20) Timber Jinker / Drays

Transport For The 1850s

20)  Timber Jinker & Bullock Dray

When one observes the timber jinker and bullock dray, it is easy to understand why the wheelwright was just as important as the Blacksmith in the early timber industry.

Wheelwrighting was an exacting profession, for the creation of wheels, requiring a high degree of expertise and a deep knowledge of wood in order to build wheels that would last under heavy loads and on rough terrain. The Wheelwright would work closely with the Blacksmith, whose job it was to form and fit the iron hoop which bound the wheel together.

The Dray Shed at The Original Gold Rush Colony houses three vehicles.The heavy dray was designed to be drawn by a team of horses and was used to cart heavy loads, often agricultural.

The timber jinker was used to cart logs to the mill. The timber jinker has 2 heavy chains, or gangs, that slide under the huge logs to lift them and transport them along the forest floor to the mill. The two gangs raised the logs off the ground by the cantilever design. The log would then act as the axle.
When going downhill there was a quick release on the back gang that
allowed the log to be dropped on the ground to act as a brake. A huge metal pin would be slotted through a link in the chain and into the log. If the jinker suddenly went to fast, it could be slowed by Yelling out and "Pulling the Pin" so that the log fell to the forest floor.This has come into common language meaning to stop the activity.

When the alluvial gold dried up a lot of diggers moved to timber, which was already a major industry in this area.