Thread: sleeper cutting in the Dawes range 1980's

Nice pics bluegum.

Kid riding the dozer reminds me of the many happy weeks of school holidays I spent doing that helping the dozer driver sniging logs around the southwest of WA

See if you can find someone to help you use a scanner so the pics come out straight and so you can make them bigger (higher resolution). They are classic photos and well worth archiving. Things won't be like that again, ever.

nice pics,

what kinda dozer it that?

Originally Posted by weisyboy

nice pics,

what kinda dozer it that?

Don't think I'd be too far wrong in saying that she's a Caterpillar. Only small though, maybe D2 or D3.

Originally Posted by BobL

Nice pics bluegum.

Kid riding the dozer reminds me of the many happy weeks of school holidays I spent doing that helping the dozer driver sniging logs around the southwest of WA

See if you can find someone to help you use a scanner so the pics come out straight and so you can make them bigger (higher resolution). They are classic photos and well worth archiving. Things won't be like that again, ever.

Absolute magic.
Today's cottonwool wrapped oh&s gurus would have a heart attack

Great Pics Bluegum, kid on the dozer reminds me also at around that age riding dozers way back in the '50's ...good fun for a kid back then.


Liked the pic of the blade sharpening and how you could and did make do out in the bush with a bit of ingenuity.

Cheers

Hi
Bring back many memories of my childhood with my old man in the bush in Tassie driving & travelling on the dozers ,loaders,trucks

what is holding tht log still?

i cant see any dogs?

What size & species were the QR sleepers? were you around when that tree was hit by lightning (the sharpening pic) .
regards inter

Hello all, it's a Caterpillar D46U ,it was a narrow gauge farming tractor,straight up and down was ok but across the ridges if it was a bit steep she was a real bi@#h. I had to put the blade and sump guard on and i mounted a winch on the back driven by a pto ,used to have about 60 meters of wire rope.We used a John Deere 2130 with a blade and a rear boom with hooks to snig the logs because the dozer tore up the ground and was too slow.

Queensland Rail standard sleepers are 2.15mtrs long x230mm wide and 115 mm thick,Transoms are 2.3 mtrs long 230 mm wide 130 mm thick crossings are standard sleeper thick and width and start at 2.15 long for a #1 and go up to #13 in 150 mm increments .and there is also crossings 150 mm thick thats just some of the timbers we could cut on the long bench. handling of the logs and sawn sleepers demanded you do all the moving with balance on the bench ,in one picture you can see sawn standard sleepers next to the bench ,one man could easily take one end of the sleeper and turn it and slide it onto the pile and stack it neatly without picking it up.

the log at that time was wedged on the trolley by 2 wooden chocks on the saw side and then you just eased the log up in a roll lift movement and pushed the steel gauges in to chock the side away from the saw blade if was fast and worked remarkable well.

Awesome!!!! I am guessing that it is you grinding that blade and operating the saw. I got to see a bit of the sleeper cutting game around Coonabarabran in my teens, it was amazing how many of the old swing mills were still in use, for you young blokes like weissy, lol, mobilco style mills.

I notice that you had some HIGH TECH equipment, compared to what a lot of the cutters had. Unfortunately it is a dying thing, I do not know about up there but down here in victoria most of the sleepers are going to cement, supposedly it gives a more uniform and smoother ride for the trains.

When I was a kid I used to cut up some of the old sleepers with my old man and others and a lot of them still had the year plugs in them. Some of these dated back to the 30s and 40s, and were only replaced for the sake of replacing them. looking back it was a crying shame to cut them up for firewood.

The LOL about weissy was due to the fact that we are of similar age. Some of the guys I saw cutting sleepers were some of the hardest and most solemn and loyal people I ever met, just down to earth and hard working and I considered it an honour to be invited to spend time with them as a young bloke in my formative years.

I remember watching, some time ago now, an ABC program on sleeper cutters and they were intreviewing one of the last fellows that did it by hand,can't seem to remember his name exactly "Tiddles"or something like that,he had a set of chrome plated wedges still wrapped in an oily cloth as well as his axe,he was not in the best of health, his wife had said in typical bushie talk "he was alright till the tree fell on him",bl..ody hell lucky to be alive I reckon.

Love the photo of the kid on the dozer....reminds me of me. My father had a D8 and an Alice Chalmers HD 16.
He pulled a lot of timber in Western Queensland. My brother and I would ride the dozers with timber falling all around us.
I wonder how we all survived without OH&S.
We didn't need extreme sports to have fun.