Prototype Inspiration - Chemicals and The Paper Industry

 The Northwest has a long history of forest products production, from timber and plywood to paper, providing many carloads of revenue for the railroads serving this region. Pulp and paper mills have always held a great fascination for me, particularly the large integrated mills which started with logs or raw wood chips and carried out every step of transforming the wood into finished products.  I’ve been fortunate to spend a good part of my career selling equipment to these mills while learning their processes and history.

Some of the first pulp and paper mills in the Northwest were established in the late 1800’s and early 20th century. Many expanded and diversified over time to become very large manufacturing enterprises. What many do not realize is that the pulp and paper manufacturing process requires a great deal of chemistry, as well as producing some useful chemical byproducts.  

1954 CZ Magazine Ad Discussing Industrial Chemical Production

While the first paper making process was mechanical, chemical pulping followed, producing a wider range of more useful and attractive paper products. There are several basic processes to break down wood fiber into pulp that can be used to make paper of many types.  These processes can require caustic, acids, lime, bleaching agents, mineral slurries and other specialized chemicals. Additional chemicals are used to provide specific properties for finished paper products, such as brightening agents, rosin and starch for sizing, mineral slurries like clay for smoothness, even copper sulfate as a fungicidal additive (for fruit wrap), among others.

 The Kraft, or sulfate process, is the dominant method used (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_process), with the sulfite process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfite_process) and it’s variations not uncommon in the heyday of paper production. Here is a good basic article on papermaking chemistry: https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/the-complex-chemistry-of-making-paper/4017234.article. Other specialized methods combine temperature and pressure with chemicals or mechanical processing.  It’s not my intent to provide a treatise on papermaking, but to illustrate the range of chemicals consumed, and transported by rail, in this industry.  

At various times, liquid byproducts from pulping were commercially attractive to market as well. These included tall oil, wood alcohol, turpentine and lignin compounds. Another was vanillin, artificial vanilla, produced from lignin, refined and sold for flavoring.

All, or most, of these chemicals require tank cars, or sometimes box cars with bags or drums, for inbound and outbound loads.

The photo in the advertisement above shows an overview of the Puget Sound Pulp and Paper mill in Bellingham, Washington. A string of tank cars and the curved chemical area railroad tracks are visible in the mid foreground of the picture.  This mill is a primary inspiration for my layout modeling efforts.  During World War II it produced wood alcohol along with other chemicals, and owned a small second hand fleet of private label tank cars, apparently until the mill was sold to Georgia Pacific in 1963.  My research on these cars continues, with the goal of modeling them.

The mill received tank cars of chlorine for bleaching, sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid for the pulping process, along with other papermaking chemicals. All of this provides opportunities to model a range of tank cars suited for these commodities. I will expand on this in subsequent posts and as my research progresses.

On Building A Freight Car Fleet

A Portion of The Kit Stash

 Like many model railroaders, I have accumulated a large number of freight cars and locomotives over the years.  My early Athearn train set cars and additions from Model Die Casting (Roundhouse), Tyco and Con-Cor were later joined by more detailed models from Intermountain, Red Caboose and others.

My early purchases as I got more serious about the hobby were from hobby shops, and occasionally mail order, as this was before the Internet.  Most were kits, because I had enjoyed building aircraft models and this carried over into my model railroad hobby.  There were a few "ready to run" model purchases, joined by some gifts from family.

When I got even more serious about the hobby, I found other kit manufacturers such as CB&T, Branchline and LifeLike Proto 2000 (now Walthers Proto).  There were even a few exotic (to me) resin kits from Sunshine as well as swap meet finds of other craftsman type kits.

Some of these purchases were spurred by my interest in the Great Northern and other Hill Lines, some by what I had seen on the tracks in real life as a kid, and some by whim.  I did tend to stick with the 1960's, despite temptation in the form of gorgeous looking modern era cars.

