The cylinder was bolted to the mill floor between the tracks near the flat rail and steam port pipes were attached to each end of the cylinder from the valve chest controlled by the sawyer's lever. This lever controlled a valve which admitted steam to the cylinder in the required direction of travel and at the speed desired. The development of the steam-feed greatly increased the speed of the saw carriage and with it, a resulting increase of mill capacity. Today, no carriage moves that fast, for occupational safety standards would prohibit its use. In addition to the use of steam, experiments have been conducted with hydraulics and compressed air.
Most modern mills utilize electric feeds.
The final and necessary part of the carriage was a spring or permanent bumper at the extreme ends of carriage travel. It absorbed the shock of the carriage at either end, especially on the retrograde movement, for quite often the speed of the returning carriage was misjudged and without it, the carriage could have been damaged. No content on this page may be reproduced without permission of the author.