Bogged Tractor on the Causeymire , Caithness

Date Added: 26 April 2013 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1968 Picture No: 1855

Photograph courtesy of Billy Mackay, Portlethen, whose father and grandfather worked for the Forestry Commission.

This image shows the tractor just appearing above peat level the partially crushed and now windowless cab with windscreen wiper hanging uselessly in front. The tractor is being pulled up by three tractors via ropes through a set of large shearlegs specially designed for the job by the then North Scotland Conservancy Mechanical Engineer, Mark Fox.

Billy Mackay senior recalls ‘The tractor was then debogged using the specially designed A frame, but not without some drama of bursting a winch in the process. The debogged tractor was then skidded on plates to the edge of the now A9, pulled there by the rescue tractors. The whole job took 28 days and was rumoured to have cost more than the value of the tractor!’

The PDF contains other images (also see picture No 1854) and an enlarged view of the some of the recovery team. Can anyone indentify the individuals?

Can anyone else remember this event and the heroic recovery effort?

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Groups: Caithness and Sutherland, Forest Research, Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Groups of people, Tractors Ploughs and Drainage Machines

3 Comments

This tractor was bogged while ploughing in Bad a Cheo on the Causeymire Road in Caithness. The tractor was 14 feet below the surface and was dragged for around 80 metres under the bog. We farmed the land there and I think it was our suggestion that they try a tripod to lift the tractor. We had to use a similar system once to rescue a farm tractor stuck when carting peats. I have a few photos of the tractor being loaded onto lorry. It was repaired and was at the Highland show a few years ago - a celebrity. The forest has been clear felled and on the same spot there is a base for a wind turbine to be installed next August. It took a feat of civil engineering and equipment to put it there! Comment left on 05 March 2018 at 16:25 by Innes Miller

Hi Innes. Great to get your comments on this incident and some back ground detail. I remember the Bad a Cheo research forest well and the peat cutting near by from work and also my trips up north to the Scrabster Ferry. If you have any photographs that you are willing to share I would be very happy to place them on the website. Norman Comment left on 08 March 2018 at 08:19 by Norman Davidson

Private contractors would just have to leave it there.
I remember once when some men were working in Clashindarroch they took a Field Marshall to go down to the bus route at Culdrain and the tractor ran off and rolled down the hill into the Kirkney burn, it is probably still there! Comment left on 11 March 2018 at 19:38 by Jimmy Thain

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