Forestry Memories

Machinery demo at Blackbushe Estate - may be Hampshire not Edinburgh

Machinery demo at Blackbushe Estate - may be Hampshire not Edinburgh

Date Added: 27 February 2018 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1958 Picture No: 3956

Photograph is courtesy and copyright of Forestry Commission, Forest Research, Roslin, and provided with help from Glen Brearley. FR Photo number No A1868 taken by T K Wood.

Little information on this machine and operation other than one name ‘Rotaped’ demonstrating at Blackbushe , Edinburgh.

The tractor is an International B250 Diesel according to the machine logos. The track assembly is very unusual as it does not appear to run on a frame! Looking closely the track is made up of six rigid plates, hinged at their ends where sprockets are also fixed. A heavy chain encloses three alternate sprockets in a closed circuit and another chain the other three. It is assumed this arrangement is mirrored on other side of the driving sprocket. As the sprocket drives the track around the chains maintain the track profile as seen. Very clever bit of engineering!
Has anyone seen this system before?

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Groups: Forest Research, Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Other Vehicles and Machines

2 Comments

That idea has been around for a long time, there are numerous examples on Google but I have never seen it on such a modern tractor before. Comment left on 11 March 2018 at 19:24 by Jimmy Thain
The tracks look like Rotaped tracks very common on Howard draining machines in the 1950s, and the dozer blade is a Leeford 'Muledozer'.

The Rotaped tracks were also made by Leeford in the later years of their production - up until the mid 1960s. Comment left on 24 March 2018 at 21:44 by David Shearer
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