Hi, Newbie here, I'm looking for more info on the Apache railway in az? More specificly I'm trying to get an idea of what type of materials they move and how much. I know they service a paper plant, grain silo, and some kind of chemical operation in town. Do they do anything else? Where does the paper plant get its pulpwood for the paper? I love those old alcos, but I'm trying to find some more information on the actuall operations of the railroad. Are there any good resources out there? Google hasn't turned up much. Thanks, Kevo
Greetings and welcome to the site Most of the freight moving over the APA lines are to the Catalyst Paper mill in Snowflake which is primarily a recycle plant in which waste paper comes in via box car and out as newspaper roles for resale. THe plant also receives various chemical loads to assit in the cleaning and finishing of the paper along with long drags of coal in their distinctive "blue looper" unit trains. THe blue hoppers are SWFX that originate from mines in New Mexico and moved by BNSF. THe grain silo is a feed mill for the Snowflake pig farm. THen there are some small companies in Snowflake proper that receive loads in terms of a lumber distro site, heating oil distro and others. If you want to find more information on load movements and small bits of info/history then google "ADOT railroad" or "arizona railroad assessments" and you can find some PDFs that the ADOT did a few years ago as an econmic and infrustructure study of the railroads in the state. Also try the website http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/ and http://www.azrymuseum.org/ to find pics of the railroad As you can tell...i also like the Apache hahaha
oh yeah, your google search isnt pulling up much bc the railroad is owend by Catalyst Paper and they are a very private group. Not friendly to railfans or outsiders to the area. If you note in the links above, there are several photos in the APA's shop with signs stating things like "no railfan access" and "report photographers"....etc etc
Thanks FLG! There are some good pics of the mill grounds there, just what I was looking for. It looks like they do recieve carloads of woodchips too. I did a quick google earth look at the line at work and was wondering what the pig farm buildings were. Now I know! This is an interesting little shortline. Its a good candidate for a model railroad. Its small enough to be modelable in a reasonable space, yet its got more traffic then any other shortline of its size that I know of. The unit trains of coal cars are interesting as well. Its an oddball car that looks like an old grain car they cut the roof off of, but I believe they were actually built that way? Do you know how often they get a train of coal cars? Once a week, twice a week? Thanks, Kevo
there were only about 150 of those type hoppers ever made as no one bought them....except SWFX (Southwest Forest Industries -- long story short kind of a realitive of the APA as SWFX ran the loggin lines in Northern AZ with severl lines feeding into the APA and history dating back to 1917) that bought about 80 or so. Ive been tinkering with taking a plastic pellet car and chopping off the top to build some of these but i might just opt to have the modern 5-bay discharge hoppers they are using to fill replacements. im not sure on how many unit trains they have but i know they have a daily turn to the BNSF interchange at Holbrook, AZ except sunday but i imagine its 1-2 a week...but again im not sure. i've seen that woodchip site pics too but it kinda looks like a loader to me. I know there are a few small sawmills and timber thinning operations up in the white mountains that might explain it but not sure......just an educated guess. there are a few people on this site that do live up there and might be able to add to this part
