Tonight (Sunday, 10/18/09) the 'Missouri Outdoors' show (put out by Missouri Dept. of Natural Resouces) was about Missouri sawmills which - in the 1920's and for some after that - cut lumber to size, floated it down the Black River to a loading point closer to a railroad siding, and loaded the (raw, but wet) ties into boxcars and what they called coal cars (looked like gondolas to me). The ties were then hauled to East St. Louis, where the creosote treament plant, T.J. Moss was. The plant had some trams (24 inch gauge), plus what the narrator called two "Browning" cranes (maybe Brownhoist?) that ran on standard gauge tracks in the plant. The plant covered 70 acres, they said. The trams had circular wire 'frames' around them, in which the ties were loaded. Then about 3-5 tram cars (couldn't tell for sure on the video) were run on tracks into the treating chambers (150' long). First they introduced a vaccuum (to remove as much moisture as possible that was left from the ties' run down the river), and then followed that by the creosote treatment. After treatment, the ties were loaded on RR cars, and hauled out by the TRRA (Terminal Rail Road Association, local to the St. Louis area), for distribution to one of the 23 RR's that connected to St. Louis then. The show (which included a lot of older black and white films from back then) reported that in 1922, there were 128 tie treating plants in the U.S.
Found it interesting, and wondered if anyone else got photos from the show, which would be useful for those wanting to model a logging/sawmill operation. I would figure only a part of the treatment plant would be do-able to model (rather than all 70 acres...).
Jim in Cape Girardeau
Sorry, I didn't see the show. I did get a chance to visit a creosote treating plant in about 1981, and took a few pictures. I don't have them currently in my railimages album so I can't post it, and the picture I have of my creosote treating plant model is pretty small.
I lettered a tank car for Koppers creosote.
The Santa Fe Modelers book, Work Equipment Cars (Santa Fe Railway Rolling Stock Reference Series- Volume 1) W. W. Childers. 1993, Santa Fe Modelers Organization, Inc. has some photos of cars used in Green Tie service. Now that I think of it, I have some original photos I took myself back in 1981 or so. If nobody gets me to it, maybe I can scan and upload some of those.
I didn't see the show on TV, but it sounds like a DVD that I have. It is put out by the Missouri DOC, you can buy it at http://www.mdcnatureshop.com/dvdgrandin-stamp-of-character-pr-318.html for $10.00 - it is worth every penny. It shows a lot of tie hacking operations in Missouri, along with the extensive lumber / sawmill at Grandin, MO. I bought my copy at a bookstore in Springfield.
- James
This CONROE CREOSOTING plant I photographed in Conroe, Texas about 1981 had its own small sawmill for cutting poles, posts, etc from logs. Part of the plant was this cogeneration unit. It burned sawdust from cutting logs to generate electricity to put back into the electric grid system to offset their power company bills, It also generated steam used in the process of cresote treating of wood.
At left, retorts used for creosote treating materials under pressure. At bottom, narrow guage rails for tramcars that carried material into retort. A short section of rail is removable right at the entrance of the retort to allow the pressure doors to close. I believe the metal-clag building at right contained pumps and heaters. Notice the concrete fire wall that extends up through the roof to prevent spread of fire.
General view of Conroe Creosoting. Office at left, cogeneration plant background.
My N scale version called CREOTEX included retorts, tramways and cars, slash burner, office, wood stacked for drying, and treated materials. I never got around to building the heater & pump room, and I should have had storage tanks for creosote and oil.
Across the highway is Johnston High School, home of the Johnston Lumberjacks!
More coming-- Texarkana treating plant, retort cars, gondolas used to transport ties, Santa Fe "green tie" cars, creosote tank car, etc. Will try to upload them in a day or two...
These gondolas were used either to deliver raw materials in, or two transport treated ties, poles and posts out, I don't know which, at a treating plant in Texarkana, Texas, perhaps half a mile southwest of the Amtrak depot. The vertical bar in the middle of the picture is part of the window. This picture taken from the southbounhd Amtrak Texas Eagle, about 1997.
Ties to be treated are stacked like this, with one single tie at alternating ends between each layer of ties. This allows air drying before ties are treated. Dry ties allow more treatment material to be pressurized into the pores of the wood. It is an easy thing to model on a layout.
The material that USED to be used to treat wood was coal tar creosote, often diluted with oil. That means tank cars of creosote AND petroleum need to be switched into a plant, and there need to be tanks to store them.
This is a RETORT into which material is placed for pressure treatment. This one doesn't look much bigger than a couple of feet into diameter. Perhaps it is a long skinny tube for treating poles.
This are tram cars used to carry material such as ties into a retort for treatment.
I have more pictures but that's all the time I have today. More in another day or two.
Hi Jim, I'm doing a doc about a treatment site in Carbondale IL and would love to hear if you ended up making the model? We are looking for images of the treatment plant from the early days. thanks!
Hello, I'm sarah Lewison, located in southern Illinois. I'm making a documentary about a Koppers plant in Carbondale Illinois and wonder if you have images from the plant you visited in 1981 that would be willing to share with us! credit in the film and a million thanks. Also if you could take bigger pictures of your AMAZING model, we might be able to use them.. thanks for your consideration
JimRCGMO... First they introduced a vaccuum (to remove as much moisture as possible that was left from the ties' run down the river), and then followed that by the creosote treatment.
I'm not sure how they do it at tie plants, but some wood treatment is done in a vacuum so that when the product returns to atmospheric pressure, the preservative is drawn into the wood. In pressure treatment, when the product adjusts to atmospheric pressure, the preservative tends to be drawn out.
s-carbondale Hi Jim, I'm doing a doc about a treatment site in Carbondale IL and would love to hear if you ended up making the model? We are looking for images of the treatment plant from the early days. thanks!
Rich
Alton Junction