For a long time, however, my purchases were only loosely guided by a vague concept of how I might eventually incorporate them into a large model railroad scheme.  Some of this was understandably the result of lack of time to embark on planning and building a layout, or defining what it would even look like.  Some due to the shiny allure of a new model that I happened on and convinced myself I really wanted, without much thought of how it "fit" into any bigger plan.  Some just looked fun to build.

When I began to narrow my focus, and develop an interest in building more detailed models, it was actually helpful in limiting impulse buying.  It has not slowed me down but it has  guided me toward models that I know I really want.  Some earlier buys have been sold to make way for things that better fit where I see myself going.

Recent purchases have tended toward craftsman kits or kitbash opportunities that will challenge and develop my skills.  There are some incredible small makers of resin car and mini kit offerings along with masters of kitbashing who share their talents for me to learn from.

As I am not building a large layout with a big “fleet”, I’m not as much driven to balance my models with car distributions or relative numbers of a particular car as I am  to explore modeling challenges.  I am adding some particular car types in line with my forest products interest.  This includes tank cars, double door boxcars and flat cars.  The Great Northern is my home road, along with subsidiary Pacific Coast, and sister roads Northern Pacific, SP&S and CB&Q so these roads feature prominently.

Forest Products as Traffic

 Earlier I mentioned that forest products are a primary focus of my layout interests.  This interest is expressed not only by my decision to model a paper mill as the central industry on the layout but also in the revenue traffic that the Olympic Peninsula Branch will carry and, necessarily, the types of freight cars needed to handle this traffic.

The inclusion of appropriate loads on various types of freight cars is a great way to increase the variety of industries served, implying their existence off "stage" as they feed traffic to the portion of the railroad modeled on the layout.

The Great Northern, like many Western railroads, depended heavily on forest products for revenue.  Advertisements and other GN publicity materials illustrate this well.

This one, showing rolls of paper coming off of the finishing line at a paper mill:

1959 magazine ad - author's collection

Another discussing transport of logs and lumber, as well as promoting the railroad's efforts in developing industrial land for forest product manufacturing:

1957 magazine ad - author's collection

The boxed text in the center of this ad points out that the railroad not only transported forest products, but also consumed them for their uses, such as with ties for track.  Yet another source of loads for freight cars, in this case for company service and maintenance-of-way efforts.

Going into more detail, company publications provide interesting background and examples of car loading for various wood products.

from Talking it Over, GN employee publication

March 1965 - author's collection

This short article includes very helpful detail photographs of several different plywood and lumber loads on bulkhead flat cars, which were fairly recent developments in the mid-60's.  It is interesting to note that full and partially wrapped as well as unwrapped loads are all shown.  This is a period where shippers were transitioning to new types of cars as well as new means of protecting their products from the elements.  Previously, much finished lumber was shipped in boxcars, laboriously loaded by hand, as well as on standard flat cars, particularly rough lumber.  In some cases, gondolas were also used.  The desire for faster loading of larger loads, and for protection from the elements, was driving change in the railroad practices at this time.

Great Northern Goat, publicity publication

June 1965 - author's collection

This article in a monthly GN publication highlights a new customer for the railroad, a plywood mill in Montana.  The bottom photograph of a box car with the iconic standing Rocky goat logo shows forklift loading of plywood into what appears to be a double door 40' car.  This car would have been in my favorite glacier green color, a very signature car for the GN and one that sparked my interest in the Great Northern as a kid.

Lumber mills, plywood plants and logging are all typical of the forest product customers providing loads that were a mainstay for the GN and for my model railroad.  Other loads that would be common include telephone poles on flats or gondolas, often very long and requiring idler flat cars; cedar shakes, woodchips and boxcars with paper products inside.

There is another entire set of loads and cars involved with pulp and paper mills, with a variety of tank cars handling chemicals, additives and byproducts.  These are deserving of a much more detailed treatment in a future post.

As I have been building my model freight car roster, it has been helpful to look at available information like the advertising and promotional materials above, as well as period photographs, traffic reports and equipment rosters.  These have shown the variety of flat cars, gondolas and box cars used for forest products by the GN and sister railroads in the Northwest.

I plan to highlight these various car types in more detail, along with their loads, in the coming months.