I have an open space in my yard area that I would like to fill. It is not easy to get track into it however. I was thinking about modeling a sawmill type area as if they were making their own ties. Then I can scenic it with piles of ties, unpainted wood, etc. Would railroads typically have made their own ties in the yards? Thanks.
Tim Fahey
Musconetcong Branch of the Lehigh Valley RR
There used to be a plant here that did creasote (sp) treatment of tiles and poles. It was located inside a wye formed by three railroads adjacent to one of the rr's yards. It was a large facility and covered probably 30, or more acres. It had its own narrow gauge tracks for moving product around the grounds. I do not know if there was locomotive on the premises to move the materials or they just used hand pushed rail carts. It of course, had a spur for inbound raw ties and poles and outbound of treated products. You could not see much of the place from public grounds as it was pretty much ringed with lumber, treated and untreated. It also stunk up the neighborhood. It was not owned by any railroad, but was a separate company.
Update: If you are able to put a spur into the area, I would think the inbound car traffic to include raw, sawn ties, poles, posts, and other lumber that might be used for trestle work (depending on the era). This traffic would use flat and gondola cars. This also might include an occaisional boxcar with hardware that was used in tie and beam making. Also inbound would be tank cars with the creasote material and tank cars with oil for powering the boiler for steam making. In an earlier era, there may have been gondolas loaded with coal to be hand unloaded for the boiler. Outbound would be flats and gondolas with the treated products.
Jim - Preserving the history of the NKP Cloverleaf first subdivision.
Tim,
Jim describes how RRs often had treatment plants located right next to a yard. One example I know of where the RR actually owned the plant was on the Monon. The plant was held under separate corporate identity, but was owned by the RR. It, too, had a small industrial line to move raw product into the treatment chambers and then to the stacks of treated lumber for shipment. It was located on the south end of McDoel Yard in Bloomington, IN.
As for sawmills to produce the raw ties to feed the treatment plant, these did not tend to be RR-owned except early on when the lines were being constructed. Treatment plants usually contracted with outside entities to cut and deliver the raw lumber to the plant, sometimes by rail, sometimes by truck.
Some RRs had points where they stocked ties, along with timbers for bridges and a siding or two for storing MOW rolling stock and equipment, so that's another possibility to fill that open space.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Fire up your favorite aerial photo/maps program and call up The Dalles, Oregon. Alongside the Union Pacific main line, east of the central downtown area, is a large tie treatment plant. Sawn ties are hauled in, decked, treated, and then stockpiled for shipment.
Sometimes. Sometimes a tie plant was a shared asset between cooperating railroads. If you're modeling a specific railroad, you cna probbaly find that information in historical documentation. If you are freelancing, it's entirely plausible to have a railroad-owned tie plant, although if your imagined railroad is a 30 mile short line it wouldn't be likely.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
During the period I model, in the 1950s, Santa Fe had its own tie plant in Somerville, Texas where the East Texas and Louisiana secondary line of the ATSF, split off from the Oklahoma City- Fort Worth- Temple- Galveston main line. I understand they got "green ties" (untreated) from Louisiana, shipped them from Louisiana to Somerville. As late as 1980, I saw special non-revenue "green tie cars" at Silsbee. Shot photos but I don't have them scanned and set up on a server where I can post them here. If there is enough interest, maybe I can.
Early in the 2oth century, Sante Fe had a tie plant in northern New Mexico. There are some photos in the book Work Equipment Cars, (Santa Fe Railway Rolling Stock Reference Series- Volume 1) W. W. Childers. 1993, Santa Fe Modelers Organization, Inc., Norman, Ok. 254 p.
There was a tie treating plant adjacent to the Southern Pacific Englewood hump yard in Houston, Texas, nestled between the yard and Liberty Road, visible from the sidewalk of the Lockwood Drive overpass. Don't know whether it belonged to the railroad or not, or whether or not it is still there.
There is an article on UP's tie treatment plant in the February 1980 Model Railroader (page 93) that may be of interest to you.
Joe
When I traveled on the Amtrak Texas Eagle from San Antonio to St. Louis and back in 1996, we passed a big tie plant just southwest of Texarkana, maybe a mile or two from the Texarkana station, and I shot pix from the Amtrak highlevel coach.
Retort in which which wood is treated with high-pressure preservative:
Narrow-gauge tramway to carry wood to be treated into retort
Note the stacking of "green" wood ties being seasoned before treatment. A small space is left between tie to allow air to circulate so they can dry out and absorb more preservative.
Tanks for holding preservative material and a tankcar delivered...
Gondolas for shipping out ties for use at various "company stores" locations around the railroad.
Sorry if I can't give more specific information about this site. If you have read and scrolled down through this, you have looked at it longer than I did at the real thing.
Click -advance film- click-advance film- click-advance film- click-advance film- click-advance film- click.. and it was gone.
leighant,
Nice pics, they're a good depiction of what goes on. The raw ties are stacked so they dry, then are brought to the retort (I think that's the term) via the tram carts, treated, then stacked for shipment in another part of the plant's yard.
