I have recently reviewed all of the threads on this bulletin board and Jeff Wilson's book, Industries Along The Track concerning the paper industry. I have a very simple question about modeling a paper mill. Would it be non-prototypical to have both pulpwood flats and wood chips cars unloading and loading at a paper mill. The locale is Champion Paper International in Canton, North Carolina. The era is the late 1960's through the early 1980's. Does anyone know an answer? I would appreciate some expertise far greater than mine.
We have a paper mill on our 1970's club layout. I receives both pulpwood and wood chips. The person building it has researched it, and if he is using them together, I would think that it is OK.
If you don't get any other answers, maybe you should post the question on the Prototype Information Modelers forum.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
Hi WCU,
I can not realy give you an answer to your question, but if you need some photos of the mill in Canton just let me know, I have been wanting to go and do some railfanning over there. I have already built my bench work and am working on track plans now for a freelanced railroad based on the Great Smoky Mountain Railway, I am looking at Jackson Paper in Sylva NC for my layout. I saw one of your earlier posts and wanted to ask you what wcu stands for. My wife is a Grad student at WCU.
Good luck with your research, I will be watching so I can use the info on my paper mill.
Ron
I refuse to grow up!!!
It's definately plausible. Mills will get their raw material wherever they can get it. The same (finished paper) mill might also received processed pulp from a pulp mill, or scrap paper from a recycler.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
Drgn Trappr,
Send you a response through the board. Please be on the lookout for it. We will have a lot to share about the Canton paper industry.
Steven
Your mill was a producer of fine papers and was fully integrated. It would have been very unlikely, though not unheard of, for it to receive wood chips. Frankly, it would also have been very unlikely for it to receive pulpwood by rail. As a fully integrated mill, usually it would receive all its wood input as whole or half logs trucked in from the surrounding countryside. Rail inputs would have been chemicals in tank cars, also possibly fuel for a self-run power generation operation.
But hey, its your railroad, and I said, "unlikely", not "impossible". If you want to be totally accurate you need to find a former employee from your era. You probably already know that Champion sold the mill (which it opened in 1908) to its employees in 1998. They were unable to make a go of it but the facility is still in use as Evergreen Packaging. Champion itself was purchased by International Paper in 2000.
Good luck.
Thank you steamnut for the wonderful comments. I do know some about Champion Paper International since my dad was a 40 year employee. Of course, he has passed. I did not know about the "full integration" concept that you alluded to. I did research on the Bemis Lumber Mill in Robinsville that supplied wood chips to Champion, but that was with the Graham County Railroad which went defunct in the 1970's.
I can remember steamnut seeing pulpwood flats loaded in the yard at Champion in the 1970's when dad worked there. It sounds to me like the railroad was the major source of chemicals for Champion. Thank you very much. I was not aware of that.
Steamnut, I was appreciate of the renewal of knowledge about Champion being bought out many times in these past years. I was hoping that the employee buyout would work. Obviously, it is still a weak entity. When I hear of things like this, my heart becomes very sad. I can remember my dad saying numerous times over, "when you "got on" at Champion you were set for life." Man, how has things changed. I would suspect that today's Evergreen employees do not know that level of job security at all.
Thanks again for your wonderful response.
Every large paper mill has its own little details. If you remember pulpwood flats, then while it may have been unusual, it is what it was and you should model that traffic with a clear conscience.
An integrated mill has its own timber resources for its key raw material supplies. It accepts mostly logs (the pulpwood should have been in 4-foot logs - does that square with your memory?) which it first debarks, then chips, then turns into pulp, then the pulp is turned into paper. Non-integrated mills usually rely on processed pulp and skip the debarking and chipping. All of Champion's fine paper mills were fully integrated.
The paper machines at the mill in Canton had become uncompetitive because, large though a couple of them were, they were no longer large enough or efficient enough for the grades of paper that they produced. Market conditions did not warrant the $500 million or thereabouts investment that would have been required to update the mill. Champion did at least basically give the employees the existing mill, creating a new competitor in the short term although I'm sure Champion had done an analysis that told them it wouldn't last long. Paper mills require large amounts of working capital to keep operating.
