CC’s dman forwarded me this clipping from 1952. It shows a record load of old-growth redwood logs yielding 53,670 board feet of lumber being hauled to a mill in Fort Bragg, CA via a 26 mile private road. Pulling the (over)load is a Peterbilt Model 390 semi truck with a 300hp Cummins NHRS supercharged diesel engine, the most powerful truck diesel engine of its time. This was the only diesel capable of challenging the mighty Hall-Scott 400 gas engine, which was rated at 310hp and was also used widely in this type of extreme log hauling operations.
And just how much would that load be worth today? A cool half million dollars or more, based on a current price of some $10-12 per board foot for reclaimed or recycled old growth redwood.
Some details about this load. Those logs are some 40′ long and between 7 and 9 feet in diameter. Their weight is estimated at 375,690 lbs, or over 185 tons. The combined truck and load tipped the scales at the mill at 421,610 lbs” (211 tons). The load was 21′ tall and 19′ wide.
And how were these massive logs loaded on the truck? Someone left a comment elsewhere that explains it: “They dug a pit and drove the truck in the pit and rolled the logs on the bunks, the peaker or top log was rolled and assisted in the saddle with a heal boom loader. Lubberke Logging of Ukiah, CA was the logger involved.”
Those 53,670 board-feet of lumber rather overshadows this load of 32,798 board feet that was being hauled here by a Hall-Scott Peterbilt at about the same time. These logs look to be old-growth Douglas fir as compared to the coastal redwoods.
As to the Cummins NHRS supercharged diesel, it had been well known for a long time that diesel engines respond well to forced induction. Turbochargers had been installed on large stationary and marine diesels going back to the 1920s, but the constantly varying speed demands of a road-going diesel truck were not yet suitable to the use of diesels, so Roots-type positive displacement superchargers were used. In 1954, both MAN and Volvo introduced the first production road-going turbocharged diesel trucks.
In the case of Cummins, they built their first supercharged diesel in 1937. And in 1950, when the new four-valve family of diesels appeared, Cummins took one (with a light weight magnesium block and aluminum head) with a supercharger to Indianapolis. The truck version was the NHRS (above); its ribbed supercharger case is clearly visible on the bottom right. There were several output variants; according to the article, the one hauling those redwoods had a 300hp version. That’s essentially the same output as the Hall-Scott 400 series six cylinder gas engines.
The supercharger was developed and built by Switzer-Cummins, but not the same Clessie Cummins who headed Cummins Engines; apparently it wasn’t even a relative.
Here’s another Pete 390 with a quite similar 275hp version of this supercharged Cummins. The exhaust sound of these is very distinctive (and loud!) because there’s no turbo to soften the exhaust pulses. The split exhaust headers only add to the music. This one is being revved up against a hydraulic retarder to put some load on it, but it’s probably still well below its maximum power and sound.
The Hall-Scott had a displacement advantage over the Cummins; 1091 cubic inches to 744. But the forced induction on the Cummins made up the difference. Non-supercharged Cummins diesels back then typically had 180-220hp.
The record-breaking truck at top was equipped with Brown-Lipe main and auxiliary transmissions, heavy duty Timken rear ends with “10-16 gear ratio”, 18 tires in size 1400 x 24, Ross steering with Vickers power booster on a Schuler front axle, 20 x 8 Bendix-Westinghouse air brakes on the truck and trailer, with water cooling on the trailer brakes, and there was a “Hydro-tarder” hydraulic retarder for use on down grades, which also works to keep speed down on long down grades.
This truck was engineered to haul loads of at least 100 tons, up to 24,000 board feet at a maximum speed of 30 mph. So it appears it was just a wee bit overloaded with this Paul Bunyan load.
Related CC reading:
Vintage Truck: Peterbilt 354DT Hauling Load Of Giant Logs Powered by OHC Hemi-Head Hall-Scott Gas Engine – More Power Than A Wimpy Diesel
One doesn’t know fear/surprise until one is on a remote forest logging rod and a loaded semi full of logs with bald tires and bad brakes comes ’round a sharp tun headed at you at 50 + MPH .