It just occurred to me that the space under discussion might be limited, though. Much as I'd like to model a treatment plant and its associated tram lines, such an industry takes a lot of real estate.
Returning to the original question, a sawmill is a bit of a stretch as the responses so far indicate. However, a limited space would make a good loading point for shipping cut ties to a treatment plant located elsewhere off-layout. You wouldn't even need the sawmill, just truck the raw ties in, stack and load them.
If you do want a sawmill, Woodland Scenics has a small tie mill. It's really small and includes a small tub used to dunk-treat ties one at a time, i.e. not really plausible in terms of output to really justify a rail siding, although I use mine as a standin for a much larger sawmill I have planned on my layout. You can leave the treatment tub out and just saw ties and other timbers, of course.
BTW, Woodland Scenics is just now releasing that saw mill as built up, although the kit should still be available if you want the fun and flexibility of doing it yourself.
tcf511 I have an open space in my yard area that I would like to fill. It is not easy to get track into it however. I was thinking about modeling a sawmill type area as if they were making their own ties. Then I can scenic it with piles of ties, unpainted wood, etc. Would railroads typically have made their own ties in the yards? Thanks.
You didn't specify era, so I'll go with my favorite - late 19th Century.
Creosote is so 20th Century. Wasn't much used until then, and pretty much banned by the end of the 20th for treating of new lumber.
In the late 19th Century, sawn ties were preferred when a sawmill was within reasonable distance. But there were plenty of strong men still capable of efficiently wielding an adz to make hand-hewn ties from suitable logs when needed. The hand-hewing would normally be done at the site where the ties would be needed.
You could go with a small sawmill at your site. Suitable logs would be shipped in, sawn ties stacked. The saw will need a decent power source - most likely a stationary steam engine through the 1930s. Saw dust has to be taken care of - almost always burned as waste in those days.
Choice of wood for ties was an interesting trade-off in economics. The best logs were too valuable to use for railroad ties. OTOH, using low-grade stuff often resulted in short-lived track. Since logging companies often had to use railroads to transport logs and lumber, the railroad would often negotiate for better quality ties at a good price in return for reasonable shipping costs.
just my thoughts
Fred W
Conroe Creosoting had a plant at Conroe in the piney woods of East Texas. They graciously alloowed me to visit and shoot a few photos in 1980 or so. The plant is now gone, cleaned up. It was across the road, Texas 105, from the Santa Fe line. A spur crossed the road and came into the plant through a gate.
They preserved ties, utility poles, barn poles, fence posts. Sold to the public at a store adjacent to the highway and the plant. I got a sales brochure which listed their products as "Black Diamond" brand, I assume for the manufacturer of the preservative. Some 10 years after I visited the plant, I was making local TV commercials in Corpus Christi, we made a spot ad for a lumberyard and building supply store at Gregory, 12 miles outside CC, which featured "Black Diamond" brand preserved wood from Conroe.
General vioew of the plant. They started with raw logs, cut ties and posts and beams, etc and then preserved them so a sawmill was part of the on-site process there.
Retorts for treating under pressure. Narroe gauge tracks run into retort. Building at right is where preservative is heated and pressurized.
Conroe Creo had an on-site co-generating plant. They burned scrap material cut in their sawmill to generate steam for the treatment and to generate electricity.
(I just happened to think-- maybe I should donate prints of these and other photos to a library, museum or archive in the Conroe area...)
My former layout representing a chunk of the Santa Fe in East Texas in the 1950s had a privately owned creosote plant based loosely on Conroe Creosoting.
CREOTEX included a couple of retorts, narrow gauge tramway, office, retired wood boxcar as a storage building, "green" ties and poles being seasoned, and treated material ready to ship. A "party champagne popper" served as a slash burner until I got one from Gravel, Guts & Glory.
Much of my information came from an old technical textbook titled Wood Preservation which had numerous photos credited to Koppers, probably publicity release photos. Creotex used creosote from Kopper Chemical, delivered in a private owner tankcar. I used the END markings from an old HO Champ decal, and drew my own Koppers herald oversize and reduced it to N scale on a color copier (back in thre days before I had personal computer, printer and Photoshop...)
This is a good use for your old brass track still in storage or an eBay "lot buy" -- The track can be separated from the ties and repainted for visible yard storage.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
This is a great topic, but it belongs in the prototype forum. So I'm moving it over there.
John
A Shorpy picture of a Santa Fe tie plant.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/7900
We may think the railroad used wood for ties only but lest we forget they also had great carpentry shops for building some classy passenger cars. They also built kit like standard structures like sheds that could be assembled along side the tracks. You could put a carpentry shop in a yard with stacks of lumber laying about. Wood locomotive cabs ready for the road, Oak beams for pilots and car parts, stacks of fine walnut and mahogany for car interiors, wood planks for freight cars, and many other uses.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
Thanks for all of the replies. I learned a lot about the prototype and those photos are great. I don't think that I have the space to do a tie plant with the creosote work going with it. But I certainly could do a saw mill for some of the other wood that they would need. I model the Lehigh Valley in the 1950s. The saw mill would be located in the Easton, PA area of my layout.