82 BULLETIN 440, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
trams. The cost of such track, including rails, rail fastenings, and 
laying, is about $22 per 100 feet. 
The usual yard arrangement provides for a row of lumber piles on 
each side of every platform. Foundations must be constructed of 
timbers for each pile. They contain from 400 to 500 feet of lumber 
apiece; and the cost of construction, including the value of the 
lumber, is usually about $8 each. Enough space is left between 
adjacent platforms to allow room for the construction of a wagon 
road, yard car track, or loading spur between the two series of 
lumber piles. 
Yard tracks are commonly 36-inch gauge with 16-pound rails, 
and are constructed at about the following average cost per mile: 
Steel and fastenings $1, 100 
Ties 500 
Grading 200 
Laying and surfacing 300 
Total 2, 100 
Loading spurs are standard gauge with about 35-pound rails. 
The cost per mile of length is reckoned as follows: 
Steel and fastenings $2, 500 
Ties 1, 000 
Grading 500 
Laying and surfacing 500 
Total 4, 500 
A yard with a storage capacity of 12,000,000 feet, at a representa- 
tive double-band mill operating one shift daily, contains about 500 
pile bottoms, 7,000 feet of platforms, 7,000 feet of yard track on 
platforms, 1 mile of loading spurs, and 1 mile of ground yard track. 
The cost would be reckoned as follows: 
Pile bottoms $4, 000 
Platforms 5, 040 
Platform tracks 1, 540 
Yard tracks 2, 100 
Loading spurs 4, 500 
Total 17 ; 180 
The cost of a yard of the platform type at a double-band mill with 
an annual output of from 18 to 20 million feet of lumber is usually 
from $16,000 to $20,000. The cost of a yard at a mill producing 
from 35 to 40 million feet annually would be about twice as much. 
The second kind of yard is one having the tracks located on the 
ground. The piles are on both sides of parallel tracks in much the 
same manner as with platforms. The cost, computed on the same 
basis as above, is about $15,000. Another yard of this same type 
has dirt roads between the piles, upon which the lumber is dis- 
