A Corduroy Road Too Far

[Kyle241]

Okay it's a play on one of my all time favourite movies but I thought it was appropriate. I have a low spot on my property that is thick with trees of all kinds and unfortunately is essentially peat for the first 24" down. This makes for difficulty walking in the Spring until about late June when the water has dried up and too hard for my new Kubota to get through as it's too heavy. I cut the trail in Aug-Sept '10 and then this year went in and removed some stumps and cut others to the ground (I used my old B20 to remove the stumps and it was able to remain stable on the peat). After removing some of the stumps though I realized I actually made it worse as their roots were providing some stability to the peat. The trail is cutting through about 20 acres of my property and the plan is by next Fall to have it completed. While I can cut more trees during the winter, it's going to be impossible to lay down the trail with 'X' feet of snow on the ground. So I'm hoping the snow stays away for a little longer so I can push a bit further this year and then I'll get all the trees down and ready for next spring. I will say it's surprising how stable the trail is after the logs go down and fill is put over top. My new Kubota weighs around 7000lbs and the corduroy trail really holds up well.


Start of the trail with about 100ft of corduroy road completed.

One of the areas on the trail that collects surface water

I'm using the trees I cleared for the trail, old fence posts and will have to cut quite a bit more trees to get all the way through.

 

[wawajake]

My trails are not as wide as yours , but I also have taken to doing the corduroy road method. So I can access the back part fo my property to get firewood and do some maple syrup in spring. But I have a few sections that cut thru low "swamp areas" that in spring and fall are quite wet . So I wanted to raise the ground 12 inches where trail is.

My trails are only 5 feet wide , but I use the plentiful Poplar/aspen I have and I cut the straight ones that have only a few branches that are at most 6 inch diameter and I get ussually 3 or 4 lengths 6 feet long from a tree. I pile them close to trouble areas in the winter , then in summer I place them corduroy style and then take tractor and dig holes in bush close by to get dirt to pile on top of the logs 6 inches deep, drive over it a few times with tractor and it settles in. if I have any old pipe I use it to act as culverts if there is any flow to worry about.
I only drive on these trails with tractor in summer when fairly dry or in winter after frost is in ground . But I use the ATV year round on these trails.
I also store up the branches from the cuts and then after frost is in ground I put chipper on back of tractor and spray chips over trails areas when vegetation has not took . This keeps the trails from getting to slippery and adds some 'bulk" to the clay dirt.
Frost is not in ground yet here in Northern Ontario , but hope to do some chipping for trails in a week or two before deep snows come.

 

[IndyIan]

Looks good! I'm going to have to do the same thing for parts of my trails too, to make them tractor worthy. I used slabs from sawmilling for my atv trail but they are too thin to stand up to a tractor I suspect.
Does anyone use sleepers under their road? I was thinking of going through the wet spots once to make ruts and then throw the sleepers in the ruts then put the road on them? I found my atv trail did end up kind of wavy with no sleepers.

 

[Craig Clayton]

It looks like the Canadians are attracted to the corduroy road posting. Yes I am one too.

Craig Clayton

 

[moored4]

Looks good! I'm going to have to do the same thing for parts of my trails too, to make them tractor worthy. I used slabs from sawmilling for my atv trail but they are too thin to stand up to a tractor I suspect.
Does anyone use sleepers under their road? I was thinking of going through the wet spots once to make ruts and then throw the sleepers in the ruts then put the road on them? I found my atv trail did end up kind of wavy with no sleepers.

Ok! What is a sleeper? I think I know but not sure!

 

[PILOON]

It looks like the Canadians are attracted to the corduroy road posting. Yes I am one too.

Craig Clayton

YEP!
We have a section that is about one mile long, close to 45 years old and just repaved last year.
Another section that is a mere 1500 ft and simply graveled.
All this is municipal maintained and serves us well.
I do say that it is a weird feeling when a fully loaded truck drives on it as it sort of jiggles like a bowl of jello.
In our case the tree base is mostly cedars so they last .

I'll bet this kind of construction is not published in any engineering text books!

 

[oliver28472]

I remember when I was probably10 years old (56 now) we had a driveway up the side of a hill to a trench silo. Had to go in there several times a day to load up a feed truck to feed silage at the dairy and dry cow lots. We kept a big tractor parked at the bottom to pull the truck up the hill and this was an everday thing when it was wet. Then Dad went to the brick plant with our ten wheeler grain truck and got several loads of broken brick. These were placed in the deep dual wheel ruts all the way up to the trench silo. Problem solved.

 

[moored4]

YEP!
..................................

I'll bet this kind of construction is not published in any engineering text books!

A quick Google got this and others Search for "corduroy road construction engineering text books"

Full text of "Highway Engineering Rural Roads And Pavements"

 

[GPintheMitten]

Ok! What is a sleeper? I think I know but not sure!

In this case a sleeper would be a log put parallel to the road. Then you would put the other logs perpendicular to the roadway on top of the sleepers.

 

[moored4]

In this case a sleeper would be a log put parallel to the road. Then you would put the other logs perpendicular to the roadway on top of the sleepers.

That's what i thought but we have always called them rails, as in building a train track but up-side down! Thanks for the come back!