Jimmy Smith lifting sleeper log to the bench
Photograph courtesy of Robert Bruce, Drummuir showing his brother Jimmy Smith loaded with a log for cutting into railway sleepers. The log appears to be around 8-10 feet long and is being balanced with one hand while the other holds the cigarette! Jim was the sawmiller based at Aberlour Gardens sawmill owned by Riddochs of Rothiemay
Weight could be in the region of 200kgs but if anyone can more accurately compute the likely weight just note it in the comments box below.
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Groups: Forestry in Action, Northeast Scotland , Sawmills, pulp mills, chipboard mills
5 Comments
A standard railway sleeper was 8 foot 6 inches x 10 in x 5 in . To get an almost 10 inch x 10 inch square (to make 2 sleepers ) required a log of 12 inch diameter.This size of log gave the best return.
Comment left on 05 June 2015 at 15:16 by Frank Thom
The Green weight for Scots Pine that I have found on Google is 43.7 LBS per cubic Ft.
That makes the Log about 292 LBS or 2.6 CWT, ........... seems about right for a Green Log but the one in the Photo looks like it has been lying around for a while.
This reminds me of when I started working in the late 1950s, the older guys were telling stories about the Women who worked in the Woods during the War, some of them could carry two Green Sleepers off the Saw.
Comment left on 06 June 2015 at 21:45 by Jimmy Thain
That makes the Log about 292 LBS or 2.6 CWT, ........... seems about right for a Green Log but the one in the Photo looks like it has been lying around for a while.
This reminds me of when I started working in the late 1950s, the older guys were telling stories about the Women who worked in the Woods during the War, some of them could carry two Green Sleepers off the Saw.
Comment left on 06 June 2015 at 21:45 by Jimmy Thain
I worked with Jimmy Smith at Aberlour from 1962-66. I was on the running off bench. This was a common enough lift for Jimmy and others. I was 16 at the time and had to carry sleepers up a ramp for stacking. Jimmy was thin as a rake but strong as an ox. The cigarette was his race mark, at tea break he would eat his piece, light a cigarette. When it was finished it would be back to work for everybody. Robert Bruce can verify my comments as often came to work at Aberlour while still at school.
Comment left on 09 November 2015 at 00:31 by Peter Ross
Come on someone has airbrushed out the wire rope holding the log suspended from a crane.?
Comment left on 13 April 2019 at 23:07 by leslie phillip
Jimmy moved down to Mosstodloch mill and worked the first ‘remote controlled’ saw that the mill had...he sat up in a wee control room...I was the MD’s son and worked in the mill in the mid 1980s. Jimmy was nearing the end of his working life but still had a tremendous work ethic - he also had no qualms about telling the gaffer’s loon to “get yer hand out yer pockets” and “dinna be late back efter piece break again” ...and I wasn’t after that.
Comment left on 31 May 2019 at 22:27 by Lewis MacAskill
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