Grapple Truck Work

[Hawkeye]

Going through some photos at work I always like this one. I work for a shortline railroad in Iowa, and we often have to pull log jams from some of our railroad bridges when the ice goes out in the spring. Here is a photo of some great work by one of our boom truck operators (best boom truck operator I've ever had the pleasure to work with). Anyone who has ever ran a grapple truck would appreciate this - keep in mind this is a wet, heavy, waterlogged log!

This is why we chain the truck to the rail. Don't try this at home.

(I'm also lucky that much of my firewood comes from trees we have to cut down along the tracks - a well placed log pile from a boom truck makes my day - here's a recent pic of some oak from along our tracks)

 

[Shane N]

That oak looks PRIMO. I'm not jealous at all, I swear.........

 

[Flatbedford]

That is a great fringe benefit!

 

[fishingpol]

I have a lot of respect for that operator with the wet trees, ice and dark, swift water.

Nice log score.

 

[ScotO]

Hawkeye, I don't get deals like that at MY railroad!! Heck I can't even get a junk skid there anymore!! Consider yourself very fortunate, a thief ruined our scrap priveledges a couple years back and we can't get ANYTHING anymore...

That grapple operator knows his stuff, looks like he has a couple hours on that machine under his belt....

 

[charly]

I use to run a Prentice 320 when I was on NYS DOT's tree crew...We had a 20 inch capacity chipper which we fed with the Prentice loader.. Chipper operator would open the feed wheels on the chipper and away the tree would go...We tried to keep the hard wood and chip the soft,,, unless the bunk was full on the log truck, then we would chip whatever so we didn't have to make a second run at the end of the day to unload the logs... Trick is to get smooth with the log loader, turning the grapple, rotating the whole boom and booming up at the same time using your feet, and both hands to make it all one smooth operation...I liked it! One expensive toy. Definitely some nice looking logs from that clean up!