The lumber mill that you learned supplied wood chips might have been supplying the chips as a waste product for burning; most integrated paper millls generate a fair amount of their own electricity requirement by burning their waste.
I suspect you're right about Evergreen and the level, or lack thereof, of job security. Tempus fugit.
Good luck with your reserach. I'm sure, from the reading you've already done, that you know you have a major job of selective compression ahead of you. In true scale, you'd probably need about 3 acres!
As I recall the local pulpwood yards where I grew up loaded out a good bit of pulpwood for Canton. In the early 70s most of it (at least where I was in SC) was 4 foot logs cut by independent small pulpwooders who brought it to the yard in basically overloaded 1 1/2 ton trucks. Sometime in the 70s pulpwood began changing from small operators to larger outfits who carried full length pine in overloaded semis to chippers. The local pulp yards changed over to chippers loading hoppers rather than logs, but there were several years when both were moving on the rails.
For me, I find the pulpwood flats more visually appealing than the chip hoppers, as well as the fact the chip hoppers are so huge, they dominate the scene in smaller layouts.
[quote user="wcu boy"]
One thing I learned from reading that book, if you plan to model a paper mill you need to do your home work. You honestly do need to know what kind of paper your plant is making and an era. 60's to 80's is a little broad. By the 80's a number of the most common chemicals used in pulp processing in the 60's were banned (chlorine).
As for your original question it would be prototypical. The 60's is around the time when wood chips started to come into mainstream use for pulp manufacturing. However, you wouldn't see the large 7000 plus cubic foot capacity wood chip gons. You could start to see them in the 80's, but 60's would still be 3-bay and 4-bay hoppers with added 'high sides' to increase capacity. Also, 60's era would see more pulpwood material used than woodchips, by the 80's would start to swing the other way.
i work for NS RR (conductor) whom delivers chips & pulp to Blude Ridge Paper ( Evergreen) mill in Canton, NC. chip cars are obviously full of wood chips (hard or pine). pulp is being delivered to the mill in boxcars. might not be logs like the olden days, but the commodity is still listed as pulp.
if anyone wants to take pics of the area, PLEASE STAY OFF & AWAY FROM THE TRACKS!
i work for NS RR (conductor) whom delivers chips & pulp to Blude Ridge Paper mill in Canton, NC. today they are still taking these on a regular schedule.
if anyone wants to take pics of the area, PLEASE STAY OFF THE TEACKS!
Thank all of you for your wonderful responses to my original question. BerkshireSteam, I am so appreciatve of what you shared. First of all, I guess that you are very correct that the 1960's to the early 1980's is a little broad. I should look more into the mid-1960's to the late 1970's. Thanks for the suggestion. I believe I have enough information from this site that pulpwood and wood chips can "belong" together on a layout of the era of mid-sixties to the late 1970"s. I am looking for the suitable frieght car for wood chips during this era. The large woodchip gondolas would be too early for this era for handling wood chips. Would the Walthers Greenville wood chip hopper be a better choice car for handling wood chips or the new Athearn wood chip cars. Since we are dealing with Champion Paper in Canton, NC, I would be looking for the Southern road name. What do you think everyone? I would appreciate all thoughts about appropriate freight car for handling wood chips during my modeling era?
wcu boy Thank all of you for your wonderful responses to my original question. BerkshireSteam, I am so appreciatve of what you shared. First of all, I guess that you are very correct that the 1960's to the early 1980's is a little broad. I should look more into the mid-1960's to the late 1970's. Thanks for the suggestion. I believe I have enough information from this site that pulpwood and wood chips can "belong" together on a layout of the era of mid-sixties to the late 1970"s. I am looking for the suitable frieght car for wood chips during this era. The large woodchip gondolas would be too early for this era for handling wood chips. Would the Walthers Greenville wood chip hopper be a better choice car for handling wood chips or the new Athearn wood chip cars. Since we are dealing with Champion Paper in Canton, NC, I would be looking for the Southern road name. What do you think everyone? I would appreciate all thoughts about appropriate freight car for handling wood chips during my modeling era?
