LOADING AND UNLOADING CARS 379 
has notches cut in its side facing the track. The gill-poke arm 
is about 4 inches square and from 6 to 8 feet long and has a blunt 
collar on one end and a steel prong on the other. The outer 
rail of the track is elevated and as the cars are slowly pushed by 
the dumping point, the collar on the arm is inserted in one of 
the notches in the timber pointing towards the direction of 
approach, and the sharp end placed against the outside log on 
the car. As the train proceeds the arm tends to assume a position at 
right angles to the track and forces the logs from the car. Thirty- 
two cars carrying L50,000 board feet of logs have been unloaded 
by this method in twenty minutes. 
A device used by a redwood operator in California for un- 
loading logs from cars has a 20- b}^ 28-inch timber, placed across 
the track at an angle of 45 degrees, and securely fixed at each 
end on solid supports. The base of the beam is about 8 inches 
above the car bunk. The loaded train, one log on each car, is 
brought in from the woods and pushed along the track toward 
the unloader. The logs striking the slanting timber are pushed 
off the car as the train advances. When half of the train has 
been unloaded the locomotive is uncoupled from the rear of the 
train, and attached to the forward cars, and unloading is continued 
until completed. Thirty thousand board feet of logs can be 
unloaded by this device in three minutes. 
The overhead monorail system has recently been adapted to 
unloading, assorting and storing hardwood logs. The capacity 
of this machine when unloading and assorting, only, is about 
65,000 board feet per day. When logs are unloaded, assorted 
and the log requirements of the mill delivered at the foot of the 
jack ladder, the daily capacity is about 40,000 board feet.^ 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI 
Anonymous: Swinging "Gill-poke" Unloader. The Timberinan, October, 
1909, p. 23. 
E\t:nsox, O. J.: An Improved Log-loading System. The Timberman, 
Augu.st, 1912, p. 52. 
Gibbons, W. H. : Logging in the Douglas Fir Region. U. S. Dept. of 
Agriculture, Bui. 711, Wa-shington, 1918, pp. 229 to 238. 
^ See American Lumberman, Nov. 12, 1921, p. 44. 
