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Timber haulage in the Highlands was very much a hand-to-mouth

12th November 1965, Page 155
12th November 1965
Page 155
Page 156
Page 157
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Page 155, 12th November 1965 — Timber haulage in the Highlands was very much a hand-to-mouth
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affair but new pulp and paper mills at Fort William have changed all that. And hauliers of every kind will benefit. By NORMAN H. TILSLEY

ENTION the name Fort William and what does it bring to mind? To many it recalls the grandeur or the Road to the Isles and, perhaps, Ben Nevis-hat tallest or UK mountains which, strangely enough, does ot look at all high from the town; the crossroads of the estern Highlands (48 miles west to MaHaig for the Isle )f Skye and 66 miles north west to the Highland capital I Inverness. along the shores of Loch Ness); seat of the 'Ian Cameron. To the student of history Fort William rings to mind, perhaps, the Massacre of Glencoe, the .cene of one of the most savage episodes in European istory.

To the modern Scot, however, it means something very Iferent indeed. In Scotland at the moment, Fort William epresents the reversing of a trend. For centuries people ave left the Highlands in search of work. Now, thanks o the tidal waters of Loch Eil and the abundance of fresh ater in the area; thanks to many other things geographical nd physical and, last but not least, thanks to the diversifiation policy of a group of companies who manufacture aper, Fort William is currently the centre of a modernime gold rush, only the operative word is not gold, but imber.

On an 80-acre site at Annat Point neat the village of orpach. four miles from Fort William on the A830 road o Mallaig. waiting to come into production in the very ear future is Britain's first integrated pulp mill. Consisting t the moment of a mill and a paper machine housed in buildings occupying 320,000 sq. ft. and representing the largest industrial development in the Highlands since the Second World War, the project has so far involved an outlay of i15m. When the second paper machine is constructed in a few years' time the capital outlay will have gone up to f20m., half of which amount will have been loaned by the Government.

Responsible for the wholeproject is the Wiggins Teape Group of Companies which operatesno fewer than 15 paper mills, a pulp mill and 10 factories up and down the United Kingdom, as well as mills in four continents. This group claims to make a wider variety of paper than any other papermaker in the world, employing over 16,000 people throughout the world, exporting to 122 countries.

Saving Foreign Exchange Much of the pulp for the Wiggins Teape UK mills is imported from Scandinavia and Canada, although an important amount comes from the Group's own pulp mill at Sudbrook in Monmouthshire—the first bleached-wood pulp mill in Britain to use homegrown timber. Within a few weeks the Sudbrook mill will be joined by the new one at Fort William, which will have a capacity for pro

ducing 80,000 tons of pulp a year. Because of the integration of the mill with the paper-making machines— which virtually means that trees will go in at one end and fine paper will come out at the other—the mill will be able to compete with those of Scandinavia and Canada which have vast forests on their doorsteps, and it is antici paled that this will save the country more than £8m. a year in foreign exchange.

Scottish forests will supply about two-thirds of the timber needed to feed the gigantic mill. ln round figures this means that 10,000 trees will have to be cut every day—mostly spruce from West Scotland and pines from the East Forests supplying the wood are located in Inverness-shire, Argyllshire, Ross and Cromarty and the Upper Spey Valley. These are softwood forests. The remaining third of all the wood used will be hardwood which will be exported by sea from Portugal and Canada in ships that can sail almost up to the mill doors through Loch Linnhe into .Loch Eil where it will be disembarked in the basin at Corpach.

Road transport plays a vital part in the pulp mill project and handling every aspect of this, among' hisother duties,

is Mr. Christopher Budden, the mill's wood operations manager. For the past two years Mr. Budden has planned and negotiated the haulage that will be necessary to supply the mill in two phases—the build-up of between 40,000 and 50,000 tons of timber before production proper starts, which will always be available in case supplies dry up because of bad weather or other unforeseen circumstances; and then, when the mill is in production, the feeding in of approximately 1,400 tons of timber per day seven days a week.

Planning on such a vast scale is no mean task, especially when it is realized how few and far between are specialized timber hauliers in Scotland.

Peculiar Difficulties With the amount of capital involved in building the mill and the machines, one would have thought that the addi-. tional capital required to purchase a suitably sized C-licensed fleet would have been but a drop in the bucket to the Group. But the haulage of round timber presents peculiar difficulties. With the vast area of forest involved, it would have taken years for drivers to become fully. familiar with the forest roads and local conditions. Not

only this, the drivers would have to know the various kinds of timber involved and the peculiarities of it. To employ a C-licensed fleet on the long-distance haulage under such circumstances could have meant expensive delays and, once the mill is in production, any stoppage because of a lack of raw materials could be disastrous in

terms of money.

Because of this and because of Wiggins Teape's policy

of utilizing local resources-where possible, it was decided to use existing hauliers in the timber industry. But here lay a problem for Mr. Budden. A dose perusal of the Road Haulage Association directory discloses the fact that there are no hauliers listed itt.Fort William, and very few in the surrounding districts, an understandable fact when the population of the area is-taken account of—a mere 2,715 in Fort William at the last census. Situated on a

trunk route from the south to Inverness, Fort William is presumably catered for mainly by passing hauliers seeking return loads.

Another problem to be taken into account was the lack of main roads in the area and the fact that in the summer season what few roads there are are heavily trafficked with tourist cars and caravans. For this reason it was decided to utilize the railway line from the south using Crianla rich, some 70 miles to the south-east through Glencoe, as a railhead for timber coming in from the southern forests.