I'm pretty sure I am going to go with HO for my home layout, which makes my space limited, so I have to plan really carefully to fit in a paper mill of some sort.
If I recall my memory correctly, both Southern and SCL were using the big chip hoppers by sometime in the 70s. They stood out because those things were so BIG compared to most cars of the time other than auto racks. I have several chip hoppers I'd like to use, but my layout room is so small they totally dominate the scene and just look out of place. On the other hand, if one had the room, a modern chip loader would make a pretty impressive scene.
I'm late getting onto this thread -- by a long shot -- but I just CANNOT help myself, I want to post a comment! I graduated in '68 with a major in Pulp and Paper Technology and although my career took me away from pulp and paper mills, I DID work three summers during college at mills in the Southeast. In addition, my father was a forestry management and wood procurement manager for International Paper Company and a small mill in Jackson, AL, into the 70's or 80's. I will comment from memory (so I won't be held to exact correctness) that the Jackson mill in the late 60's was taking whole tree and chip for it's fiber source. In fact, they had a remote woodyard where the logs were debarked and chipped; then the chips were fed into railcars for transport to the mill.
Frankly, I think jmbjmb probably has the best viewpoint for your layout -- by the late 60's, wood producers were going from the 5-foot (maybe 4-foot) length to whole tree, AND either method used "overloaded" trucks or trailers, per jmbjmb!!! I don't recall three or four bay hoppers, but I do recall the rather large chip cars jmbjmb mentions, certainly by some time in the 70's.
I like the comment that if you don't do a good bit of compressing, your layout will end up being 3 acres, even in 1/87th scale. Since a pulp AND paper mill would need wood yard, pulp mill, recovery process (a major operation for most Southeastern pulp mills using the Kraft pulping process), AND paper mill -- not to mention possibly tall oil, bark burner, or other auxiliary processes -- you could have quite an area devoted to your scenery!?! I don't know Champion in the 70's well enough to know if they had pulp AND paper, or if they were making pulp to ship to Ohio (?) to the paper machine. In any case, picking the "right" era may compress or enlarge your layout. . . .
And, I like the reflections that I've heard, it's YOUR railroad so you can build it any way you want. I'd include chip cars and pulpwood racks, if I were you.
Good luck. Wish I had hit on this post earlier.
Merry Christmas!
I also want some sort of paper mill and remembered the one I grew up near close to Spokane, Wa; Millwood specifically. The Spokesman-Review either built or bought this and most of the paper ( rolls ) were newspring. I toured it as a cub scout in the early 60's. My memory is short on the types of cars that came and went. The following link is of a google map of the area
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=millwood,+wa&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=36.642161,67.5&vpsrc=6&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Millwood,+Spokane,+Washington&ll=47.688143,-117.279224&spn=0.002691,0.00412&t=k&z=18
I got to looking at this again last summer as they built a woodchip unloader for trucks and I thought it neat! This would pick up the whole trailer from the rear end and elevate it until all was dumped. You can see that loader on the bottom left of the white roofed building in the pix.
When I was young, and if memory serves, there were only two main buildings of which you can see in the pic - The brick walled ones. I do remember log piles there so they were probably peeling and chiping logs. Later on sometime, the newer stuff was done. From the cars sitting on the small yard tracks, it looks like chips are still coming in, along with what ever is in the tank cars and the empty box cars are probably for finished product.
To the right of that white roofed building, there is what looks to be liquid unloading - probably for a single tank car; and even further to the right is a chip car unloader. I don't know if it is a rotary one or not as I can't tell from the pix. The four lane directly to the West of the plant *used* to be a two lane and when the City/County decided to widen Argonne, the access to that side of the plant got really scrunched down.
Blacktop Crossing - since you know paper mills, what are the other building/glue thingies used for? I know that is a tough question, but give it a look and let me know if you can.
I am planning on getting back to Spo again soon and will take some ground level pix if possible. I tried this just after 9/11 and they wouldn't let me near the place.
Nowdays it is called Inland Empire Paper and you can still hear the shift change horn all over the valley! We used to set our clocks by that horn.
