Not much going on and this isn't that exciting, but it's kept me busy awhile... Back in July 2016 I posted a couple photos of a bulkhead flatcar put together from an Athearn flatcar plus a Tichy bulkhead kit.
Over the past weeks I added a couple more, different, pulpwood cars to the roster and then decided to abandon a Lego mockup sawmill
that has been on the layout for a long time. Although it would be big enough to cut a couple carloads a day, at that time it probably would have
been served by trucks rather than rail. So I am now mocking up a pulpwood loading area in that space. It fits the layout's time and place better.
In New England, as conifers became less plentiful, more hardwoods like birch and beech and maple were cut for pulpwood. Hardwoods don't float as well as evergreens,
so they were usually carried by rail or truck and not floated down rivers during Spring high water. Some loading areas were simply a flat area next to the track with stacks of logs.
My layout is tiny, the loading area is too, so no mechanized equipment, all loading by hand. That means the logs were between 3-12 inches in diameter generally and 4 feet long. The logs were stuff not good enough or big enough for "saw wood" (lumber).
Here's a look at a potential arrangement I'm considering. There will be a wooden loading ramp in front of the truck that will be about half the height of the gondola. An older prototype photo showed one like that that that helped two guy unload a truck directly into a gon. Further down the track is space for trucks to pull up next to flatcars or boxcars for loading them. There will probably be somekind of small office/bunkhouse too.
In these photos there are some stacks of logs with vertical ends. Those are temporary stand-ins that are actaully removable loads from two bulkhead cars. They are just helping evaluate the overall appearance and size of the additional stacks needed for the ground by the track.
I'm not sure where you live, but here in Eastern Virginia I am growing more model pulpwood then I can ever use. Trimmings of choice come from Dog Wood trees, Azaleas, Crepe Myrtles, and Poplar saplings. Saw timber also comes from the same sources. I allow the Poplar saplings to grow for 2-3 years or whenever they are large enough to make a decent log and then harvest and allow to dry out.
Remember to either micro wave or bake the cuttings in the oven to kill off unwanted 6 legged hobos before moving to the layout.
The scene is shaping up nicely. -- Russ
I like the way that scene is laid out.
Lawton, I'm in Connecticut. There are a couple big Norway maples in the backyard. They are very brittle trees and rain twigs and small branches in every breeze.
Also around the neighborhood are beeches [have to watch out for the sun on those :) ], holly, a pear tree , bayberry and other useful stuff I don't know what they are.
Thanks, Russ & Ray. Still gathering and cutting more twigs. Also looking at old photos for things to add, mostly mud and bark it looks like.
Bill:
For a good look at what pulpwood trucks looked like in the 1950's, track down a copy of the Arcadia book on West Point, Virginia. The paper mill there has been the largest employer there for what feels like centuries. There are a number of photos of the mill and of the various parts of the outdoor activities including pulp trucks waiting to be unloaded. With the Roco Mini-tank line of military trucks even the 10 thumbed among us can kit bash an early 50's pulp load waiting to be emptied. After the War, there were thousands of US military vehicles sold at surplus. For those of us working in larger scales there are a wide offering of scale models to work with.
Thanks, Lawton. I'll do some looking for trucks to convert.
in the first photo for this thread I noted that there were two "stacks" of logs on the ground that are really loads for two bulkhead flatcars that served as stand-in stacks for that mockup photo. The prospect of collecting, chopping, drying and gluing up 4-5 more stacks on the ground slowed up work on the project until yesterday when I came up with a way to handle it.
The first photo below shows a number of stacks of logs on the ground near tracks. The yellow circled area shows the way the end of at least one stack was braced to prevent the logs from rolling off. I modeled that same thing for the stacks made to be on the ground. And it coccurred tome that I could make 'falsies' - sloping ends for the two bulkhead carloads that would let them be used on the ground when the bulkhead cars are empty, but still could be loaded onto the cars.
The second photo shows one of the bulkhead loads in the foreground with a pair of new sloped ends butted against it. The third photo shows the sloped ends simply moved away (They'd be taken off the layout when not actually being used).
Bill:
When you build a siding, there also needs to be a shack for the pulp buyer to stay out of the weather. I do not know the era you are modeling, but early buyers paid by the cord while by the 1070's they were buying by weight so depending on the era there needs to be a set of scales in front of the shack.
Thanks, Lawton, the layout is set in Vermont about 1954. My understanding is that there and then loads were paid by the cord, but
I'm not sure how 'universal' that was.
Since this is a backwoods site, the rail cars were loaded by hand, no cranes or other equipment, except I do have a small tractor that
might get weathered and parked at the site.
If you look back at the first two photos in this thread there is a small building on the site. it may or may not be used at the final structure,
but it's about the right size.
Bill:
Missed that detail in the first post.
A pulpwood story from the Southern Railroad in the 1980's. The railroads handling pulp racks have to have contractors whose job is to reload cars when they develope what the SRR called "Widowmakers" which were logs that vibrated out of place leading to danger to the crews. One contractor who seemed to be able to work miracles was caught simply cutting the ends off with a saw rather then repacking the load as required. You could place a car being repacked on a siding before an operating session to give train crews a headache because there would not only be a car in the way, but there would be a need for a slow order in place to protect the contractor.
"You could place a car being repacked on a siding before an operating session to give train crews a headache because there would not only be a car in the way, but there would be a need for a slow order in place to protect the contractor."
I like that idea.
Also good story about the repaxking :)
Clever!
Here's a Mini Metals HO pickup truck that I converted into one for hauling pulpwood logs to the loading site.
It's a composite of 3-4 prototypes I found photos of online. I have a soft spot (besides my head) for 'homebuilt'
equipment and this truck fits right in.
Here it is on the layout. There are also 3 more photos of just the truck on the Cars, Trucks & Vehicle section: http://www.finescalerr.com/smf/index.php?topic=2511.msg63244#msg63244
(You can click on the photo to enlarge it)
Fits right in. -- Russ
Very nice!
Thanks, Russ & Ray
Here's the pulpwood loading area pretty much complete.
There's a ramp for the trucks to load gondolas and there's bark scattered around the track from loading cars.
Nice ... but it looks dry. Unless you want it to turn into a replica of California's (former) forests, you might model some rain. -- Russ
Russ, interesting you suggest some water. I'm debating adding puddles where the trucks go back & forth, as seen in many prototype scenes.
But in the background of the scene between the outhouse on the right and the track on the left is a dried up marshy area that goes away to the pines farther back.
If puddles are addedin the loading area then there also would be water in the marsh. That could be OK, but this side of the layout is set
in an ambiguous season, somewhere between very late fall to very early spring and since it's Vermont, it might be ice rather than water.
So the wetness is being weighed.