Elmo sent this and says:
The truck is a '60s Kenworth owned by Erickson Timber, Marysville, CA.
Jack Erickson, son of Axel Erickson, was soon to go on to found Erickson Air Crane, whose Sikorsky S-64s all had (and have) the same paint orange/green paint scheme.
I know this photo is from the '60s, as the truck had Peerless log gear (per mudflaps) with cheese blocks on the truck and the trailer has 36" stakes. By the '70s Erickson trucks all had General logging gear with 48" stakes. I know this because I hauled into the Erickson mill in the '70s.
Next to the trailer loader at the Marysville mill they had a big blackboard that showed when each Erickson truck was to be loaded the next morning and which side he was supposed to haul off of. I always thought that was a pretty slick way of dispatching trucks. After all, who wants to spend two hours every evening talking to truck drivers about where they were supposed to show up the next day while listening to them crying the blues about where they were supposed to go.
That picture above is one of my favorites. The driver has a posture that says "Let's do it. I'll get it to the mill even if it's 10,000 pounds over".
Thanks Elmo!
3 log loads are a thing of the past. Best I've seen is a 5 log, and that was only once. Most now have 20-25 pencil poles on their way to the mill.
ReplyDeleteIn the lower peninsula of Michigan, 98% of the logs you see being hauled are pencil thin, and most of the logs are just turned into chipboard, or the like. Some of the "logs" are no more than 5 inches in diameter.
DeleteWould like to know which model this is, might be a W900, can't tell from the picture.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Erickson fleet in the '70s was all W900s. If I remember right they had around 25 trucks total, give or take.
DeleteThey were smart. All their trucks were Kenworths back then, all their trailers were Generals.
I'm into logging railroads and there are pictures of logs that required 10 train cars to carry one tree. Huge sugar pines and redwoods.
ReplyDeleteAre you familiar with the work of Darius Kinsey
Deletehttps://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/stair/97/416297/H0043-L41601106.jpg
or the Yosemite Valley Railroad and it's inclines?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9--XxD-B_k
Long version-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4_mJuS9WWc