Here is a question for all the modelers with protoypical logging operations on their layout. What is the actual process for making pulpwood?
First, some background. I want to add some logging industry to my layout which is set in Minnesota in the mid-1950s. I’ve done some research and know that by this point most of the saw log-quality trees had already been logged so that most lumber production in Minnesota was pulpwood (from aspen and other hardwoods). What I can’t seem to get an answer to is how was the pulpwood actually produced. Specifically, were trees chopped into the pulpwood logs (the ones you see on pulpwood cars) at the logging site or were they produced at a sawmill? Would a sawmill with a chipper take in pulpwood and chip them and would it produce pulpwood from large logs that came in and ship out pulpwood (or would it only ship out chips since the paper mill turns pulpwood into chips anyway)? How is pulpwood loaded/unloaded from cars?
I know this is a lot of questions but I’m really struggling to get the kind of precise answers I need to make a realistic logging operation. Even the Walthers’ book “Trains, Tracks and Tall Timber” doesn’t really explain things clearly enough to rely upon.
Anyway, thanks in advance for anyone who can help me out here.
Trees are cut into “sticks” on site and generally trucked to the rail siding and loaded on the pulpwood flats.Railroad hauls them to the mill where they are processed into pulp for making paper products
Sawmills are for producing lumber and are a different operation than pulpwood.
Be careful if you are referring to hardwoods and softwoods–you mentioned aspens and other hardwoods, I believe aspen is a softwood. I think the division between hard and soft wood is the birch, most softwoods(needles) are used in pulp & paper and building lumber, hardwoods (leaves) are used for furniture construction etc. so it’s important to find a book on logging of both types --sawmill lumber and pulpwood lumber. Logging is a good choice, have fun.
If you’ll contact me off line, Brad, I’ll try to answer your questions. My pulp and paper experience is mostly in the South, but I may still be able to help you. In the time period you want to model, most trees for pulping purposes were cut into pulpwood lengths and then either trucked or loaded on pulpwood cars for shipment to the mills. I don’t recall exact timing, but as pulpwood became more expensive we started using chips from sawmills – the sawmills would recover the lumber they needed and the outer layers of the tree would be debarked and cut into chips for shipment to the mills in covered trucks or in hopper cars.
technically all conifers are “softwood” and all trees with leaves are “hardwood” regardless of the actual hardness. In Alaska the spruce and hemlock were cut and floated to the pulpmills as logs up to 60’. At the mill they were graded as to saw or pulp quality. The pulp logs were picked from the water and debarked then gound into chips which were then cooked with chemicals to extract the cellulose which was sent to Japan to be turned into baby diapers or further process into synthetic fabric. The bark was called hog fuel and was burned to produce steam for power and processing. Today in WA and ID the logs are turned into chips in the field and trucked sometime hundreds of miles to mills. St Maries RR still uses log trains in ID to haul saw logs in central ID. In WA huge groves of fast growing poplars are ground in the feild and hauled as chips to the mills. I don’t know much about the pulp industry in the 50s in the midwest but just had to throw my 2 cents in.
OKay being I am from MN and I haul Pulpwood for a living to two different paper mills I can give you a bit of information
The Logs are cut and limbed at the seen of the logging they are Cut into 100" of 16 Footers depending on where they are going and the type of wood…
International Paper In Sartell Uses Aspen (hard wood) and Balsum fir (Soft wood) they also mix in Spruce when the paper Grade calls for it.
Sappi Paper in Cloquet they use Aspen and Birch for there hard woods and Mixed Pine for there soft wood…
all the wood that is hauled in by Train is 100" and is usualy in Bunk Trailers how ever in the 50s it would have been bulkhead Flats which Sappi still uses today to Transfer wood around there Huge yard.1,000,000 + cords
the IP yard is smaller holds 15000 Cords can be stored…
The Ip mill is the only one of the 2 that still gets wood by Rail. however they both Ship Finished product out in Box cars
okay now for the pocess
Wood Cut and limbed at sight of logging then hauled to a staging area or mill the staging area for IP is in Carlton MN and is by the BNSF office there they then haul only Pine down to IP and the Aspen is hauled by Truck.
then at the mill it gets put in a pile or On the “deck” for processing where it gets soaked and then debarked then Chipped and placed into a pile where it awaites for the need of it.
I have a couple of photos of my Truck getting loaded… they mills are Fussy about pics being taken inside there yard so this is at staging yard in Carlton
these are some pics of last summer and dont really show much…
You’ve gotten some good replies, and it’s good to see that one is from someone familiar with International Paper, from which I retired.
Model Railroader has published some modeling information that may be helpful, or at least interesting, to you. The April 2002 issue has an article, “Modeling a modern paper mill,” based upon a mill in West Point, Va. Lots of good information! Also, it mentions that the November 1998 issue has a Jim Hediger article that “described the essential operations of a modern paper mill and offered some design tips.”
The June 1998 issue of Model Railroader has two articles on the Mississippi Central – one on the prototype operation and one on a track plan based upon it. This railroad (now the IC/CN) still serves the Natchez area though the International Paper mill is no longer there. It doesn’t show details on the IP mill but does have a track plan for the then St. Regis mill at Ferguson, Miss., which it also serves. And it includes a model railroad track plan for Ferguson.
Railfan, January 1983, has an article, “mo-pac’s navy,” that describes the ferry operation across the Mississippi River to Natchez with a track plan for the entire city including the IP mill.
In my off-line email to Brad I mentioned that a local area club (Pensacola Model Railroad Club) has modeled a paper mill on their layout. It’s the N-scale layout, and they’ve done an excellent job. It includes many of the mill buildings and a long wood storage yard with the wood arranged in a circle, and a crane that in real-life would unload the wood and transfer it either to storage or to process. I’ve also seen several sawmills modeled on local layouts.[8D]
There is a good, relatively simple book that may be helpful. I don’t know if it’s still in print, but you may be able to find one. It’s “Handbook for Pulp & Paper Technologists,” by G. A. Smook published by the Joint Textbook Committee of the Paper Industry. My copy was dated 1982 but I know it has