If other folks are interested I can post the pix after I get them.
ctclibby
Todd Hackett
Libby, Montana 59923
I take only pictures then leave footprints on railroad property that I know is not mine, although I treat it as such...
ctclibby,
So, here I am waiting for the New Year (I'm a REAL partier), so why not give a stab at your question?! Seems you've figured most of the stuff out. From the right, east, side, there are a couple of "boneyards" of spare and junked parts. Wouldn't THAT be fun to model? You are correct that there's a chip unloading area. Looks like maybe they can handle chips as truckloads OR railcars. You mentioned seeing a trailer tilted to unload. I recall seeing the whole truck -- tractor AND trailer -- tilted so the chips fell out of the back.
The diagonal "pipe" transfers the chips to the chip pile. By the way, my dad would be panicked at the low level of chips in the yard from the Google-map you linked to. Then there's another diagonal/inclined pipe which is likely the feed of the chips to the pulping process. No doubt, the stair-stepped, bluish-gray building houses the pulping process. If you check out the Inland Empire Paper's (IEP) website, you'll find that they recently installed a "thermo-mechanical" pulping (TMP) process. I don't know what they had used before -- probably not the Kraft process of the Southeast that requires a VERY significant recovery operation to be economically feasible, but maybe another chemical process or an older mechanical process. The TMP process, basically, is heating the chips (like with steam) and then running them between grinding plates to separate the wood fibers from each other. I don't see any evidence in the map of "round wood" use. They brag about using chips from local lumber companies, and I'm sure there are a lot of them in Washington! In a way, this is using waste fiber as a raw material -- sounds good, environmentally.
IEP also mentions that they use a lot of recycled paper. They have to de-ink and brighten the recycled paper and brighten the TMP pulp. Can't tell if they are using a bleach, like peroxide, or not. That could occur in the hodge-podge of buildings to the left of the pulping building. That may, also, explain some of the smaller vats, the piping, and etc., in that same area. I'm out of a limb, here, but all that recycled paper may come in through that fat, L-shaped, white building at the bottom/middle of the plant site. It looks like some sort of trailer unloading at the very bottom of the L; there's a rail spur leading to the building near the oval treatment basin; and there's a trailer dock near the spur. All those empty boxcars may have had waste paper in them. . . .
In any case, there will still be a lot of organic material and ink and who knows what else to work with in the waste stream. There are a few, round or oval "settling" and/or treatment basins that show up on the map. I see one that looks like it's about the same color as the river -- that's a good sign, I guess. A couple are tan; and the oval one is reddish with white. The white is likely froth from air being mixed into the water/liquid to oxygenate the effluent. So, this looks like waste-water treatment.
There are twin cylindrical containers near the chip pick-up for the pulping that I'm not sure what they are -- some TMP processes might use a little chemical help, but I doubt it in this case. There is another, larger cylindrical container nearer the river and road that is most likely a pulp storage tank.
The biggest building -- rectangular with flat roof connected to the brick-front building -- is probably the paper machine. The two, smaller, rectangular buildings with white, peaked roofs might be second and third paper machines, if they have more than one. Maybe they make more than one type of paper -- say newsprint and tissue!?
The flat-top building with different colored roofs is probably the paper warehouse. That's sort of a "duh-huh" since you can see the trailers at the top end of the building backed up to the loading dock.
There's a small structure that looks like it's across the road from the North end of the paper machine building. I wonder if that might be a water intake. Paper machines use LOTS of water and, although they recycle most of it, there's probably a need for some make-up water. There should be some amount of water treatment for the river water before use in the mill. I'm not sure where that might be taking place.
Oh, and all the big brass, bean-counters, personnel, safety, administrative, and other overhead are housed in the brick-front building!
This is a really detailed and clear picture of this industry. It should give a great opportunity to model since the roads, buildings, and TRACKS are so clear. Also, the variety of structures and scenery would be a real challenge without having to rely on mountains and rocks for scenery. [I checked Google maps for two mills that I'm familiar with and couldn't get a picture nearly as clear and detailed as this one.]
