Massey Ferguson 1200 Skidder FC No78500
The images are courtesy of Peter Weir, Glencoe, who worked as Forestry Commission ploughing tractor driver for many years, on the squad and for a time in the harvesting team and operated this skidder while it was in the forest for a short period.
The lorry bringing in the machine is a Leyland with movable Brimec loading body. One was based at Lairg for a period driven by Martin Mackenzie but this one may well be from another location. The registration number is unclear but contains some characters as follows: **Y*32S.
The Massey Ferguson 1200 skidder is a powerful looking machine and has the registration number GFS201T. Who made these machines and where were they manufactured?
Were many of them used in Scotland? Any stories and information would be very welcome.
Peter comments:
“The skidder was used below the Forestry Road in Duror. As there was only a short distance between the road and river it was not worth setting up a skyline. It was a long time ago but as far as I can remember it did the job.
Back then there was nothing that would beat the Timber Master winch with skyline on steep hillsides which were nearly every where we worked. You had to set it up properly or it was a waste of time. If there was a lower part of the skyline where the cable came to close to the ground you had to put in wooden supports held up with a Tirfer and wire rope.
When the Forestry brought in Bench Felling where all the logs were left in rows on the mountain it made it so much easier for winching. The man on the hillside would multi chocker the logs with rope slings in advance of the hall back wire with the hooks on coming back up the mountain. Depending on size of the logs we drag up to around eight logs at a time. The problem with that was the log pile at the bottom built up very quickly and made it dangerous climbing up the high log pile to unhook the logs. I always took a crowbar with me to release the rope slings. One day on the way down the log pile the logs started to move trapping my foot and welly. I was very lucky as I managed to jam the crowbar above my welly and held back all the logs. I radioed up my mate in the wood to come and help.
That story is in my book (See No 4828)
After that incident the Forester in charge brought in a tractor with a grab to move the logs. There was also one very important piece of equipment that saved a lot of accidents or lives. This was a self release system on the carriage on the skyline. When the carriage dragging the logs came down the skyline it ran over a metal plate which caused the release of the logs to stop them crashing into the tractor and operator. The device was invented by a man called Jimmy Fleming who was the foreman in the Glenbranter Workshop.
Back then we had our own felling squad which varied from time to time probley around about six. There were also contractors felling as well as extracting the timber. All our timber we extracted went to the Riddochs Saw Mill In Fort William now BSW (including the pulp to Pulp Mill).
There is another great story from Ballachulish forest. On really wet and windy days when we could not go felling the forester would send us out in the forestry van to check the culverts on the forestry road. We set of from the forestry office on to the top road around Glenachulish which is quite a steep glen in places with a few deep gullies. With the heavy rain the burns were running full bore as we made our way to the top of the glen where we found the road blocked with a small landslip. After a quick cup of tea we turned round and headed back to find one of the big gullies had a massif landslip that took away part of the road. We were stuck in between the two landslides and had to find a way to walk over the big landslip to get back to the office. That was a scary scramble over the landslip which went all the way down the mountain across another road and into the river. It took weeks with excavators to clear the landslip away and repair the road. I was also avalanched in the piste machine at Glencoe Ski Centre which took me down the mountain and buried us inside the machine. We had to kick out the side windows and escape. There is a bit in my book about that. As you are aware it could be dangerous working in the forest.
When I was in Glencoe all the forests were together. Glencoe, Ballachulish, Duror and Bealach I think. Glen Etive I am not too sure because they had their own workforce, a Forester and a office, three polish men and two other men. Back then the forestry workers sometime would help out in other forests. Bill Mason, Mike Stewart and Peter Hunt were in Glenachulish Office. John Rodgers was in Glen Etive just before my time and I can’t remember the name of the forester that took over. There was a Iain Arnold forester in Dalmally area and one other.
See the PDF for views of the skidder.
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Groups: Forestry Areas, Other Vehicles and Machines, Timber harvesters, processors, forwarders and cable cranes