I’d love to hear that Diesel with puffer at full chat .
-Nate
I’m at a loss with trucks. Is there a comparable truck today that is capable of hauling so much more of its rated weight? I understand that now it would be very difficult to be allowed to do so, and insurance would not pay for any accidents, and liabilities, etc. But I’m curious about the over engieneering.
These trucks were driven only on private roads, not public ones. This load would not have been remotely legal on a public highway.
As to the truck’s weight rating and its load, presumably the rating was conservative. My ’66 F100 is rated to haul 1200 lbs but I routinely haul over 3000 lbs.
Specialty off-road (private road-only) trucks for the logging industry were built by Hayes and Pacific (look up Hayes HDX, Pacific P12 and P16), and in very small numbers by a company called Challenger. These trucks all were targeted at the industry surrounding the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver Island in particular, and were extra-wide among other things so not remotely road-legal. None of those companies are around anymore, but some of their trucks are. There are some interesting videos of Hayes and Pacific trucks on Youtube. Other companies such as Mack, Peterbilt and Western Star also built trucks which were used for this service. The only comparable truck I think nowadays is the Kenworth C500.
FWIW, the Peterbilt 390 was not extra wide, and was street legal, as long as it had the required lights and such.
When I worked as an engineer at Peterbilt in the late 70’s and early 80’s, a lot of the “engineering” was based on decades of empirical experience. Still, most of the actual design work was by then done by degreed mechanical engineers, and in fact the company encouraged getting professional engineering license from the State of California which required passing a pretty rigorous two-step exam in addition to a degree, plus a certain amount of on-the-job experience. Although we only started using some basic computer aided engineering (CAE) near the end of my time there, we did a lot of classic pencil-and-paper yield and deflection analysis, and the typical practice was to design for a factory of safety of three; in other words make things three times as strong as needed for the expected static load. This was mostly intended to provide endurance for dynamic loads – but also to cover mistakes. In this case the off highway speeds were very low, and braking and cornering forces were pretty mild. There was also a lot of redundancy in the frame and suspension design, with lots of crossmembers, frame doublers (or even triplers, aka inserts and outserts) etc. Frame rails or crossmembers would crack but rarely fail catastrophically without being noticed.
Yes. Dedicated heavy haulage tractors, as offered by several truck manufacturers.
Example below, a 640 hp, 2018 MAN TGX 41.640 8×4 tractor, rated at 250 tonnes/551,000 lbs gross combination weight.
Allowed to drive on public roads, though only with a permit and assisted by pilot vehicles (given the dimensions of the freight).
A 2012 Toyota Tundra towed a 292,000 pound Space Shuttle. The truck, towing rig, and space shuttle had a combined weight over 150 tons, even though the GCVWR of the Tundra was more like 8 tons.
I hope the environmentalists don`t see this, but it does do Paul Bunyan proud.
I wasn’t around back then but would have been upset if I were. Walking through an old growth Redwood forest borders on the spiritual even if you aren’t.
I have redwood siding on my 1968 house. Squirrels and woodpeckers have done some damage to it, but it looks like it won’t be replaceable at those prices.
Second growth (plantation) redwood is readily available. I’m referring strictly to old growth.
Here’s some local plantation redwood (not a term I’ve heard around here, but an apt description), on a modern Peterbilt. I took this picture not far from my house about 5 years ago. Not quite toothpicks but pretty wimpy compared to the 1952 picture. Though they still seem really big when you encounter them walking in town when they lean over the sidewalk on a particularly cambered section of road.
Good to know, thanks.
Dad built our house (eastern Mo.) in 1954 using redwood. As a kid I remember him buying “Redwood Rez” to treat the wood, and I brushed on a LOT of it. Good stuff as the wood was still looking good when the house was demo’d in 2004.
That is definitely one tractor where a headache rack would be worthless.
One can never see enough of these, the freight included! In the early eighties I read about them for the first time and saw many images. Among them, the huge Hayes and Pacific tractors with ditto loads JM mentions above.
