Visit of Assistant Conservators to West Scotland Conservancy - Oct 1970
Some documents were passed on from the family of Tom A Robbie who was the Forestry Training School principal at Glentress 1947-1953 and also at Faskally 1953-1955 and thereafter in Conservancy Office appointments in Scotland. The items were brought to the attention of Forestry Memories by Mairi McGeachy, Business Support Manager, Aberfoyle Office.
Unfortunately no details of attendees are shown but the tour visit appears to have concentrated on Forest Road construction and timber extraction using cable cranes. The areas visited were the Forests of Ardgartan, Inverliever, Glenbranter, Glenfinart, Benmore and Knapdale.
For each forest and the Conservancy, the total plantation areas, species mix, yield classes, forecast production volumes, roading densities and extraction methods are outlined. A general forest area map of the visit route is included.
On the roads in general, the Conservancy is divided into two areas each supervised by a Civil Engineer each supported by two Superintendents of Work and two Civil Engineering Assistants. There is an industrial labour force of 122. The main power units are large excavators with face shovels as large dozers have been tried without any success (except perhaps in quarry ripping). A crusher had to be used in the Knapdale quarries before the material could be used.
On bridges the large spans are spanned using prestressed concrete beams, smaller spans using reinforced concrete slabs or concrete box beams. Steel bitumen coated Armco pipes are used for culverts from 24 - 60 inch diameter and concrete pipes for lower diameters.
The visit area is mainly cable crane working and the Conservancy has a total of 39 units of which 11 were ‘High Lead and 28 were ‘Skyline’. The Skyline units are composed of a Massey Ferguson tractor with Isachsen or Igland double drum winches and some Ford 3000 tractors with Igland double drum winches. All the Iglands are 4T Special. One machine has been modified to a 500 yard range, this being a Ford 3000 with Selectomatic gear box and located at Glenfinart. The outputs are quoted at 40 -140 h.ft. per hour for the Highlead machines and 35 – 125 h.ft. Per hour for the Skylines when at 300 and 100 yard ranges respectively. The prices then of a fully kitted out Igland Highlead was £1700 and Skyline £2600 but to this had to be added the two radio sets at between £390 and £420 depending on makes.
The full tour notes and all the details are available in the PDF – link below.
Does anyone know the artist that drew the front and the back cover images?
Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry Records, Booklets and Reports