BACK THEN

Log Hauler

A train of log sleds being pulled by a wood-burning Lombard steam “log hauler” pauses for refueling.

Realizing the need of a propelling power for the hauling of logs, which now amounts to the largest bill the lumbermen have to pay A. O. Lombard, a mechanic of Waterville, took it into his head to build a logging engine with sled attachment which would answer all demands for hauling lumber. After many years of hard labor he has now a piece of machinery that is promising to be a great success. It contains a 75-horsepower boiler which propels a 75-horsepower engine and both of these are run on sort of a sled attachment. The rigging complete weighs about fourteen tons and is supposed to haul many thousands of lumber as from 16 to 20 horses at the rate of three miles an hour. The machine is now at work for Lawrence, Newhall & Co. at Alder Stream and is said to be doing good business. – The [Bangor] Industrial Journal, Jan. 11, 1901.

The need for a self-propelled log hauler was recognized in the 90’s. Not only had most of the best pine and spruce within reasonable hauling distance to driving streams been cut, but there was increased demand for hardwoods, which could not be transported by water. (An experimental steam hauler mounted on screws, or augers, built by James and Ira Peavey of Bangor had worked on ice but not on snow.) In a chance conversation, Alvin Lombard, inventor of a steam car, pulp mill machinery, and a very successful turbine governor, was challenged by a lumberman to design a log hauler that might reduce his heavy losses of woods horses. Contrary to the story above, Lombard is said to have responded with drawings and a model of a track-laying log hauler within twenty-four hours.

Lombard did not invent the concept of the track-laying tractor, the first such beast dating back to the Crimean War in 1854. In 1859 Warren Miller, a Californian, received a patent for a traction system very similar to Lombard’s, although there is no indication that it was ever built, nor that Lombard knew of it. Lombard’s claim to fame was that he produced the first such successful vehicle. He also is remembered for having his patent infringed upon by Californian Benjamin Holt, father of the Caterpillar Tractor Company.

Despite the inevitable bugs and operating limitations — early machines suffered broken castings in extreme cold, and log haulers could only operate on well-prepared roads – the machines made money for their owners and saved many horses. In favorable situations, hauling by steam was said to cost but a third as much as hauling with horses. The haulers pulled trains of oversized sleds, whose wide runners ran in iced tracks undisturbed by the narrower-gauged log hauler’s lags. The haulers delivered enormous loads. A train of six sleds — trains of a dozen sleds were common – carried fifty-one cords of birch, weighing 175 tons.

Because good roads were so critical, when conditions favored, haulers were run twenty-four hours a day. Big operations employed at least three haulers, so that one was always on the road. On cold still nights, at some locations, the eerie cries of a dozen log haulers could be heard from great distances. Each hauler had an operating crew of three – steersman, engineer, and fireman. A conductor, in charge of the train, communicated to the engineer by means of a bell line strung along the sleds. There was no system of braking beyond reversing the tracks and having crews posted on hills to sand the sled tracks. Steering a Lombard towing a heavy train of sleds down an icy hill focused a man’s attention, especially as it took nearly a full turn of the steering wheel to begin to move the runners.

Text by William H. Bunting from A Day’s Work, A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860-1920, Part II. Published by Tilbury House Publishers, Gardiner, Maine, 800-582-1899