The 27th of March was a Sunday and I slept in very late. Then I took my time getting out the door, so it was past 1pm when I set out for brunch. I had a hankerin' for some bacon and eggs, and I was headed for the ABC restaurant on Schoolhouse in Coquitlam, which is where I usually go for brunch if I'm by myself. (This is not to be confused with my Saturday brunch at the Golden Pita, which is always a social affair.)

I took Front Street out of downtown New Westminster, and I was held up by a train crossing the road in front of me. Now, I like trains, so I don't mind being delayed by them. But this was an extra cool train, because there were a few cars near the front that were carrying heavy equipment. Not only that, but there was a piece of heavy equipment that I didn't recognize!

This warranted further investigation, so when the train had passed, I zoomed down the road past it and parked at a place where I would be able to get good photos as it went by. I hadn't been able to get too far in front, so it was already passing by the time I got the camera out. Anyhow, here's the front of the train, with the mystery machine being the one with the red attachment.

Well, that track leads to the BNSF yard down on Brunette, so I hopped back in my car and went there. This time I was far enough ahead of the train that I was able to cross the tracks, make a U-turn, park, and get back on the near side with my camera before the train arrived. (That's my car behind the signal on the far left of the photo below). Then I took photos of each machine that went past.

The first car had a Cat 325C FM, where FM stands for "Forestry Machine". The 325C is a medium-sized Cat, and typically the FM will have a log grapple attached to the business end.

The next photo shows the mystery machine. It turns out that this is a Timberking 722 Level Swing Feller Buncher. Basically, you drive this thing up to a tree, and have the red part (the head) grab the trunk. Then a saw in the bottom of the head cuts down (fells) the tree. Now you have a felled tree in your head, and you take it over to a place where you are collecting felled trees and you put your tree with the others, thus "bunching" it.

It turns out that Timberking products were made in Canada by Risley Mfg. of Grand Prarie, Alberta, using a lot of Caterpillar components. They used to sell them through Cat dealers. They became successful enough that Cat acquired the rights to the TK tracked feller bunchers, and now they're a Cat product. However, Risley is still contracted by Cat to do a lot of the manufacturing of the machines. It's an interesting business arrangement.

Anyhow, the TK722 has a cabin that will tilt up to 11 degrees to either side and up to 20 degrees forward. This makes life a lot easier for the machine and the operator when working on slopes. It's also a pretty small machine and can often be driven between trees for selective logging.

As a final note, the arm of the machine has an interesting message on it. It's a picture of the machine followed by a double-headed arrow followed a picture of a guy followed by "100 M". That means that if you are a person, you should stand at least 100 meters away from this beast. That's about one football field. It's the industrial equivalent of "if you can read this, you're too close."

Well, I was pretty happy seeing this stuff; it's not often that you get to see forestry equipment in the city. Some forestry company somewhere up the rail line was getting a late Christmas.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of boxcars behind the heavy machinery, and I was not on the same side of the train as my car. I amused myself taking photos of the graffiti as it went by.

Once the train passed, I got in my car and went on to the restaurant.

Later in the day, after I had gotten home, I headed out along the quay for a brief walk with my camera. It was getting late and a bit dark. Near the roof of my building, I found a European Starling perched on the gutter.

I just have that effect on some critters.

One of a pretty good buncher fellers,
Tom