LUMBERING IN PIKE REGION OF CALIFORNIA. 63 
tracks at top and bottom and a 14 by 14 inch lowering engine, the 
total cost was approximately $100,000. There are three trestles and 
one bridge with a center span of 76 feet. Except for the passing 
switch the track is perfectly straight. 
The method of operation is to lower a loaded car and hoist an empty 
one simultaneously. A 1^-inch cable is used, which is supported by 
steel sheaves. Because of the configuration of the slope, at three 
points these sheaves are suspended above the track to hold the 
cable down. The cars used are 80,000 pounds capacity 40-foot flats, 
with a bulkhead on the front end. The average load per car is 
about 6,000 feet, weighing approximately 24 tons. One car can be 
lowered every 10 minutes, though the customary working speed is 
about four or five cars per hour. 
The loads and empty cars are handled at each end by gravity 
switches without locomotive switching except for setting in and taking 
out the loaded and empty trains. Oil is used as fuel in the hoisting 
engine. The cable is used for one season and then taken to the 
woods and used as a yarding line. 
Log hoists may be spurs built down into coves at a grade of from 
10 to 20 per cent where otherwise a chute would be required. An 
extra logging donkey is ordinarily employed to let an empty car down 
and haul it up again after it is loaded. Another type of log hoist is 
one where the loaded cars are hauled up from one section of the 
logging road to another. One such hoist located in the southern 
Sierras is 2,200 feet long, with an average grade of 30 per cent and a 
maximum grade of 40 per cent. The track is narrow gauge with. 35- 
pound rails and is constructed and ballasted much the same as an 
ordinary logging railroad. It is straight except for one 9° curve. 
The engineer in charge states that if there is more than one curve, 
they must be in the same direction. A hoisting engine is employed 
to haul the logs up this incline on skeleton frame cars, one or two cars 
at a time. The cable used is a IJ-inch wire rope. 
UNLOADING. 
Unloading from horse trucks is usually done by hand with peavies, 
otherwise the general method of unloading logs at the mill pond is 
the following throughout the region. An unloading track is con- 
structed along the mill pond with the outer rail raised to give the cars 
a slant toward the pond. Ordinarily a sloping deck is constructed 
from this track out over the edge of the pond. After the binding 
chains are ioosened, a cable terminating in a hook is used to roll the 
logs from the car to the log deck. Since the pull must be toward 
the pond and there can be no obstruction between the car and the 
pond, the methods of operating and supporting this cable are varied. 
One method is to have a stationary boom built over the track from 
