haulback

Noun

haulback (countable and uncountable, plural haulbacks)

1. (countable, timber industry) A small wire rope or line used to pull the main cable (or butt-rigging) back into position after a log has been hauled out.
   • We ran 3,000 feet of haulback and got only thirty-five logs.1910 June 11, American Lumberman, page 45
   • The skyline isn't interlocked with the mainline and haulback, and the mainline and haulback can't both wind the same direction at the same time.1978 April, Logging Systems Guide, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Alaska Region, Division of Timber Management, pages 48.42b--2
2. (uncountable) A method of surface mining where overburden (the material on top of the coal or ore) is transported from an area and then hauled back after removal of ore or coal.
   • This includes mining systems R&D such as development of haulback techniques to redeposit overburden material in a beneficial sequence immediately behind the extraction operation to minimize costs and aesthetic and environmental damage.1973, William B. Schmidt, Mining – Coal and Oil Shale, Bureau of Mines, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, page 8
   • As a result, haulback systems are being designed in shich the strip mine is continuously filled in behind as the mine advances.2013 September 17, Mohan K. Wali, editor, Ecology and Coal Resource Development, volume One, Pergamon Press, page 365