Courage8 wrote:You must have had an intersting job (though I travel fairly often on business and am increasingly less than fond of that aspect of work. It sounds like you traveled a lot!)The sprawling size of pulp and paper mills demands every compression trick in the book, regardless of scale. I worked at a pulp mill in the Pacific Northwest that covered a 75-acre rectangle; about 900 x 3600 feet. A full 1/87 HO scale model of such an installation would fill an area of 10.5 x 41.5 feet! Even a museum probably wouldn't have room for such a model, let alone a model railroad (even a club!) Still, modeling just key areas of the mill could give the impression of the sprawling, chemical-heavy industrial process, as is accomplished beautifully by the Providence Northern's model of the Rumford, Maine Boise Cascade paper mill.I'm interested in any and all approaches to modeling pulp and paper mills!
You must have had an intersting job (though I travel fairly often on business and am increasingly less than fond of that aspect of work. It sounds like you traveled a lot!)
The sprawling size of pulp and paper mills demands every compression trick in the book, regardless of scale. I worked at a pulp mill in the Pacific Northwest that covered a 75-acre rectangle; about 900 x 3600 feet. A full 1/87 HO scale model of such an installation would fill an area of 10.5 x 41.5 feet! Even a museum probably wouldn't have room for such a model, let alone a model railroad (even a club!) Still, modeling just key areas of the mill could give the impression of the sprawling, chemical-heavy industrial process, as is accomplished beautifully by the Providence Northern's model of the Rumford, Maine Boise Cascade paper mill.
I'm interested in any and all approaches to modeling pulp and paper mills!
PASMITH wrote:Having spent over thirty years as a fire protection engineer and a risk manager for one of the largest forest products companies in the world and having visited pulp and paper mills in every continent (except Antarctica) I have a great deal of respect for those who tackle the modeling of this industry. A large modern pulp and paper mill covers vast areas and has complex and massive equipment that challenge the space constraints that are normally available to modelers . It would be similar in scope to modeling a large oil refinery. A creative approach will be necessary and research would be required. One approach might be to develop a switching railroad with staging. Another might be to have most of the facilities hidden (off stage). To model all of the basic pulp and paper operations would be a challenge but, if one concentrates on some of the structures themselves such as the paper mill and warehouse, it might make the task a little easier. Bear in mind that a lot of chemicals are delivered and the chemical operations in the pulp mill and digester areas resemble chemical plants and have complex piping and processing tanks that are difficult to model. Another consideration is the location of the mill. Southern mills have very open operations whereas Northern mills such as those in New England, Scandinavia and Russia are quite enclosed and easier to model. If one models an integrated pulp and paper mill it would be easier to just model the paper mill and hide the pulp mill. As described in this thread, there are many mills that are just paper mills and the pulp is delivered to them. Modeling just paper mills would be a lot easier but would reduce the volume of incoming tank cars. I will look forward to seeing more of this industry being modeled. Modeling in N gauge would make things a lot easier. I'm afraid though that I will have to stick with my saw mill modeling.Peter Smith, Memphis
Here is my design! The layout it will be attached to a n scale Bend Track layout at Model Railroad Shows. Bend track is all about bending in different directions. This will be the center peninsula of the layout. It is made up pf 4 modules total. A T-module that is 4 ft. wide by 6 ft long. This connects me to my dads part and his friends part. A 4ft by 4 ft center module. and 2 modules that create a 6 ft by 6 ft baloon at the end.
Because of the fact that my dad and his friend use dc and i use dcc you will see some interesting track work on the T-module. This track work lets me me run dcc on the b line on my modules and routes the b line for them to the other side of the T-module. Because of this all my switches are off the b line. I have a double cross over between the A line and the B line because at home all the tracks will be powered by my dcc units. There is a backboard down the middle of the peninsula spliting my paper mill scene on one side and my navy scene down the other side.
To Get the feel of the size of a paper mill i am using a good number of ho buildings. I added some conveyors in the pic but i am shure wonce i am constructing it it will have many more than what i put in the drawing. For this n scale paper mill i am using alot of the stuff i been collectin for my Ho Paper mill like:
Parts of 3 ho paper mills, Parts of the ho valley cement,Bags of Addon ho tanks, pipes, and conveyors, just to name a few.
