Need some help on this one.I am modelling a pulp and paper mill in the Canadian Maritimes and am trying to to arrive at the most common method of delivering pulpwood to the mill. I have seen pictures of pulpwood racks on New England roads and have seen gondolas used on other roads. My own experience was seeing pulpwood delivered to the mill by truck( Lots of them on a daily basis) and not by rail. Did Canadian Pacific or Canadian National deliver pulpwood in this time period and what type of rolling stock did they use…Thanks in advance for any info.
It probably depends upon where the mills are/were located. The one in our city is located at the mouth of the St. John River, and much of the wood came from upstream. So much of the pulpwood was brought down the river floating in large rafts held together with large logs chained together. Tugs would haul the rafts slowly to nearby coves on the river where they would be marshalled until towed or trucked to the nearby mill. Large piers were built at the entrance to the cove where the log rafts would be contained. Probably logs were transported b higway trucks, but this was before my time.
Thanks Bob…I assume you are talking about thre Irving Mill at Reversing Falls. I have seen a lot of pulpwood deliverd there by truck over the years but often wondered if there were rail lines in or out of that complex…Always appreciate your expertise…Michael
Around here (Niagara Peninsula area), pulpwood was shipped to the paper mill at Thorold, Ontario in pulpwood racks. These were flatcars with bulkhead ends - I’m not sure of the car lengths, but between 50’ and 60’, with fairly heavy sidestakes. The logs were lengthwise on the cars. This was in the mid-to late ‘70s and into the ‘80s. Also in the same train would be woodchip cars: these were 40’ steel boxcars, with the doors either welded in place or the door openings plated-over with sheet steel. The roofs had been removed, and the car’s height extended by 3’ or 4’. These extensions looked like they may have been sides from old gondolas.
Wayne
As I noted, I don’t have knowledge of pulp wood deliveries in the time frame you asked for - 50’s and 60’s; I moved here in 1967, but didn’t pay any attention to railroading until I got back into the hobby in the early 80’s.
There are rail lines into the pulp mill, and were probably always there so I assume deliveries were probably made by rail as well as by water. They were hauling in wood chips in the 70’s by rail as I photographed and modeled a CP gondola with high sides from that era.
Chips were also hauled for some years on the water in huge high sided barges. They were so big that they had a small dozer that was kept inside to move the chips around. I think I photographed a few from the air, but don’t have a clue where my photos might be.
They have revived chip delivery in the past while using CN cars that appear to be bulkhead flats with sides added. The biggest way the chips come in is by truck, most often with tandem trailers. It’s quite a sight to see one of these tandems angled way up in the air on a hydraulic platform so the chips can flow out the back by gravity. The mill is about a mile from where I live, so see much of this stuff when I drive by all the time.
Don’t forget, there was(is) a little bit of logging in British Columbia, and I would think most of the logs were hauled by rail, an extensive rail system was in use for years.
In Maine, river drives of puplwood were common until the mid-1960s. The logs, 4’ long would be stored on the river bank until the ice went out in the spring, then would free float down the river to the mill or mills. If there was a lake somewhere in the middle, the logs would be collected in a log boom where the river entered the lake, and towed to the outlet.
As the last of the logs went downriver, loggers would follow in boats and pull logs that had hung up of sandbars or in coves back into the river. A lot of wood still was lost; in recent years, divers have been going into lakes and rivers pulling out wood that may be up to 100 years old, preserved by the cold water. The wood is in good shape and is bought by people making custom furniture and other wood items.
Where there was more than one mill receiving pulpwood via river drive, each upstream mill would have to sort their wood from that belonging to the downstream mill. Logs would be color coded by paint on the end of the log.
I assume river drives would have been done in a similar manner in Canada.
Thank you everybody…I grew up on the Saint John river and had forgot about the annual log drive Irving did each year on the river. This wood was destined for his mill in Saint John.They too used booms to hold logs at various locations. The men working the drive lived on houseboats and as a kid this seemed like a great way to live…Kind of like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn…I’m sure life aboard the boats wasn’t that great .Good food for thought in a short discussion…Thanks
Back around the depression era there was a lot of “Handlogging” in B.C. My dad was one for a while between also hand fishing. You get a steep slope dropping into a cove, and you start falling trees by hand saw and axe, hoping they will drop into the salt chuck. The problem was hangups, especially the higher up the slope the more chance of a log hanging up on a stump. It often took a whole day (sunup to sundown) to get just one log jacked over and moving again. The logs in the cove were spiked and chained or cabled together to form a boom. If you didn’t have a boat you had to get word to a mill that one was ready and their tug would eventually come and get it. Heck of a way to make a living, but I guess men were tougher then. jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA