Yarder graveyard pictures

[madhatte]

Centralia kid here.  I know where all of those are!  Wish I'd thought to take pictures of all the abused gear I've seen over the years.  Keep up the good work!

[Jeremy_M]

There sure are lots of them up there, unfortunate to see.  At least Ramsey is trying to find a way to reuse them for the sand and gravel industry instead of just scrapping them out.  I want to try and make it up there again and get some pictures when there isn't a blizzard going on and chat some more.   I will post some more pictures tomorrow.

Great pictures and stories Paul!

[stumphugger]

We had the yarder in the Cowlitz River Tourist Attraction in 1987 ( I think that year?)  The bridge said Load Limit 15 tons, the yarder weighed more and down into the river it went, with the bridge.  It was a self propelled Washington something--big, and the yarder engineer went down with it, then popped up OK.  Neither of the pilot pickup drivers could swim and they said it was a happy sight to see him pop up out of the river.  The company had to hire divers to cut it up, and do an oil spill clean up.  Shortly after that, they laid off their logging crews and then sold the mill and land.  On another web site, I found out that the yarder was put back together and logged a few more years on the Olympic Peninsula. 

It was a tourist attraction for a few days.  The bridge was not replaced.  And, had they made it over that bridge there was a weaker bridge to go over on that route. 

[chucker]

hey was that the kelso bridge ?

[Jeremy_M]

Great story!  What company was that that dropped the yarder in the river?  Don't suppose there were any pictures?

[PineNut]

Not logging equipment but about 5 years ago when building a bridge, the construction company decided to use this crane on a bridge posted at 8000 pounds. Guess the sign was right. The construction company went belly up prior to finishing the bridge

[stumphugger]

Great story!  What company was that that dropped the yarder in the river?  Don't suppose there were any pictures?

I'm sure somebody somewhere has pictures.  I don't.  The company was Champion, they had a mill in Morton.  The bridge was east of Morton.  You could see part of the tube was all, and by the time I went to see it, there was a containment boom to try to catch oil.  Back then, Champion had their own logging crews, their own road system, and had just purchased that yarder.  It was on its way to its first logging job for Champion. 

A faller I work with said his uncle was the guy in the yarder and had just about given up when he finally got out.  He was the only one who knew how to swim.