Thread: Hand cut jarrah sleepers - an awesome old video

Originally Posted by Evanism

Delbs sent me this and I thought to share it: Jinkers & Whims: A pictorial history of timber-getting by Jack Bradshaw

The first bit is a few chaps knocking over some trees, which in itself is great to watch, but the second goes on about cutting timber by hand for sleepers.

By god is it wasteful and looks like bloody hard work.

Thanks for the link.

The axe and cross cut timber felling section brings back strong memories of my Dad cutting Karri like that in the 1950's.
Those guys were really fit, even when chainsaws came in they had to be able to tote 2 chainsaws, a bag of axes and steel wedges plus fuel and oil through the bush.
He took me with him when he went to the bush from when I was about 6 years old.

You really earned your money in those days. Great video. Thanks for posting.

A great Video and thanks for posting!!!

Very much reminds me of my father who cut sleepers in the same way
in northern NSW. His preferred method of squaring any posts was the
broad axe. My older brother and I spent many hours on the cross cut
saw cutting firewood and dad sharpened saws for the local tree fellers.

Notice how the mill's saw sharpener was so neatly attired and well groomed.
The sleeper cutter had a nicely parted head of hair too. Very different from
today's workforce!!

Kids walked past and asked what I was watching so I played it again for them.

Geez dad, that looks like hard work.

Thanks for posting

A lot sure has changed in the last eighty or ninety years. Good show

I was involved in cutting sleepers on the North Coast NSW around Wingham in the mid 1970's. We used a Hargon Saw to cut them out of the round and used to draw straws to see who drove the grossly overloaded Austin truck down the hill from the cutting area. Bloody hard work even with chain saws and OH&S was not even a glimmer in any ones eye let alone mine. That job didn't last long!!

That is awesome
I am thinking of replaying that at our wood turning club, Wandi
Will

Worked with Jack in CALM from 1987 ~ 1995.

Went out with an old sleeper cutter to The old Ellis Creek Settlement (that closed in about 1926 from memory) He was raised and schooled there...

This old King Jarrah tree survives just a mile from the old Ellis Creek mill site.



There's actually a second one just like it, standing right next to it.

It was too large for the bullocks to have hauled back up the hill to the mill so this small stand of virgin Jarrah remains to this day. Whilst I was there in CLAM, this area was vested as a conservation park (Ellis Creek Conservation park) to protect this fine stand.

The old town dam is still there....dug with horses bullocks and drag line scoops.

Lovely little camp/picnic spot..... used to visit there a bit over the years with Family & Friends.

Just wishing I could remember the old blokes name now..(Sleeper cutter) he was a champion axeman in his day...owned a farm property at the top of the Bridgetown hill just out of Nannup.

He was in his late 80s (living in Busselton) when he took me out there around 1993 or 4 and showed me around... the Old Ellis Creek settlement, pointed out where the old butcher shop was, the mill, the school etc... he could remember it all like he was still a kid living there.

Sad to see these old guys & all their historical knowledge passing.

He reckoned "a good man" (sleeper cutter) working in the Jarrah bush around Ellis Creek could fall the tree - dock, split and produce (adze) 8 sleepers a day - and got paid a penny a sleeper!. 8 pence a day...7 days a week!

His first name was Jack...last name escapes me now - started with a B I think.

Good days in the forest back then.

Miss those days sometimes.

Also brings back memories of my Dad cutting iron barks for post and rail fencing, not as big as those but still hard yakka, I looked forward to those walks in the bush with him to pick out the ones to cut, the boiled billy and mugs of tea, snigging out the fallen to be split for rails, trimming tenons with the adz.

The modern generation has missed so much and appreciates little.

Originally Posted by rwbuild

Also brings back memories of my Dad cutting iron barks for post and rail fencing, not as big as those but still hard yakka, I looked forward to those walks in the bush with him to pick out the ones to cut, the boiled billy and mugs of tea, snigging out the fallen to be split for rails, trimming tenons with the adz.
The modern generation has missed so much and appreciates little.

I remember lighting and tending the fires for the billy tea for morning smoko and lunchtimes. When it was raining I would build a bark humpy over the fire so that it would stay alight. I would cut down saplings and debark them into half cylindrical lengths of bark and lay them like spanish roof tiles over a sapling frame.

Thanks for posting. What a great video.

The tram line pulling the logs in the video still runs from Pemberton as a hour or so tourist ride.
It's been many years since I did it but I have good memories of the trip.

A great vid thanks for posting

Thanks for this fascinating video!

Originally Posted by NCArcher

You really earned your money in those days...

I tried to determine what they were paid. I found a 1912 report of sleeper cutters in Qld:

"The sleeper-cutters pay the carriage,
and I pnv them 4s nnd 4s lid per
sleeper delivered in Coouninble. Tli<?v
are to pay for carriage 3s Sd for smailFix this text
sleepers and 2s Id mr large ones,
which will leave the cutters clear 2s 3d
for small sleepers and 2s lOd for tho
large size.


2 shillings and 10 pence for a large sleeper. What would that equate to today?

Google tells me that is a little under $6 in todays money. I read (cannot find the source now) that the average sleeper cutter could do 8 per day. So $48/day.

Regards from Perth

Derek