On the Side in my navy section i am using my HO Pier and Ho pier Terminal for the same purpose for the dock.
Most of the main line tracks have been layed down on the modules so far. I want to have all the track work and as many of the buildings of posible done by Sept. 26 because that weekend is The Green county model railroad show.
Here is a link to the design
[img=http://img238.imagevenue.com/loc138/th_96034_spare_bed_layout2v2_122_138lo.jpg]
Hope you enjoy the design
The link to the Providence Northern railroad layout, at a club in Warwick, Rhode Island, is:
http://www.providencenorthern.com/
Check out the photo page and the paper mill under trackside industries.
That's a good size - 3.5 feet works out to about a football field in length for HO scale, and production and/or storage buildings can easily be that size in a mill; one paper machine can be more than 100 feet long. Having that building 7 inches out from the backdrop will give impressive dimensions to the main building while implying it is even bigger! Have you see the HO scale Rumford, Maine paper mill on the yahoo paper mill modelers website? The builder used the same strategy you are using; most of the production buildings are against the backdrop and include components of the Walthers Superior Paper mill, but the overall effect is of a sprawling industrial complex with many buildings, many smokestacks, lots of piping, many chemical, fuel and process tanks, and space for 30+ HO scale freight cars. If you haven't seen it, take a look - it might give you some ideas!
I'm anxious to see your whole plan when it's finished!
I think i got the main building planed out. its on a backboard but it is still 7 inches wide by 3 1/2 feet long. the plan is to make it from parts of 2 ho scale walthers paper mill kits.
Justin:
Looking forward to seeing your latest plan!
Courage8 wrote: WaxonWaxov (auto detailer and/or Karate Kid fan???)"Pulp" is the fiber from wood. The small diameter logs....
WaxonWaxov (auto detailer and/or Karate Kid fan???)
"Pulp" is the fiber from wood. The small diameter logs....
Thanks for the clarification.
"WaxonWaxov" was my Star Wars Galaxies character about four years ago. He started out as a "Teras Kasi Artist" which is the SWG equivalent of a Karate man, hence the name. Later I used the name in Word of Warcraft and a bunch of other forums.
"Pulp" is the fiber from wood. The small diameter logs and wood scraps that have no timber value are, nevertheless, made up of wood fiber held together with a natural glue called lignin (sometimes also spelled lignen). The Lignin is what give structural strength to the plant cell walls and makes wood hard. In a mother nature equivalent to using fiberglas, the tree is composed of wood fibers glued together with lignin.
The first step in making paper is to obtain the wood fibers (also called wood pulp) from trees; the fibers are then pressed together and treated with different compounds to control the strength of the paper, its whiteness (or other color), etc. Getting the 1/4 -inch fibers out of trees involves grinding the trees into wood chips about the size of matchbooks. From there, different mills approach the process differently, but the basic choice is using refiners - like large grinders, to reduce the chips to fibers, or using digesters, which use acid and steam under high pressure to cook the chips and remove the lignin. What remains is pulp fiber (it looks like fluff cotton, but brown). This is rinsed and bleached (if white pulp is needed). The pulp fibers are then sent to the paper making process to be finished into paper.
Some paper mills make their own pulp, others get pulp from mills that make only pulp, and then make paper out of it. The whole process uses lots of raw materials and chemicals - great for a model railroad!
I'm glad I finally decided to jump in on this conversation.
This railroad I'm planing will be 1953 north/central North Carolina so a Lumber and Paper facility is part of the plan. From this thread, I can see I have a lot to learn. I look forward to taking a look at the Yahoo group when I'm at home (IT Nazi's block so much here at work).
Here's a silly question... what is the difference between pulp processing and making paper? Are there industries that turn the 'scraps' from logging into 'pulp' to then be sent to a paper mill? Silly me, I always thought 'pulp' was simply wood chips.
Also, PVC from Home Depot would yes make a good source for 'large' pipes but for smaller ones you might consider Plastruct.com as they have scale valves, etc.
