still in use commercially....

[chris vickery]

I saw one of these last spring near Terrace British Columbia Canada, still operational, it was based on a Grizzly as well.

[Richard Coutts-Smith]

I assume this one was the High Speed Tractor version?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsXzCD0XzU0
Rich.

[maple_leaf_eh]

The term is Spar Yarder. The idea is to drive the chassis as high up the hill as possible. Set the anchor cables and deadfulls. Then rotate and raise the mast. Run a very long overhead cable to somewhere near the bottom and tension it almost straight. There is a cab for the operator who winches logs up the hill to a landing where an loader puts the logs on trucks. The dangerous job is down on the hillside where men in helmets and spikey boots set choker cables and dodge runaways. The Madill company in Nanaimo, BC that did hundreds of conversions. If you search the heavy equipment auctions there are almost always a few on offer.

A second company that use Sherman chassis' for rough terrain use is Finning. Put a big air compresser on one end and a very powerful rock drill hanging off the nose. The companies use these to drill deep holes for blasting hard rock on construction projects.

[tankbarrell]

That yarder is not on a Grizzly chassis, or if it is, all of the features identifying it as such have been changed.

[things_green]

as I stated Adrian, I'm no armor expert......So if its not based on a Grizzley....just a fan of things green....
so what was it?

the original image I snapped while passing on a train....so I went back (what else would one be doing on Christmas Eve?).....and took some better shots.

[tankbarrell]

Brent, almost impossible to say without a close look but the transmission is the late single piece which was not used on Grizzly. The tracks are T47 rubber chevron and these are features generally seen on 'standard' US production vehicles. It could be Sherman based or M7 Priest.

Of course, all those parts are interchangeable as assemblies so it could have started as a Grizzly and the steel CDP track and sprockets could have been changed to rubber for road use but it seems unlikely that the complete transmission assembly would also have been changed.

It could be Sexton based but it has Sherman bogies whereas most Sextons had specific bogies but again they could have been changed.

Because of that, it would need a close examination to determine its origins and that assumes enough original material is left to allow that!

[Luke R]

Just a thought, Could there be a bit of confusion between Madill a Canadian based company that built spar yarders on sherman/HST chassis's and the Grizzly the Canadian built shermans.

Luke