On a related Cummins-diesel-powerhouse-note: back in the fifties, Berliet from France developed the legendary T100. Powered by a 600 hp (and later 700 hp), 29.6 liter Cummins V12. Nicknamed ‘the Desert Giant’. The first one was unveiled in 1957 (photo courtesy of Fondation Berliet).
According to ChatGPT, an 8 foot diameter redwood tree would have been in the region of 800 years old. Sobering.
I see pictures of these beautiful trees, hundreds of years old, it breaks my heart.
Here’s an article about Hayes trucks from CC itself, with some nice pictures of some big loads and other trucks that hauled them:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-trucks/dead-brand-vintage-truck-of-the-day-hayes-clipper-british-columbias-own-big-trucks/
I just finished a book about Rudolph Diesel, so this is really timely because I am geeking out over early diesel engines right now. I am amazed at how little development the diesel saw in the US before the 1920’s, despite the inventor’s sale of a (very expensive) license to a U.S. businessman as early as 1904. That businessman – Adolphus Busch, the St. Louis brewer, whose two diesel engine companies seemingly did little of note with it over a decade or more.
One nit – you refer to Chessie Cummins, but his unusual first name is actually Clessie (with an L). Cummins Engine is still headquartered in Columbus, Indiana, about an hour south of me on I-65.
“The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel” or “Diesel, The Man and the Engine”? Or?
I tried listening to the mystery one on Audible, but stopped after a while as it just wasn’t working for me.
Diesels have been an ongoing fascination for me, and I spent a bit of time on the web trying to pin down some specifics as to when Cummins first started using a supercharger and then turbos.
I’m particularly interested in the development of the various combustion chamber designs on the automotive/truck diesels. The original diesel engine had direct injection, and that worked for large stationary engines, but was just to unruly for automotive use, so various precombustion chamber designs were developed and used on many/most automotive/truck engines. But they were inherently less efficient, and eventually they went back to direct injection; first trucks, than for cars.
Interestingly enough, it appears that Cummins never went to precombustion heads and managed to make direct injection work. I’d actually really like to find a book with thorough technical history of their engine development.
The issue of slow adoption in the US probably reflects the fact that the US was rather awash in oil unlike Europe. It’s the same reason why diesel engine cars were so slow to be adopted (somewhat unhappily) here.
It is rather fitting that you’re presumably listening to audio books on diesels while driving a big diesel truck.
Thanks for pointing out the typo; fixed now.
It was “The Mysterious Case” – it is a flawed book, as the author clearly lacked the technical background for a really satisfying treatment of the engine. He tries to spin a story about how the engine’s ability to burn non-petroleum fuels was a major threat to John Rockefeller’s oil holdings, but I don’t think he made much of a case there.
More interesting to me was the engine’s effect in displacing steam power in shipping, and how it made a useful submarine possible. There is quite a good treatment about the pre-WWI development of the sub, though probably less satisfying to someone better versed on the topic.
The author really does a poor job of explaining different fuels, and and suggests that nut and vegetable oils and coal tar are great substitutes for diesel fuel, but I have to believe that if those sources were really economical (or technically desirable for other reasons) those fuels would have been more widely developed.
An under-developed part of the story is how the main engineer at that Busch operation in St. Louis would not use improvements developed by Diesel or through a consortium of early license holders, arguing that “local conditions” made those designs impractical. However, that group never made any kind of splash in the American development of the diesel engine, so far as I am aware. Rudolph Diesel even made two trips to the U.S. and had meetings with Adolphus Busch both times.
I will give you the conclusion – the author makes an interesting (but unproveable) argument that Diesel’s death was faked by British Naval Intelligence and that the inventor spent time in Canada turning around Vickers’ faltering design efforts in creating a British submarine engine in the runup to the Great War. The only thing that is really clear in the book is that the German and Swiss companies (as well as the Nobels in Russia) were the leaders in developing the tech, other than the work of the inventor himself.
Yes, it is flawed. I just couldn’t feel that the author really understood diesel engines, and that he was just using it as a way to turn it into an essentially fiction book. And I did not like the reader either. I pulled the plug on it.