haulback

plural haulbacks

1. countabletimber industryA 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

   2 more examples

   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

   Butt rigging—a series of heavy steel links, swivels, and shackles—commected the main line to the haulback line and carried up to six chokers.

   2022 February 14, John Gill, The Wannabe Doctor: A Man's Quest Amid Psychiatry’s Identity Crisis, Page Publishing, Incorporated, page 17

2. uncountablebusinessA 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.

   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

   1 more example

   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