LOGGING IN THE DOUGLAS FIR REGION, 175 
PEPRECIATTOIS. 
The Forest Service in connection with timber-appraisal work has 
placed the life of loading engines at eight years, and has assumed that 
the engines at the end of that time will be worth about 10 per cent of 
the initial cost, The depreciation on a loading engine that cost 
$2,700, together with the fuel-oil-burner equipment, water and oil 
tank, sled, etc., amounts to about $125 per year, or about $0,035 per 
thousand feet. 
RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION. 
The .bulk of the timber logged in the region is conveyed over 
standard-gauge railroads to the mills or large bodies of water for dis- 
tances ranging from a mile or two to 30 miles or more. The entire 
length of line may be owned by the logging operator, or the logging 
road only be used to deliver the logs to some point on a common-car- 
rier railroad. 
Bryant, in "Logging," states that the successful use of steel-rail 
logging roads began in 1876. The number of logging railroads in- 
creased rapidly, and hj 1881 there were 71 in operation in Michigan 
and 5 in Wisconsin. The first on the Pacific coast was operated about 
1885. Railroad transportation was used on the coast practically as 
soon as the length of haul made it the most economical method, so 
that it did not have to supplant other methods, except in a few cases. 
Now it is the preferred form of transportation, the Grays Harbor and 
Willapa Harbor districts being the only ones where it is not exclu- 
sively used. 
Railroads have made accessible large bodies of timber which other- 
wise could not be logged, since the conditions in the region, for the 
most part, are not favorable for driving. This mode of transporta- 
tion has several other advantages over other forms. The logging op- 
erator does not have to wait for flood waters to float the logs to the 
mill or market, to anticipate market conditions in advance, to have 
large sums of money tied up along the banks of streams, or to lose 
logs in transit. Furthermore, the railroad delivers clean logs to the 
mill, which results in an appreciable saving in cost of manufacture. 
COMMON-CARRIER RAILROADS. 
While some of the long hauls are made over railroads owned en- 
tirety by the logging companies or closely affiliated companies, most 
of them are made over common-carrier railroads. 
EATES. 
In Table 28 is given a list of specially quoted log rates charged by 
common-carrier railroads in Oregon and Washington in 1913. 
