For their respectively freight car use, what freight cars carried sawdust and wood chips left over from the mill?
Sawdust is usually burned at the mill. Chips can be carried in old box cars or in large ‘chip’ cars(sort of extra long coal hoppers) Here is a web link to some models of these cars:
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/HO-Scale-Woodchip-Gondola-Cars-s/2552.htm
Jim.
Woodchips used to be carried in modified hopper cars too. Railroads would take old coal hopper cars and weld extensions on them - kinda like “regular” ore cars that had taconite extensions added. (Obviously woodchips are a lot lighter than coal.)
Could you use the sawdust for mulch or other products?
Bangor and Aroostook converted a large number of old 40’ box cars to wood chip cars by plating over the doors, removing the top, and adding side extensions like the green car below. These cars are kitbashed and sold by the Eastern Maine Model RR Club, see near the bottom of this page
http://emmrc.freeyellow.com/projects.htm
There is a loaded one in this photo
http://users.silcon.com/~lgoss/bar4566.htm
Anytime after 1934 they used it to make Prest o Logs. In the 1970’s (?) it was chip board and later MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard). Also chips are used for OSB (Oriented Strand Board). The closer to current day the less likely they burned it . If they did, the earlier stuff was in the iconic wigwams. Later it would be in generator building for making electricity.
These are general statements that should help you. Did you have a specific era, local or company in mind?
ratled
No, mulch is made from woodchips (sometimes chipped bark). Sawdust is too fine. It would also simply blow away if you tried to ship it (even woodchips tended to blow out of cars in transit). Woodchips are used by OSB/chipboard mills and for pulp & paper-making.
Railroads have used all sorts of cars in woodchip service, from regular boxcars (with or without normal doors), converted boxcars, gondolas and hoppers to purpose built hoppers and gondolas for woodchip service.
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cp31201&o=cprail
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cp31762&o=cprail
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cp343264&o=cprail
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=nfpx1511&o=nfpx
http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/trans/nss/cars/hop/woo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25374341@N02/5540524176/
Hoppers were common in some geographical areas, but in many others gondolas (including converted boxcars and mill gondolas) were more common. (Please note and understand the distinction between hoppers and gondolas. I don’t know why, but some people really seem to have a hard time with this for some reason.)
In a joking sort of way, “Almost any car that was misplaced near my Disc Sander…”
If you you have a disc sander or even a hungry MotoTool, you probably know what I mean, Heh heh…
Seriously though…
If Saw Dust ‘were’ to be receyled or repurposed, would Airslides be conceivable??? Hmmmm…
Not true, Presto Logs have already been mentioned. Presto Logs were made from sawdust. This was mainly a local market that served the area. (they were used in place of firewood, in stoves and fireplaces)
When I was young I hauled tons of these from the truck to the back porch.
Well now some folks call them energy logs. (marketing?)
I do not have an era local, or company in mind. It’s just a general question. I do not mind people talking about whatever locale, era, or company. Just information is good enough for me.
Here is an example that may not have been mentioned, some boxcars with their roof’s removed… It’s somewhat imcomplete, but I wanted to show it to you…
Here is a classic MILW Wood Chip car. I got this form a WI hobby shop, along with the 40ft box car behind it. I have some work to do on it, touch up & details, but it was a unique item. The ‘wood chip load’ is actually from my disc sander capture unit, glued to the kit provided plug. I believe the kit was offered by “Rib Side Cars” (CLUB?) or something similar, not an everyday find. As a 70’s MILW Fan, yup, sold! Mine! Perhaps that is how YULE Logs burn forever?? Sure - Wow!!!
That looks cool and I never thought of modifying a boxcar to have a wood chip car. Is that your layout just wondering?
Manning, glad you liked the MILW car, MILW was pretty creative in their days!
Well, it is more of a “Shelf Display” Yes, I did all of the work, design - through completion… I wanted more than my silly ‘wall o’ containers’ as seen in these shots… Here is a description I put on it somewhere else…
Although this has been shown at different places before, the question came up… Although it may look room size (photo cropping) it is only a measures 18.25" x 8" deep. So all my pictures do look alike, due to the limited space of track & scene. I used HO Dual Gauge Track to support HOn3 as well. It was my first serious attempt to make a quality display, even if it is just a small shelf unit! But, using all the tips & experience in the Mags, Forums & kind friends, the results came together fairly well. In the future I hope to go much larger, as in around the room & then some!
Apropos sawdust.
Just saw a bit on The Science Channel about a new company that mixes sawdust with pulverized vegetable waste (essentially organic garbage) to manufacture high-quality ($8.50/bag) garden compost. No mention of where the sawdust came from or how it was delivered, but there didn’t seem to be any woodworking or sawmill operation in the immediate area.
The operation is only a couple of years old, produces about ten truckloads of product a day and had about 3/4 megabuck in profit last year.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Cat litter
Fuel
Particleboard
artistic materials
Pykrete
One of the problems with sawdust is that there really is little $ value to the product. Rail movement of some thing like this is not a big money maker. Trucking it to a nearby plant(like the Presto log one mentioned) - and then rail shipment of the eventual product would be more common. Sawdust does not store outside very well(rain) and many times is more valuable for co-generation of electical power or boiler fuel at the mill.
I used to see ‘chips’ moving from the Black Hills to paper mills in Wisconsin. Converted box cars were used - I have not seen movements of chips for at least 10 years now.
Jim
The big customers for wood chips are paper mills. Used to be logs were shipped to the mill, then debarked and chipped. In the last 40 or 50 years, large portable chippers were developed, so logs are chipped in the woods near where the trees are cut, then are moved by truck and/or by rail.
Another large customer these days would be a power plant that uses wood chips and other"biomass" to run the boiler
Sawdust could be used to make wood pellets that are used in home wood stoves; however, as mentioned before the sawdust probably would be shipped to the pellet plant by truck from a nearby source like a sawmill.
Title is what frieght cars carry wood chips and sawdust:
There were at least four styles made in HO by E&C Shops/LBF in the 1990’s for mainly western style wood chip hi-side gondolas.
ExactRail has made an outside brace version in the past several years that is nicely detailed in N and HO.
Finally, I believe Walthers has offered an HO large sawdust/woodchip hopper within the last 10 years.
What I recall in the Southeast starting in the late 70s were jumbo hoppers, kind of like a coal hopper on steriods with extra growth hormone added. Tall and long to hold the maximum volume since the weight was low. Like someone said above, up until then most of the wood was shipped as pulpwood and chipped at the mill, but now most of the chipping is done local and shipped as chips.
If you can, look up the Ashley, Drew, & Northern. MR ran an article on it in the 80s also. They used converted hoppers with extension sides to haul chips, etc around an integrated mill so that the waste from one process (lumber) was used in the paper or particle board plant. This would make an interesting model railroad operation in it’s own right.