I am modeling the Southern railway durring the mid forties to early fifties.I want my main industry to be lumber.I was hoping that you guys could tell me what company makes the most accurate structures for my road and time period. Any help on loco power or freight cars would also be helpful. Thanks again; Chip
Chip...you might want to check out the Walther's Cornerstone series. They offer several lumber-related buildings. I have a sawmill, sawdust burner, lumber yard and lumber loading facility. Walthers Model Railroad Mall -- Search Results I believe Bachmann makes Heisler, Shay and Climax locos. They were pretty good workhorses hauling timber out in the boonies. They may be offered undecorated so you could customize to any road name.
Chip, I think you might be better off researching the southern road(s) you are interested in. Logging lines lasted into the 1950s in a variety of incarnations - some ran steam, some diesels. There was a huge mix of old and new(er), but most that relied exclusively on logging for revenue were on the way out... As for the finished product, railroads shipped lumber in boxcars (some with small lumber doors high in the end(s)), or unwrapped on flats. Hope that helps. Andrew
Chip: There is a neat little 3 foot railroad called Argent, that connected with Southern in Hardeveille, SC. Its main line crossed the Southern on a bridge, and also crossed the Savannah River on a draw bridge. It only ran steam engines, all of them were rod engines. A large part of the the track was built above the swamp on flimsly "bridges". There is a great book on the railroad and its operations Argent, Last of the Swamp Rats by Mallory Hope Ferrell. The book is out of print, but appears on EBay from time to time. The line ran into the early 60's when the minimum wage law forced it to shut down. All of the loco's are around, about half still running. I am no expert on the Argent. There have been lots of articles written on this road. And it connected with the Southern! Here are some lumber related articles that were in Southen Railway's Ties magazine http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1961/61-11/lumber.html http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1960/60-11/lumber.html http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1959/59-8/chip.html http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1959/59-7/snow.html Tom Visit my Southern Railway web site http://southern.railfan.netChip:
Chip - For the 1940's believe most pulpwood was shipped on "wood racks", basically flat cars with bulkheads, most with v-shaped decks, converted from older flat cars. In the early/mid 1950's think that a lot of roads, especially SOU, ACL, and SAL began to extend the sides and ends of older 2-bay hoppers to carry wood chips. Train-Miniature, bought by Walthers, had the only models of these cars that I know of and they haven't been available since that sale (to the best of my knowledge). In almost all cases, these cars stuck to their home roads. That is, a Southern train involved in the movement of pulp logs and chips would be almost 100% Southern cars. Ditto ACL and SAL. Another big product in the 40's and 50's (before corrugated paperboard) was "wood shook" used in the construction of crates. Remember the old orange crates. This was very thin wood used in the construction of these crates and I know for sure that ACL had boxcars devoted to this product, would think that Southern did as well. Another product not often thought of in connection with southern logging/lumbering was "gum stump" loadings, normally carried in old, raggedy gondolas with slots cut in the bottom. Don't know about Southern, but I know SAL had a fleet of these old 40 foot gons devoted to loading gum stumps. While gum-stumps were a common by-product of southern lumber/logging operations and was common in the 1960's, I've never been able to find out when it started - may be too late for your era, I don't know. For inbound loads, during the 60's (in this area) a lot of western lumber was brought in leading to box cars from UP, GN, NP, SP&S and Milwaukee being commonly spotted at lumber company sidings (at least in this area of the south). Again, I do not know how common this was in earliers era (40's and 50's). Hope this will be of some help to you.
Watash - Couldn't follow the thread submitted by Flash although gum rosin was the desired product from the stumps. My understanding (subject to correction) is that this rosin was a good source of certain types of cellulose used in that production and also in the production of explosives. Again, I don't have my source material to hand, but I want to say that Hercules in Brunswick, GA. was a large user of these stumps.
Thanks guys, I knew about tapping Pine trees to get rosin and making turpentine. I didn't know what stumps were used for except the finely figured Walnut, Maple, etc. used for furniture veneers and rifle stocks.
