Sawmills were large users of CMPs but by the 1970s most had worn out and been retired.
Here's a mention of those days, found on the
Australian National University website:
"The walk-saw site used by Peter Scheele
For many years Mr Peter Scheele cut sleepers and road marker posts in the local state forests. He cut down trees and using an old Blitz Wagon with a jury rigged crane on the back he dragged the logs to a level wooden platform made from square-cut sleepers laid in a forest clearing. This platform served as the cutting platform for his Hagen saw, a large circular saw mounted on a long arm extending forward from the paired wheels which also carried the petrol engine powering the saw. The logs were marked out with chalk lines and the saw was walked forward to make the long cuts.
Peter's skill was legendary and he must have been one of the last sleeper cutters using a 'walksaw' on the south coast. I recall seeing a lined up stack of several hundred sleepers, about 20 sleepers high, with less that 1cm variation at each side such was his cutting accuracy.
About 1978 Peter Scheele moved his walksaw platform from the forest edge outside the Foundation boundary to a patch of flat land just to the north of the London's Cutting Road as it enters the forest. This was the last platform site he used. Peter was then in his late 70's. A second walk saw site lies further up hill (pers comm. Michael Tracey)."