A Study on Off-road Transportation by Tractors

Off-road transportation or the transport of timber from the stump to the road side (from where it is loaded on a truck) is a very costly item and there is great scope for economising on this item of expenditure. in the plains, the trucks can sometimes be taken to individual stumps but in semi-hilly terrain, and ravined areas or on bouldry surface, very often off-road transportation upto about 200 metres is involved. This cannot be done economically without adopting mechanisation. The most useful equipment for this purpose is a tractor with mechanical attachment like wich, loading device, calliper grabs etc. The present study has been condacted on Indigenously available Massey Ferguson-1035 tractor with calliper grab attachment and the imported Massey Ferguson-165 tractor withloading device attachment and trailer. For the latter tractor, two different studies were made, one by taking to tractor to individual logs and loadlng them on the trailer and the other by keeping the tractor stationery and dragging the logs over 5 to 10 metres distance by the tractor winch and then loading them on the trailer,the results show that the indigenously as against Massey Ferguson-1035 tractor with calliper grab is definitly superior to the imported Massey Ferguson-165 tractor with loading device attachment and tractor trailer. The daily operating cost for Massey Ferguson-1035 tractor bas been worked out as Rs. 75.84 as against Rs. 197.18 for Massey Ferguson-165 tractor. The daily average production for the two tractors for a lead of 175 metres bas been worked out to be 28.84 and 26.47 cu metres respectively and the cost per cu m for the same lead bas been found to be Rs. 3.85 and Rs. 7.46 respectively.