OK, so you made the mistake of asking. I may be WAY off the mark, but I enjoyed the "industrial espionage". The last time I worked in a pulp/paper mill was in the early 1970's, so a lot has changed. I'd be interested if you found out more information from visiting the plant.
Good luck and Happy New Year!
Wow! Thanks for the information! I didn't even think about looking at the website will do so in a bit - probably during football today.
I stopped by the paper mill on the 28th of last month and chat'd with the gate guard about walking around tak'n pix. She gave me a phone number of 'the guy' to talk with and possibly set stuff up for that. There is a rise on the North side of the river where I can sorta get some if this doesn't work, so we will see what happens. This plant is already pretty compressed, so it will be interesting to 'make it fit' and still keep the core of the plant intact.
As to the google map resolution, it seems that we had another Sat fly-over taking new pix of the ground. I was curious if I could see the new bridge on Havana that takes out the 13 track highway crossing where you had to wait for trains and found the better resolution. It looks like the new resolution goes into Montana - so the Parkwater yard, Fueling facility and point in-between are also better. Google Maps; Parkwater, Wa, and McGuire Road, ID ( Rathdum, ID - I think spelling is correct, and scroll West ) to see what I am talking about if you wish.
ctclibby.
jmbjmb If I recall my memory correctly, both Southern and SCL were using the big chip hoppers by sometime in the 70s. They stood out because those things were so BIG compared to most cars of the time other than auto racks. I have several chip hoppers I'd like to use, but my layout room is so small they totally dominate the scene and just look out of place. On the other hand, if one had the room, a modern chip loader would make a pretty impressive scene.
I was raised near the short line that fed the St Regis Kraft paper mill in Jax Fl. from 62 until 1980. The mill used pulpwood rack cars stacked horozontally with bulkheads. Thy were almost exclusively Southern, ACL, Seaboard, or SCL later on. They also used the large Greenville woodchip hopper cars from the late 60's until the mill went to recycled exclusively-no more smell. I saw a lot of ACL black and yellow engines, family lines engines, and SCL engines. I recall seeing a few slugs from SCL, and even the use of SCL passenger locos to help pull freight to the mill. I don't recall seeing any Seaboard locos for some reason. I've been in many of the cabooses as well, orange and black, and Family lines. This line also went to the Anheiser Busch plant, and many reefers carried beer and later on auto racks to Blount Island to the port of Jax. This was a very interesting era, and made me a huge train buff for life. I could look out of our back window and see St. Regis mill across the river. Randy
Kinda odd that thread is revived now. Just yesterday I started a thread about my new layout and it features a pulp and paper mill. I know the St Regis mill and several other mills in north Florida and south Georgia. Here is a link to the mill in Stevenson, Alabama that I used as a prototype for several structures: Stevenson Mill Their product is corrugated media (what civilians call cardboard) used to make all those light brown boxes and whatnot. For that particular product, hardwood trees are used. For the type of paper described in previous posts of this thread, softwood trees are used, mostly slash pines and sand pines.
That stuff at the bottom center of the image is the wood supply. Hard to see, but it looks like a mixture of cord wood (4' logs) and long logs. From there the wood is fed into the barker-chipper (that long silvery thing heading northeast) and the output goes into those two big piles to the left (light yellowish) and right (slightly darker tan). In the center there are a lot of giant bales of recycled boxes, delivered over-the-road in tractor-trailers. Those two long diagonal buildings are the four drinier paper machines, and they are an essential structure for any paper mill.
No reason to go into much more detail here. There is plenty of reference material available for those who are interested. Just thought I'd chime in . . .
Robert
BTW csxbuschyard, do you recognize the name of the intermodal yard on my layout?