Regarding kilns for limerock, there is an alternative for modelers with space problems. I worked at a mill that reacted the limerock to make process chemicals, but the rock was brought by truck or barge; there was no kiln at the mill site. The rock was hand loaded into two 90-foot vertical concrete silos we called "rock towers." The rock was reacted in the towers to create the acid. (Guess what job a college student home for summer break was likely to get stuck with?? I didn't want to depress myself by ever trying to calculate how many hundreds of tons of rock I loaded by hand!) The "rock towers" have a small footprint and could be easily modeled with PVC pike or dowels, depending on your scale. Using this process, a kiln wouldn't be required at the mill site - though one could be placed elsewhere to generate hopper or gondola loads of limerock for the mill, adding to your railroad's traffic.
The link to the paper mill modelers group is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PaperMillModelers/
You could also try the paper mill modelers group on yahoo for more imput,......just my .02 worth.
Tim
For the Kiln I plan to use the the one off of the ho Walthers Valley Cement. I think it will fit in nicely based on the pics i found of Kilns i found online. From the same kit i plan to use the smoke stack. It looks like it could be the same stack that walthers used for their Tri-state Power Authority. In the next few years my dad plans to make large power plant based on the Tri-state Power Authority. It will look nice if i can get him to run Power Lines from the power Plant to My Paper Mill. The doors to the building are one thing i am looking at right now.
That will be a nice asset for your dad's layout - HO buildings for an N scale paper mill actually won't be out of scale, as long as you correct the size of the doors. Paper and pulp mill buildings are BIG - the recovery boiler building at the mill I worked for was 140 feet high - nearly a foot tall in N scale - and the main stack for it was 300 feet tall - almost 23 inches for an N scale mill. Modern mills really do tower over the surrounding landscape.
Oh, Justin:
One thing I forgot to mention that I didn't see on your plan - WATER! Pulp and paper making uses HUGE volumes of water; the bleached and screened wood fiber is suspended in tens of thousands of gallons of water to be processed until it is dried into sheets. In addition, certain processes in many mills use large quantities of steam to help "digest" wood chips into fiber, and also to dry the fiber slurry into solid craft or paper. That steam requires lots of water. So, it is very common to find such mills on bays or rivers. The mill I worked at had a water plant that treated 15 million gallons of river water per day for use in the manufacturing process.
The edge of the body of water could be easily modeled without taking up too much room, and would greatly improve the realism of the mill (and power plant, too) and add variety to the scenery. Just a thought while you're in the planning stages!
What features do you like and not like? From working at a pulp mill for several years, I can tell you that the plan you posted has many good features: a source of logs and wood chips, large piles of chips, a smokestack (modern mills usually have several; some for boiler exhaust and some for pollution control; there are also many steam vents that look like small smoke stacks); you also captured the conveyors, of which there are many. Keep in mind things like many pipes between buildings (that's where parts of the North Island Refinery can come in). Also from the north island refinery might be the upper portion of the "cracking tower," which looks like a chlorine accumulator and several vertical tanks that might be around a mill. You can use an assortment of dowels or plastic tubes (up to 1" PVC pipe) to make the array of pipes connecting different components and tanks. The large diameter tubing can be exhaust ducts carrying air rather than liquid. I especially like your back-in chip dump; that would be a large hydraulic apparatus that could dump rail cars, or could also dump chip semi-trailers. It would be fun to animate!
That plan looks like a lot of fun! I'm glad to see you have a major smokestack - those are often the feature you see first about a big mill (the one I worked at had a main polution control stack that was 300 feet tall, made of tapered concrete. I once modeled it using a tapered round coffee table leg from a millwork store. It had the perfect shape and proportion, and looked good once I had painted it weathered gray with red and white stripes at the top).
Good luck with your plan, and keep up posted - I'm looking forward to seeing your progress!
Here is a pic of my paper mill design so far. At the moment i am trying to figure out how to add parts of the Northern Island refinery to the design. I also am looking at rotary kilns to modify the drum off of the Valley cement into a paper mill kiln. Tell me what you think and if you have any sugestions.
The paper mill sits on two 6 foot by 4 1/2 foot HO corners
Had a problem getting the pic posted so here is a link to it
[img=http://img13.imagevenue.com/loc902/th_38929_Paper_Mill_design_122_902lo.jpg]
Please post photos as you make progress - I for one am very interested in how your mill turns out!