HAULING TIMBER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 119, 12 January 1932, Page 2

HAULING TIMBER

CHEAP TRANSPORT ! NEGOTIATE ROUGH COUNTRY | o BY USING AERIAL ROPEWAYS i MONEY MAKING PROBLEM The prohlem of turning forest stocks of timber and w'ood into money is a question of utilising the cheapest possible transportation from the place of origin to the workshops or the shipping stations. / Generally speaking, it is only in level countries trayersed by cartroads, Highways or railway tracks, that people have been able and accustomed to carry away the valuable old timber in large quantities, either by horse or motor tracti'on or by railways. However, these means of trans-. port have proved only to be eeonomic when the respective roads or tracks have already existedYor many years, their costs having been written off, or when the waggons, engines, hors'es, cars are used also for' other purposes besides carrying wood or timber. When a new road must be made to open a remote forest, the expenses incurred will naturally have a considerable bearing on the profitableness of the scheme, especially in consideration of the present low selling pivces of timber and wood. The more broken the ground, the more expensive the making of a new road. The costs will even rise to enormous figures where bridges, embankments, etc., are required. Ofter the high costs of such worlcs will frustrate every hope of bringing valuable assets to market. Most people seem to imagine that j large quantities of bulky material ] can only be conveyed over great distances on level ground or water. I They ought to beav in mind that modern engineering has provided us with the means of carrying such goods tlr'ough the a'r, "and this at ! surprisingly low cost. Rivers Not Su'tafcle In a mountainous region, l'ivers are not always adapted to serve* as a line ; of communication, and also on roads, ! if there are any, material in bulk cannot be transported on an exten- : sive scale, on account of slopes or the had state of the road surface. All the difficulties of the ground are easily sui-mounted by ^erial ropeways or cableways which, being in- j dependent of the condition of the soil, may form a convenient link between the places of origin and the 1 places of consumption, mostly in a ' straight l'ne, if neeessary across valleys, ravines and rivers, The piece of giound over which passes a ropeway is kept open to utilisation. .Th^re is no need, therefo -e, of buying landed property, whieh in many cases would cost a ® n' of mcneT Neitl er rough weather, nor snowdrift, nor inundation will impede the traffie on an aerial ropeway. Valleys and gorges of cor.siderable width can be crossed in a free span, and gradients of up to 45 degrees can be surmounted, so that costly earth and brick works, sueh as dyk-e and bridge-building, 1 tunnel boring, etc., are avoided. Consequently, cableways armea^ed to be the ideal means of transport , for covering long distances, rnore | particularly so in broken country. ' The maintenance of ropeways, even if they are in full operation without a break for many years, will involve ' but trifling expenses compared to • those of railways, motor-lorries, carriages, etc., which, in mountains, mostly run for a liuiited space of time only, and rer uire many repairs, owing to their being exposed to all tho hardships of the road and the weather. All Costs Low The prime costs and the working expenses of ropeways being likewise comparatively low, the invested capi-

tal can be redeemed within a short time. Furthermore, it is worth remembering that a ropeway, as soon as the stocks along a certain line have been exhausted, can be taken to pieces there and transferred to some other place. It is a feature of ropeways that, cor.trarv to railways, any building material may be made use of for eonstructing the line. Always the cheapest kind of material appears therefore to be used for the construction of supports and stations, according to the special conditions of the site in ouestion. Thus in forests the supports are mostly made of wood. An aerial ropeway through pathless virgin forests in Rumania served the conveyance of tree trunks, timber, and logs of wrood, over a length of 7i miles only. After a few years of service it was lengthened by 1,750 yards, and again by 4,375 yards. Another roneway in Hungary is capable of carrying about 40 tons of logs and Mocks per hour over a length of 19 miles. In the High Tatra, a part of the C">rpathian Mountains, there is another remarkable ropeway. Its length ir. 8 r>iles, and its hourly capacity about 23 tons of t'mber. Its loading station, to which the timber is carr:ed. by horse teams, is situated 3,000 feet above sea level, whereas the discharging station is at 2,700 feet. Between them there are many summits to be surmounted by the ropeway, the highcY of them having an elevation of 3,500 feet. A great many of the logs carried by this ropeway are over 70 feet long, and weigh more than 4,4001b. each. Valuable old t'mber can thus be utilised to its full extent, which would hai'dly be ros^ible if it were to be transported by carriages or motor vans; on bad roads.