The forests supplying timber to the mill—some of them privately owned, with the majority belonging to the Forestry Commission—were thus theoretically split into groups, and hautiers—specialists in the handling of round timber—were sought out in the vicinity of each, to be responsible for the haulage from each group of forests— those in the north to bring the timber direct to Fort William by road, and those in the south, particularly in Argyll, to bring the timber to Crianlarich where specially designed timber wagons would carry it to the mill.

Contacts with local hauliers were made and negotiations carried out to find suitable and fair rates, on the basis that vehicles would be carrying traffic for the mill in only one direction. (The finished product will leave Corpach mainly by rail, but with a certain amount on long-distance flat vehicles operated by Highland Haulage.) Calculations were made to allow, for 100 per cent utilization of all timber vehicles in a haulage unit. In all cases the hauliers chosen already had their own vehicles to carry round timber. In a,few cases extensions to licences—which are mainly of the limited B variety—had to be made, with support coming from the pulp mills where required. A few operators, because of exceptional circumstances, were taken on as contract hauliers.

With the exception of these last mentioned, no formal agreements or contracts have been signed between the parties, letters of intent sufficing for the purpose.

For some time now 400 tons of timber per day have been transported to the mill by road to build up the stockpile prior to the mill coming ioto production. This buildup period has enabled a lot of the teething troubles to be ironed out before 'production starts. The modus operandi

is simple. Timber, cut into 10 ft. lengths by gangs in the forests, is winched to the forest roadsides and piled up for collection. Every week Mr. Budden is .informed of the position in each forest and, depending on how much wood is standing, instructions go out to the hauliers to bring it in. If for any reason a bottleneck builds up and a haulier cannot cope in his par ticular unit, one or more of the three C-licensed tractive units and 10 semi-trailers that normally work inside the site at Corpach are sent to

help out—" It would not be fair to ask hauliers to keep spare -vehicles on hand for such a contingency ", explained

Mr. Budden.

At the pulp mill, timber can be received at any time from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and canteen facilities exist for drivers on the site to obtain hot meals throughout this period. A certain number of beds are set aside at the works hostel for the men to use if the necessity arises.

Unloading facilities have been calculated so that the largest of vehicles can be cleared within 15 minutes. An overhead Monobox gantry, capable of lifting 12 tons, is used for this purpose—the timber being fed into a de-barking machine prior to being stockpiled, the weight of timber working out at roughly 37 Cu. ft. to the ton. All timber brought in is, of course, weighed prior to offloading from road vehicles, giant weighbridges serving this purpose at Corpach and at the Crianlarich railhead.

A Typical Haulier A typical timber haulier who works for the mill is William Ogilvie of Evanton, near Dingwall, in Ross and Cromarty. He and his manager son David have been hauling to the mill since the very beginning. Operating a mixed breed of five rigid vehicles (an Atkinson eightwheeler, an AEC six-wheeler, two Commers and a Bedford, all four-wheelers). the Ogilvies are thinking about using artics before long—which will overcome the apparent prejudice against using these vehicles during the deep winter months. The Ogilvie unit will eventually handle timber from 14 forests situated mainly in the three northernmost counties of the country—Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty and Caithness—and also in Nairn and Moray, including the Black Isle.

This concern, which has hauled timber in this part of Scotland since 1938, is within 50 miles of all the forests and, with the exception of two which are way over on the West coast, can comfortably operate all its runs to Fort William and back within the legal driving hours of a particular day. With close on half a century's experience behind them, the Ogilvies know most of the forest roads in their " parish " and know most of the snags that can crop up when hauling round timber.

To carry the timber safely they have had special bolsters made by a local smithy, between which the logs sit. They are chained down for additional safety. An unusual loading device is employed in which a Hiab hydraulic loader has been married to a Dodge short-wheelbase chassis —invaluable for moving swiftly from site to site. This method of loading is preferred by the Ogilvies to the system recommended and used by the pulp mill management on their own vehicles—Hiab loaders mounted on the actual carrying vehicles.

Inclement Weather One of the snags in this area is the weather. Evanton, where the Ogilvie base is, is situated on the shores of the Cromarty Firth. This area, and the Moray Firth which is nearby, is notorious for its quickly changing weather.

The weather can be poor Ilere, while on the west coast it can be really excellent," David Ogilvie told me. Strangely enough, the snow does not bother the unit too much. The country to the west of them usually stays fairly clear of snow, in contrast to the forests they operate to the east of their parish. They do nothing specifically to winterize vehicles, although there is an insistence, after experiences in the bad winter of 1962, in metal piping being used for the fuel feed systems. Fuel, during that winter, kept freezing and, because of the plastic piping on the vehicles, heating could not be applied for fear of the plastic melting.

The new pulp mills at Fort William have been a godsend to hauliers like the Ogilvies. Whereas, previously, work in this field of the industry was very much a seasonal matter, now, there is all the year round employment. "We have to lift between 40 to 50 tons a day," Mr. Ogilvie inr. told me, "and this to us is big business." What is more important is the fact that it is all the year round employment.

The project will have its effect on the roads in Scotland, too—a big programme of road improvement is to be undertaken by most of the local authorities, which will necessitate the rebuilding and widening of many bridges—to the advantage of all road users.

Harking back to my opening theme, already the construction of the mill has poured £20,000 a week into the pockets of the men building it. Because of it, too, the West Highland railway line which was in danger of being closed has been reprieved. Even the Caledonian Canal is being improved with a new quay and mechanized lock in the Corpach basin to take wood in from the Western Isles. All this spells prosperity for every kind of trade in the area, not the least important of which is the limber hauling section of the transport industry.


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