However, many loggers were injured when the sled jumped the track at high speeds, leading to its discontinuation. ![]() Many loggers rode the sled down the steep 8,100 feet (2,500 m) slope over the years, with the record from top to bottom being two and a half minutes, exceeding 35 miles per hour (56 km/h). Pulling back on the front handle tightened the cleats against the rail, providing a friction brake. Ties that were slightly higher than normal were trimmed to accommodate the bar. The right edge had a curved metal bar on the bottom that rode on top of the ties at rail height, keeping the sled level. The left edge of the sled had two cleats that straddled one rail, fastened to their underside. Yosemite Lumber Company carpenter Louie Farr built a six-foot-long sled for riding down the southside incline above El Portal. Some lumberjacks were so afraid to ride the incline they turned around at first sight and never made it into the woods. The donkey yarder, in particular, had to haul itself up to the top of the incline first, which took around three months to complete. : 64 : 128Īll supplies and equipment used in the woods had to be pulled up the incline. ![]() The incline utilized 8,600 feet (2,600 m) feet of 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) wire rope pulled by a big steam-powered hoist manufactured by Willamette Iron Works. The line speed reached 1,300 feet (400 m) feet per minute, with a handling capacity of about six cars per hour. The incline had four trestles and two overhead hold-downs. Loaded log cars were let down the incline as empty cars were pulled up, using a counterbalanced arrangement. The last 2,500 feet (760 m) to the summit were the steepest on the line, with a dizzying 78% grade. It featured a 48% grade at the start, changed to a 52% grade for several hundred feet, and then dropped to a 45% grade until reaching the middle of the incline. The Yosemite Lumber Company built the incline in 1912, which spanned 8,100 feet (2,500 m) from El Portal to the top of Hennes Ridge. The incline, which was the steepest ever built, connected the timberlands high on the tableland with the Yosemite Valley Railroad located in the Merced River valley below. ![]() The Yosemite Lumber Company constructed a railroad incline to access their timber holdings on a high tableland opposite El Portal. Yosemite Lumber Company El Portal Incline : 18 Logging The Steepest Logging Incline Ever Built : 48 With its remaining timber holdings insufficient the company folded in 1942. : 48ġn 1937, the federal government forced the sale of 7,200 acres of the company’s finest sugar pine tracts, annexing them for protection inside the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. During that time, Yosemite Sugar Pine ran five shay locomotives across a hundred miles of track. The company averaged a yearly cut of fifty-five million board feet during its thirty years in business. An immense production allowance of two hundred million board feet suggested this was a loosely interpreted restriction. Two special acts of Congress allowed the company to harvest timber in Yosemite National Park under the guidance that only "dead and decaying" timber be cut. From there, the logs went by rail to the company’s sawmill at Merced Falls, about fifty-four miles west of El Portal. The company built the steepest logging incline ever, a 3,100 feet (940 m) route that tied the high-country timber tracts in Yosemite National Park to the low-lying Yosemite Valley Railroad running alongside the Merced River. The Yosemite Lumber Company was an early 20th century Sugar Pine and White Pine logging operation in the Sierra Nevada. ![]() Not to be confused with Yosemite Valley Railroad.Ĥ ft 8 + 1⁄ 2 in ( 1,435 mm) standard gauge
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