterbalanced type. This incline was 

 put in operation in 1912, and it is still the longest incline in use in 

 the region. It has a length of 8,000 feet and a fall of 3,100 feet, 

 which means that the grade averages 45 per cent. The grade is very 

 uneven, varying between a maximum of 78 per cent and a minimum 

 of 10 per cent. 



