The Hayrack Trailer

Modified Highway Flat

Ten Wide Off Highway

Most likely you thought that logging and hayracks had nothing to do with each other. Well, that is not so. In the Pacific Northwest, stinger steered trailers have been the norm for as long as there have been log trucks. the 'steered' is the crucial item here. A classic log trailer goes left when the truck turns right etc. so it will track right behind the truck. There is a place for the 'other things' however. What you see here is a flatbed semi converted for off highway use as a 'hayrack'. To a logger, a hayrack is a fixed frame trailer with a series of bunks on it. The classic log trailer has no frame, just a set of wheels and a stinger, so it is almost invariably loaded and hauled back to the woods for another load. A hayrack is never hauled. This makes them a dog to turn around in the woods, but they have their place. They handle junk wood and variable length wood very well. A stinger steered trailer uses the logs for the 'frame' of the trailer and needs some semblance of uniformity to the log length, but with the hayrack and multiple bunks, logs from 8 feet long to whatever can be loaded on the same load. It finds a home here hauling the scraps from the woods to a sorting yard. This particular trailer is shop modified for off highway use. About the first 8 feet of a 40 foot flat was cut off and welded upright on the front of the trailer to make a solid 'head ache rack' (to protect the truck from stray logs). The shorter trailer tracks a little better than the longer version which helps some on crooked roads. It just looks a little funny because we use it behind an off highway tractor which is quite a bit taller than a standard highway truck.

The top photo is one that we made up out of a 40 foot flatbed. we cut the first 8 feet off of it and turned it up for a headache rack and then added some bunks.

The other photos are of a hayrack made out of a 10 foot wide step deck trailer. We removed the wooden deck and added the log bunks and the headache rack.

Different Hayrack

Oshkosh M911 8x6 with hayrack

Shown here is a 10 foot wide hayrack hauling an off highway load of 8, 10, and 12 foot logs loaded crossways. This rig is used to move logs from the woods into a sort yard. Primarily we cut logs in 28-40 foot lengths, but due to defects and the like you always end up with some shorter logs. Handling them is always a problem, but this technique got a whole bunch of them to the reload yard in one swoop.