Does anyone know of any surviving Barnhart log loaders besides these three:

#? Model 10
Lackawanna Lbr. Co. Cross Forks, PA
Natwick & Co. Alexander, WV
F. C. Cook & Co. “ 01-16-50
Ely-Thomas Lbr. Co. Fenwick, WV 1955
PennYork Lumberman's Assoc., Galeton, PA 1964
Pennsylvania Lumber Museum Galeton, PA
http://www.lumbermuseum.org/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lblanchard/page393/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lblanchard/page394/

#? Model 10 wrecked in woods near Curtis, NY (#2939?)
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiv ... x?id=10249

2633 10-07-16 Model 12
A. Guthrie & Co., Inc. Cle Elum, WA (slideback loader)
$4875 43,430 lbs.
Cascade Lbr. Co. Cle Elum, WA 07-04-18
Potlatch Lbr. Co. Elk River, ID (converted to diesel)
Zimmerman Log. Co. Troy, ID (display) here 2001
Elk River Museum Elk River, ID (display) here 09-04

I was once told that there was most of one at the old Cherry River Boom & Lbr. site in West Virginia. If anyone is interested in a builder's list for these loaders drop me any E mail.

John T

Image of the restored 1910 Model 10 Barnhart Log Loader at Pennsylvania Lumber Museum.


Barnhart Log Loader by Cooks Forest, on Flickr

There is a McGiffert log loader at the Collier Logging Museum in Oregon.

When was the Lumberman's Museum Barnhart converted back to steam? Where did the parts come from? Once we are through with the Barnharts we can get into the McGiffert, Decker and American log loaders.

Replying to David Johnston's post, there are 2 McGiffert loaders at Collier. We visited the park last week and were quite amazed at the size of their collection which also includes a Dolbeer steam donkey.

If you want pictures of log loaders, search
the Fritz-Metcalf Photo Collection at U.C. Berkeley.

A keyword search using the keyword "loader" brings up a lot of them including several action shots.

Unfortunately no Barnharts in the collection.

Back in the 1970's some of the local Allegheny National Forest employee/railfans showed a black and white movie of a Barnhart in operation on the ANF, I'm pretty sure it was Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company, and it was late in the operation - late 30's or early 40's. It was an amazing film, with the boom operator 'flinging' the tongs by rotating the boom, the ground man catching the tongs in mid-air and throwing them on the next log, and the operator snapping the line taut and loading the next log. Any OSHA person would pass out on the spot.

I managed to find the employee that brought the movie, confirmed what I remembered, and told me how to likely locate it, I'm going back through channels to see if it can be located. But a movie of one of these running was made, and was property of the Forest Service.

If anyone else has ever seen or heard of this movie, let me know - it's one of those things that is so remarkable it deserves to be part of the history of the equipment as well of the forest.

The is a McGiffert loader at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth, MN.

I believe the McGiffert's were made in Duluth.

-Hudson

I believe the remains at Swandale (Elk River Coal and Lumber) are of a more standard railroad crane, not a log loader. I've seen pictures, but can't locate one at the moment.
Edit: I did a little more looking and found references to a BrownHoist crane, the X-3, which was used to load logs.

Mike Stillwell
Buena Vista, VA.

Cass Scenic Railroad has a Barnhart that has been rebuilt with an internal combustion engine. It has been used from time to time to load logs and it has also been utilized as a crane for various jobs around the site.

The video "Shays, Lumbering & More," produced by JMG Productions, includes some great views of log loading with a Barnhart as well as an American, shot in West Virginia in the early 1950's. They are all color and include skidding logs with horses and standard gauge and narrow gauge. I recall similar scenes such as Randy describes, with the loader operator swinging the tongs over to the setter and swinging the logs over the heads of men on the ground. An OSHA inspector would have a heart attack!

John T,
Take a look at this link. Old image of one of the surviving Barnharts. Fenwick, WV, 1958.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ely-Thomas-Shay ... SwfcVUGGuq

Interesting! Note that in 1958 the loader was still steam. A photo taken in May 1960 shows it as internal cumbustion. Odd that it is up on cribbing instead of on a car.

John T,
Hi, you may have already seen this video. It has some amazing footage of the Barnhart loader in action on the Ely Thomas line in 1964-65 timeframe. Since you mentioned it, yes I see now that the steam stack in the 1958 photo is no longer there. Thanks for pointing that out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukm2R498N1A

As for why it was up on cribbing in the 1958 photo, maybe you answered your own question. Maybe it was up on blocks in preparation for the conversion to diesel??

Since McGiffert Log Loaders have slipped in, two additional machines are at the Southern Forest Heritage Museum at Long Leaf, LA. Nice Website. Interesting place, pretty much frozen in time for quite a few years beginning in 1969 although some of the facility dated back prior to 1900.
Alex Huff, who visited occasionally in the early 1970's.

The film was very informitive but raises questions. On looking closely at the slide I see the loader is 2. The movie shows the loader lettered DL No. 1. This raises questions as to how many Barnharts Ely-Thomas had. From what I can find they had a 3 foot gauge logging railroad connected to the mill by the B&O. They would take the Barnhart out to the interchange and reload the logs onto the standard gauge cars, haul them to the mill and dump them into the pond. After the narrow gauge line was abandoned in 1955 they trucked logs to the mill. They still used the Barnhart to load logs from storage and dump them into the pond until the mill closed.