Recovered long track County Tractor, Caithness
This excellent image is provided by Innes Miller of Mybster area, Caithness and shows a Long wide tracked County ploughing tractor being loaded onto Forestry Commission low loader for delivery to the main FC workshops in Inverness for strip down and repair.
The tractor had been ploughing at Bad a Cheo, a special forest research area on deep soft peat, on the Causeymire when it bogged and then sank below the surface. It was pulled a distance of 80 metres at a depth of around 7 meters under the peat before it was lifted towards the surface via special shear legs. The incident is also recorded in Forestry Memories record No 141, 143, 1854 and 1855.
Innes recalls that the one of the wide tracks was taken off to allow safe transport of the machine on the relatively narrow roads. Can anyone name the low loader driver?
The attached PDF shows more of the County on the lorry.
Of interest also in the little glimpse of the tracks of a special excavator brought in to assist. Most likely it ran over a series of digger mats as can be seen in beside the lorry trailer but note the track plate construction consisting of wood covered with metal probably aluminium – very similar to the T500 light weight ploughing tractor. See record No 3994 for another partial view of the excavator. Can anyone provide any information on this machine and its type?
Download Large Version (238kB)
Groups: Caithness and Sutherland, Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Other Vehicles and Machines, Tractors Ploughs and Drainage Machines
4 Comments
The low loader driver I think is Jimmy Munro, who worked for the FC out of the old Longman workshop in Inverness. Comment left on 05 August 2025 at 12:50 by Billy Mackay