LINK to SNSR Blog
ROBERT PETRICK Kinda odd that thread is revived now. Just yesterday I started a thread about my new layout and it features a pulp and paper mill. I know the St Regis mill and several other mills in north Florida and south Georgia. Here is a link to the mill in Stevenson, Alabama that I used as a prototype for several structures: Stevenson Mill Their product is corrugated media (what civilians call cardboard) used to make all those light brown boxes and whatnot. For that particular product, hardwood trees are used. For the type of paper described in previous posts of this thread, softwood trees are used, mostly slash pines and sand pines. That stuff at the bottom center of the image is the wood supply. Hard to see, but it looks like a mixture of cord wood (4' logs) and long logs. From there the wood is fed into the barker-chipper (that long silvery thing heading northeast) and the output goes into those two big piles to the left (light yellowish) and right (slightly darker tan). In the center there are a lot of giant bales of recycled boxes, delivered over-the-road in tractor-trailers. Those two long diagonal buildings are the four drinier paper machines, and they are an essential structure for any paper mill. No reason to go into much more detail here. There is plenty of reference material available for those who are interested. Just thought I'd chime in . . . Robert BTW csxbuschyard, do you recognize the name of the intermodal yard on my layout?
How can I see your layout? I bought all of the "Trees and Trains" cornerstone kits, and I have many of the 40 ft. pulpwood cars-mostly ACL. I am considering the Superior mill kit, but highly modifying it. I have not found hardly anyone building a truly southern railroad scene-(flatland) With slash pines and lots of typical logging operations from cutting and loading and transport to the mill.
csxbuschyard How can I see your layout?
How can I see your layout?
At the bottom of my posts there is a LINK to my layout blog. Click on the blue text and it should open up a new window. There are track plans for the upper and lower levels as well as photos and sketches and whatnot plus a fairly detailed description and design narrative.
Not an exclusively southern layout, though. Bits of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming all cabobbled into a cohesive whole. Hopefully. That's the great thing about this hobby, you can turn a corner and time-warp across time and space, and if you pay attention to the transitions the whole thing can work.
ROBERT PETRICK csxbuschyard How can I see your layout? At the bottom of my posts there is a LINK to my layout blog. Click on the blue text and it should open up a new window. There are track plans for the upper and lower levels as well as photos and sketches and whatnot plus a fairly detailed description and design narrative. Not an exclusively southern layout, though. Bits of Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming all cabobbled into a cohesive whole. Hopefully. That's the great thing about this hobby, you can turn a corner and time-warp across time and space, and if you pay attention to the transitions the whole thing can work. Robert
Thanks Robert, I checked out the link. Looks like a great layout! Plenty of space- especially for N gauge. I did notice the Talleyrand Docks as Jaxport has. Blount Island here is really expanding, as well. I want to depict a North Fla/South Ga. type of scene, as I haven't found anyone doing this. Logging operations from Cornerstone trains and trees kits, sent to the paper mill, and Jacksonville's Strauss Bascule Trunnion bridge over the St. Johns river to the Union terminal (passenger station) just past the FEC bridge. I want to incorporate ACL, FEC, Southern, Seaboard, and somehow Norfolk and Western late steam era. I have much of this equipment already, HO scale as well as a Bachmann Spectrum Dynamis DCC control unit. I have a 12x15 bedroom space to accomplish all of this. Randy
csxbuschyard I want to incorporate ACL, FEC, Southern, Seaboard, and somehow Norfolk and Western late steam era. I have much of this equipment already, HO scale as well as a Bachmann Spectrum Dynamis DCC control unit. I have a 12x15 bedroom space to accomplish all of this.
I want to incorporate ACL, FEC, Southern, Seaboard, and somehow Norfolk and Western late steam era. I have much of this equipment already, HO scale as well as a Bachmann Spectrum Dynamis DCC control unit. I have a 12x15 bedroom space to accomplish all of this.
Atlas makes some stuff painted and lettered for Atlantic Coast Line in N-scale (probably more and a better selection in HO). I have a string of 20 pulpwood bulkhead cars that I run as a unit train pulled by a couple of SD35s, solid black with some gold pinstripe highlights (ACL in the early seventies).
I don't model actual forest and/or logging operations; my action starts after the log train is dispatched from the staging area heading for the debarker/chipper located at the lower left of my layout. It will look something like this (more or less, probably less):
There are some industrial kits available that can be kitbashed (severely kitbashed) and/or cannibalized for parts, but quite a bit will need to be scratchbuilt. I have a desktop milling machine and can design and fabricate whatever is needed (as time and budget permits).