High Horsepower

摘要

Size really can matter in logging. This 1894 photograph was posed to highlight the impressive size of the Hawkes Bay Timber Company's horse teams at Rakaiatai, near Dannevirke in Hawke's Bay. On show, at their sawmill site, are 34 horses harnessed into six teams. These teams worked on the company's bush tramway network, in the era before the timber industry used roads. The horses are harnessed to work in single file because they follow a metre-wide path between the tramway rails.Three of the teams were likely to work hauling logs from loading sites in the bush. Some big totara logs on the sawmill skids can be glimpsed between the first and second huts on the left. The other teams would haul sawn timber on the tramway to the railway siding where it would be dispatched to markets. A load of sawn timber is seen on the far left, loaded on typical bush tramway bogies.