Lumber, Paper, and Wood Chemicals You asked about the lumber industry and that is not the same thing as making wood pulp for the paper trade. Secondary to EPA requirements that furnaces in mill steam plants be upgraded to control emissions from burning wood mill waste, beginning in 1972, many operators began looking at ways to get rid of all the scrap bark, saw dust , and wood chips that were unusable at sawmill sites, and to a lesser extent at wood pulp paper plants. Companies ( e.g. Hines Liner Co. in the South using cedar shavings) engaged in specialty wood products production, like cedar lined closet components and cedar furniture that was/is valued for its insecticidal functions and aesthetically pleasing appearance; had derived laminating and pressure forming techniques to make panels out of the scraps from making their primary goods. World War 2 provided impetus to making this stuff in several forms including vast quantities of a painted and sized combination of paper and cedar scraps used to make prefabricated barracks and other structures. They were used throughout the U.S. and shipped overseas as knocked down kits where they were erected in the U.K. , North Africa .and in France (as the Nazis were pushed out). Later they served in UNRRA and other welfare related activities, dealing with the masses of displaced persons by providing shelter and other facilities for administrative and essential cooking and storage purposes. Domestically, many buildings were used to provide GI housing at colleges in the post war period (e.g. "Victory Village" married student housing units lasted until 1975 at UNC, Chapel Hill that were originally Air Force units designed to create instant barracks wherever they went). This stuff, in its several variations also provided worker housing at facilities created overnight in connection with the "Manhattan Project", notably at Hammond, Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos. Basically, all this WW2 activity in synthesizing building panels out of various scrap wood elements showed industry the way to get rid of all its unusable scrap wood elements, as long as they could create a demand for the stuff. Better glues, and incorporating insecticidal chemicals to fend off termites, carpenter ants, and bees, and similar life forms at whatever places they are used, has resulted in what we have today. That is, a world where 'reconstituted' cellulose materials incorporating other materials such as: clay, petroleum derived plasticizers, and anything else that works well, have a major role in what was formerly the arena of whole wood lumber goods. However, as far as the "lumber industry" goes, only the end products (the final 'sheets' or 'boards') , and the wood chips and chemical inputs are involved in the matter. Pulp wood logs, and 'fat wood' stumpage are not lumber goods and outside of the fact they are wood and have to be cut out of the forest have nothing at all to do with lumber milling. The epoch you wish to model in has a lot to do with what is about at lumber mills, and retail lumber yards as well. If you are modelling the steam era then you should look at something like BTS MODELS lumber mill buildings on their website, as well as at copies of the NARROW GAUGE & SHORT LINE GAZETTE. The latter is not the only periodical featuring excellent coverage of forest products railroading in the 1870- 1950 period, but it is the most commonly available. In fact, if you are going to model lumber and forest railroading in North America anywhere in that period you would do well to subscribe to NG&SLG, or one of the other specialty magazines and forget about RMC or MR. There was a very large specialty chemical industry that goes back to the Turn of the Century revolving around producing wood alchohol and several major industrial chemicals derived with and from it. A good place to find discussions of it and references to books written about it is the YAHOO group "NYOW" (i.e. is the New York Ontario & Western RR fans group), because that carrier was a major player at the time. To my knowledge, the wood chemical industry at either its height of importance 100 years back, or currently is essentially not modelled for whatever reason by North American modellers. Which is pretty curious, but look at the modern finishing clays used in paper coatings. We have lots of clay slurry tank cars running around on layouts, and I have seen a layout where earlier box car delivered bagged dry clay was delivered to the paper mill(s) - but how many people ever model the clay facility load outs to the tankers say at Andersonville, much less the facility that slurrifies them. They are in the woods there, and you obviously could have log and/or woodchip loadouts on the same spurs, as the clay pits but no one seems to do it. In any case, keep to whatever is epoch appropriate, and don't confuse paper making with lumber milling operations. Except for wood yards where often trucks bring various forest products to be loaded into railcars for different destinations they don't meet. A modern facility where you need few buildings is a lumber transfer facility. Bieber, California which once was a busy junction where the Great Northern and Western Pacific met and carried on the only competition to the SP line from the Bay Area to Portland/Seattle, et al, today is a large facility where various bundled lumber products are transloaded to/from trucks or other freight cars for delivery to another destination. Most are moving under freight tariffs that allow these activities as part of the overall rate. That is they have a "milling in transit", rate that was derived from grain traffic originally, but has been applied to a number of goods that range from soap powder to our lumber traffic. All you need is space for the yard tracks, some flatbed semi-trailers, transfer loaders of different kinds, and most have some rudimentary covered storage for loads awaiting recombination.Along with the various fire prevention, lighting, office facilities, and paved pads for bundles of wrapped forest products to be stacked and to allow vehicles to move around in inclement weather, this is the sum of such a place. They are all not set in the boondocks like Bieber, and can be found outside major metropoli as well. The former QUAHOGG TRANSFER facility on the CV in Connecticutt, was served by QT's unit trains powered by their yellow and green, late model ALCO locos. They hauled lumber, and other building products to the transfer facility, and the empties back north. These are modern facilities (1975 to now), like the clay slurry loadout, but they are examples of what can use a lot of railcars , and most modelers have plenty of them per foot of layou track; without elaborate background structures, and they generate a lot of switching activity. Good-Luck, Peter Boylan
Thanks PJB, that is an eye opening report! Now I have so many ideas, I may have to add a room on to enlarge my layout!
Hi there Chip! Greetings from over the waters! Chip, I don't know if you're looking for a local outlet for your finished timber, but if you are, here's something that may give you a few ideas. It's a combination of kit building, kitbashing and scratchbuilding.The main timber shed, follows an Art Curren article in the Model Railroader magazine. There's a similar article, also in the MR, by Bill Lorence, the Welte Lumber & Millwork, on pg. 68 of the May 1985 issue. I unfortunately don't have a reference for the Art Curren article, right now, but I'll look it up if you want.
Very realistic Lumber facility GS4! Looks like you may have contacted a company I used to buy from, J.R.Ivy & Sons Ltd. in Pretoria, South Africa. They carried 400 different kinds of woods in stock. I bought veneer wood sheets that are ideal for making buildings, (before sheet styrene came along), and blocks of lumber suitable for furniture and rifle stocks. You did an excellent job on that Lumber Yard!
Hi watash! Thank you for the positive comments, they are very encouraging. You mention in your post, that you used to buy veneer from a dealer in Pretoria. If I may ask, when and where did you stay in South Africa? Just being darn right inquisitive!
Hi Simon, I never got to go to Africa. At the time I bought those fancy woods, I was a Federal Gunsmith, and restored old antique Player Pianos. It was all done by mail. My grandfather was a precision Cabinet Maker who I apprenticed under to learn the trade, of how all that was done by hand. I enjoy working hard woods more than soft woods now. Grampa made the glass door'd book cases, Judge's Bench and Jury box for Court houses, by hand mostly from white Oak. Comes in handy on the layout!
