Forestry Memories

Harvester being uprighted at Elibank Forest

Harvester being uprighted at Elibank Forest

Date Added: 21 August 2018 Contributor: Norman Davidson Year of Photo: 1989 Picture No: 4181

The photographs are courtesy of Stuart Mitchell, Peebles area, who formerly worked at Glentress Forest. The year is uncertain.

Alan Dickie’s thinning timber harvester is being uprighted by hand winch pulling from the right. Hopefully he was wearing his seat belts when it went over. See the attached PDF for a view of the machine on its side.
This writer had not ever seen this machine before and by chance saw the name Valmet 901 just visible on the lower side. On checking the history was very surprised to discover that this was the first ever single grip harvester and it emerged in 1984! In 1989 the author and his forestry team were scouring the country for a suitable machine to carry out thinning in Northeast Scotland and in the end settled for an Atlas/Pika combination. Although a bit light looking this machine might have saved considerable hassle!

The machine was manufactured by Umea Mekaniska and had a fully rotating and levelling cab. The single grip system, very familiar now, was very revolutionary then as the felling head felled, delimbed and crosscut the tree in one seamless sequence.

The history of Umea Mekaniska, Valmet and Komatsu can be accessed via the following link which also shows an image of the Valmet 901 https://www.komatsuforest.com/about/history

The Forestry Commission Scotland issued a news story about Allan Dickie and his son Ross in 2016 and can be found on the following link which is really a story about safety or the people visiting the forest ignoring signs with potential horrific consequences. https://scotland.forestry.gov.uk/news/man-in-cab

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Groups: Forestry Areas, Forestry in Action, Timber harvesters, processors, forwarders and cable cranes

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