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Oregon California & Eastern Railroad Weyerhaeuser Timber Company McGiffert Loaders |
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John R. McGiffert, a long-time employee of the Clyde Iron Works of Duluth, Minnesota, invented the log loader that would bear his name right around 1900. The McGiffert loader featured a hoisting machine
mounted on an elevated platform set on top of a heavy frame. When in use the frame would rest on the ties outside the rails, leaving a tunnel underneath the machine through which empty log cars could pass. A V-shaped
boom would lift logs onto the log cars as they passed underneath the loader. Early McGifferts had booms that could only be raised and lowered, while later loaders had booms that could swivel up to fifteen degrees
in either direction. Most McGifferts had car lines that could move a string of empty logs cars underneath the loader, though some operations used switching locomotives as well. McGifferts also had pairs of trucks
with chain-driven axles mounted underneath the platform that could be lowered to the rail to lift the loader frame off the ties and then very slowly move the loader from one landing to the next during logging. Clyde
built nearly a thousand McGiffert loaders in a production run that lasted until 1929. Weyerhaeuser is recorded to have used at least six McGiffert loaders in its Klamath operations. C/N 678, built 4/1907 as McCloud River Railroad Company #1751, McCloud, CA; to McCloud River Lumber Company, McCloud, CA, 5/31/1922; to Kesterson Lumber Company, Dorris, CA, circa 1925/1926; to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Klamath Falls, OR, 1929; to Collier Logging Museum, Chiloquin, OR, where it remains on display. C/N 1020, built 1/1912 for Pelican Bay Lumber Company, Klamath Falls, OR; to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Klamath Falls, OR. Last reported at Bly, OR, in 6/1959. C/N 1245, built 4/1920 for Great Northern Lumber Company, Leavenworth, WA; to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Klamath Falls, OR. Last reported at Beatty, OR, in 6/1959. C/N 1247, built 5/1920 for Lassen Lumber & Box Company, Susanville, CA; to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Klamath Falls, OR. C/N 1276, built 3/1925 for Ewauna Box Company, Lumberton, OR; to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Klamath Falls, OR, 11/8/1948; abandoned at Beaver Marsh/Yamsay, OR, where it remained until scrapped 1978. C/N 1281, built 4/1926 as Big Lakes Box Company #42, Klamath Falls, OR; to Palmerton Lumber Company, Klamath Falls, OR; to Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Klamath Falls, OR, who used it up to 1961; to Collier Logging Museum, Chiloquin, OR. The two McGiffert loaders in the Collier Logging Museum are among the six or maybe seven surviving McGiffert loaders. Two more survive at the Southern Forest Heritage Museum in Long Leaf, Louisiana; another is on display in Duluth, Minnesota; and the sixth is resting upside down in a lakebed in British Columbia. One more is reported to have been on display in El Salto, Durange, Mexico, as late as 1999 and may still be there. |
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 Weyerhaeuser's former Big Lakes Box McGiffert at Camp 4 north of Sycan in 1959. Jerry Lamper photo.  The rear of the former Big Lakes/Weyerhaeuser McGiffert on display at Collier. Jeff Moore photo.  The front of the former Big Lakes/Weyerhaeuser McGiffert on display at Collier. Jeff Moore photo.  The former McCloud River/Kesterson/Weyerhaeuser McGiffert on display at Collier. Jeff Moore photo. |
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