There is a great article in “Model Railroad News” magazine discussing the Cougar Ridge Lumber Company by Sidetrack Laser. While it was quite explanatory, I had a question about the pond they referred to. Were the sawmill ponds simply man-made ponds into which the rough logs were dumped so they could easily be run into the sawmill itself for cutting? It seems to imply that a railcar of logs were dumped from the loaded flat-bed car on a siding into the pond. It would seem that a creek or something would be needed to fill and keep filled the pond.
Since I eventually will build a logging section on my layout on top of a mountain, any info or suggestions will be appreciated. Since it is on top of the mountain, there can be no creek.
Yes. Mill ponds were typically man-made reservoirs created by making an earthen dam across a creek.
Log chute leading into sawmill (logs were pulled up by cable), note boiler house left of main building, and small boat house on edge of pond. Small boat with outboard was used to maneuver logs.
Log-dump on earthen dam, with overflow channel to the right of the dump. That is a garage behind the H-frame at dump site. Small building left of dump was a fuel depot for trucks.
Millponds aren’t used much these days. Dry storage of logs is more common since the second half of the twentieth century. That probably has to do with the development of tractors that could efficiently move logs to/from the log piles. Regardless, these photos were taken in recent years at a still-functioning steam-powered sawmill at a Vancouver Island, BC museum.
You would build a sawmill towards the bottom of the mountain, not at the top. Why would you want to haul all those heavy logs UP the mountain, just so you could haul all the cut lumber back down the mountain? Stuff goes better downhill. The logging camps are up on the mountain, the sawmill is at the bottom.
I got through college working at a large pulp mill in the Northwest (this was in the late 1970s) that used both dry and water storage for logs waiting for the chippers. This mill was on a bay, however; not on a mountain top. For a mountain top mill, consider “decking” the logs; that is, stacking them in bundles, and then modeling a large loader that could set bundles on a log deck, from which they could be fed into the saws of the mill.
Mountain “tops” are relative. The last operating mountain mill I saw, owned by the Pine Logging Company, in operation was in the 1970s at Dinkey Creek, CA (west of Kings Canyon National Park). It was in the mountains but not on the ridge. It was near a creek, but it stored its logs dry, but whenever I visited the logs were cut up as fast as delivered and the lumber trucked out to the company’s facility in the Central Valley quickly as well. It only operated about half the year, when there wasn’t snow in the timberland. The mill had its own company town with cabins, kitchen/dining room, office, school/church, store, etc.
I don’t see Mark’s pictures, so I will throw in one from my layout …
Mill ponds were very common. Mine uses a cement “arc” arrangement rather than an earthern dam. Since seeing the clinic on lumber mills at the NMRA convention in Anaheim last month, I have added a lot more piles of drying lumber than are shown here.
At the convention, Jim Zeek did a clinic on “Lumber Industries That Fit Model Railroad Empires”. He worked most of his life in sawmills and knows everything about the industry. Most of the details he shared were about what goes on inside the sawmill, like how they cut and process the logs into boards and boxes. He also discussed how logs were chained to logging cars and how they were moved on high lines. He emphasized how big lumber industries were, with acres of drying cut lumber stacks that are very large and hard to model due to size limitations. He said most model railroaders try to model a sawmill in the space of a shoebox. His e-mail is jzgoodness@yahoo.com
Another clinic of note was Bob Moore who had pictures of “The Broughton Lumber Company Flume” in Oregon or Washington. Interesting if you want to model a lumber flume, where cut lumber is sent down the flume to a storage or distribution yard.
While not quite a “shoebox” - I don’t have the space to model acres of drying lumber. I’d love to find room for one of those cool little M-TRAK critters to move the lumber around, but selective compression rears its’ ugly head.
A flume - what a great idea. I can’t figure out how to fit one into the sawmill zone, but I could tear out the logging branch switchbacks and reassign the Shay… Hmmm [(-D]
You think Mr. Zeek would be amenable to some questions via email?
LOL, no not trying to confuse you, thats the beauty of logging, so many options, so little room!
That is 1953 vintage. I grew up there and there was a 100 of those things running around inside the mill in the 60"s. This mill was rather large back then, now it no longer exists…along with all of the jobs. (thank you treehuggers) [sigh]
By “there” do you mean Montana as it sez on the side? Was there a lot of logging there? I’m a transplant to the northwest - still more than a few trees left here.
I didn’t realize 'til I started down the logging path how right you are about the wealth of options vs. my dearth of space. I’m almost to the point re-thinking the siting of my sawmill - from the layout “bump” to inside a loop with more room.
Wet storage of logs is/was preferred, especially when dealing with softer woods. A log that dries out unevenly will often crack and/or split, reducing the useful yield of a given log. In an intact form, a log can’t help but dry out unevenly. Where logs are stored dry, watering systems are sometimes set up to keep the moisture content fairly high, and avoid the cracking/splitting issue.
Before the days of logging by railroad, water was the easiest way to transport the logs from the forests to the saw mill (2nd easiest was dragging over frozen or snow-covered ground - commonly used in Michigan and Maine). Extensive log flume systems were used around Lake Tahoe because the steepness of the terrain made other transport impractical. In the Sierra foothills where water was less plentiful, creeks would be dammed upstream, and then the dam breached to send a season’s worth of cut logs downstream to the sawmill and mill pond in one surge.
Another reason was that, if available, water power was a cheap way to power the mill - especially until the latter part of the 19th century when steam became prevalent.
Friso, Yes, I originally from Libby MT, and yes the #1 industry was logging. Originally they used railroads (Shays) to bring to logs into the mill pond, then they used trucks, and dumped into the mill pond. The they went from using the pond to unloading the trucks an stacking rows of timber on the ground, with sprinklers on the log decks as mentioned before. There was an occasion when, they brought the logs down to the Great Northern mainline, and loaded them on flatcars, a small switcher (GN) brought them into town and into the mill.
The Madera Sugar Pine Company was narrow gauge and didn’t connect to another railroad. They used a railroad to bring the logs to the pond and sawmill, but used a flume to take bundles of rough cut lumber 54 miles(!) to the drying yard and mill in Madera.
My fictional Oakhurst Railroad is std gauge and connects with a fictional branchline to Fresno and the Southern Pacific, so I take the cut lumber out on flatcars to Fresno and beyond. I was thinking about building a portion of an abandoned flume for an historical tie-in.
Mr. Zeek gave out his e-mail freely at the conference clinic, so you should e-mail him.
Marty
P.S. My Oakhurst Railroad will be part of an open railroad tour in Southern California on September 27, so you or anyone in the area should consider coming by …
54 miles??? !!! Wowzer … I think your “legacy flume” idea is downright “pirate-able” … do you mind?? Also - do you have some flume-bulding ideas? Maybe I could model a small stretch also.
Seattle to SoCal is a bit of a stretch, I’ll be there I can … do you have any pics of your layout / trackplan you can point me to?
