FOREST RAILROADS 283 
these roads. The wheels are 20 or 24 inches in diameter with a 
6-ineh tread which h(>lps to ke(^p them on the tracks where the 
gauge is too wide. Cars of this character, built for handling logs 
up to 20 feet in length, are from 22 to 24 feet long with bunks 
7| or 8 feet wide, and are equipped with handbrakes. Each 
car weighs about 2 tons, has a rated capacity of from 15,000 
to 20,000 pounds weight and usually carries from 1000 to 1200 
board feet of logs. 
A more simple type of stringer road for use with motor trucks 
has been used successfully in the South during the last few years. 
The track consists of 3- by 4-inch wooden rails spiked on 2- by 
8-inch stringers placed on the ground. Crossties are not used 
to support the track. In one case, power was furnished by a 
2^-ton motor truck with double-flanged steel tires, which 
pulled a two-wheeled trailer. The latter had double-flanged 
steel tires and the wheels were mounted on fixed axles which 
permitted a side play of several inches. This equipment carried 
from 1000 to 1500 board feet per load, and a round trip of f 
mile was made in from 20 to 30 minutes. 
STEEL-RAIL ROADS 
The successful use of steel-rail logging roads began in 1876, 
when Scott Gerrish, a logger in southern Michigan, built a 
railroad for transporting logs from Lake George to the Muskegon 
River down which they were driven to the mill. 
Rail transport is gaining in favor in all sections of the country 
and with high stumpage values will l^ecome the preferred form 
of transport except where conditions are especially favorable for 
motor truck transport or for floating and rafting. The only 
region in which their use is not extensive is in the New England 
States where water transportation has been the custom for years, 
due chiefly to the fact that many of the merchantable species 
will float. The region also is traversed by numerous streams 
and trunk lines have not penetrated the forest regions to any 
extent. 
Advantages of Railroad Transportation 
(1) Accessibility. Railroads have made large areas of timber 
accessible which otherwise could not be logged because of the 
lack of streams for floating logs, or the absence of suitable manu- 
