Books about saw mills

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Has any of the “Industries Along The Trackside” books covered saw mills? I need some info on them, mostly accurate descriptions of operations of unloading logs and how much they could make in a day. I plan to use the Walthers Mountain Lumber Company modeled as my own company with 2 or 3 of these kits. The company will have their own ‘rails’ but will also be served by a local short line which is where I’m wondering about how saw mills delt with logs. Were logs usually unloaded from the cars into bodies of water (or floated down river) or could it be done with spur to hold loaded log cars and some sort of crane to pick the logs off the cars and put them onto the log conveyor.

2

At the top of the page see the word downloads,click on it and see the logging section and look at the publications there. Good info.from back issues which will answer most of your questions. BILL

3

Logging practices varied pretty widely, depending on region of the country, era, and available resources.

I’m most familiar with Northern California and Oregon coastal logging, with some reading on Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe companies. Since most of the California logging companies got their start in the late 19th Century, mills were generally located where a water source could be dammed and a log storage pond formed. Transport of lumber to markets was another key driver. Coastal mills were generally built at river and creek mouths where it would be a short haul to a ship landing or anchorage to load the ships. Inland mills needed a rail connection to haul lumber to market.

Early transport of trees would be by water downstream to the mill. Log flumes were used extensively in the Lake Tahoe area. In other regions, horse and oxen teams were common. Around the turn of the century, railroads became popular for hauling cut trees to the larger mills. Between the 1930s to 1950s (1960s in a few cases), trucks pretty much took over from the logging railroads of my modeled region. Contemporary logging often wets the cut trees instead of storing them in a pond.

Kalmbach published a beginners guide to rail logging about a year ago. There are several Yahoo Groups devoted to rail logging, and there have been dozens of region, company, or logging railroad-specific books published.

hope this helps

Fred W

4

Your welcome

5

MR has published loads of articles on logging over the years including numerous articles by Jack Work. MR’s recent 2008 publication “The Model Railroader’s Guide To Logging Railroads” would be of great help in getting you started. RMC had one of the best four part series ever on logging starting with their January 1984 issue to which I am still referring back to. After that, there have been literally hundreds of books written on the subject and you might want to try some googling. Peter Smith, Memphis

6

Here are my favorite logging and sawmill references posted on my website www.oakhurstrailroad.com

  1. Johnson, Hank, “The Whistle Blows No More – Railroad Logging in the 1874-1942”, 1984.

  2. Johnson, Hank, “Thunder in the Mountains – The Life and Times of the Madera Sugar Pine Company”, 1995.

  3. Johnson, Hank, “They Felled the Redwoods – A Saga of Flumes and Rails in the High Sierra”, 1996.8) Johnson, Hank, “Short Line to Paradise – The Story of the Railroad”, 1971.

  4. Ferrell, Mallory, “ Pictorial”, 2000.

  5. Coleman, Matt, “The Model Railroader’s Guide to Logging Railroads”, 2008.

  6. Bryant, Ralph, “Logging – The Principles and General Methods of Operation in the ”, 2008 (original printing 1913).