Nostalgia & History > Gilman Paper Co. Woodyard.

Gilman Paper Co. Woodyard. Located on the Georgia Central Railway.  Montrose Georgia   September 1991  Gerhard H. Anderson Photo

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Very typical pulpwood yard operation.
ALLEN

Those types of wood racks are SIXTY-foot long cars with end-bulkheads and "V-decks" (the only method the logs were kept on the car were the bulkheads, V-deck ... and gravity).  NS had 3,000 of these constructed in series 140000-142799, with many now sold off to other RRs; some were placed into pulpwood service on those lines (KCS/MidSouth for one, and CSXT -- which also outfitted many with side stakes for long-log loading).  NS has very few left; even RJ Corman got a collection:  they're painted red, and most have their original SOU numbers.  Other owners cut the bulkheads down (as did NS with many of theirs) for uses such as rebar or metal ingot customers.  NS, also, presumably started a trend by taking many of their cars from that overall series of 3,000 cars and -- after cutting them down -- adding gondola-type sides and placing them into crosstie service.

ATTACHED is a diagram (courtesy NS) on how these cars were originally designed.

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Walthers produced several runs of this type of car (using a generic mentality, several RR names were painted on the models even if various other carriers' cars were of slightly different build, such as RF&P's fleet of 70 which were built by FGE at that company's former facility in Alexandria, Va. .... that site is long gone).  NS's cars were built by Southeast Iron & Equipment Co. (SEICO).  But the car-types (even from carriers such as CSX and ICG) are close enough that producing runs in those other carriers' paint schemes is a fair enough deal.  Here's a photo of some of their "SEICO-built" HO Scale models (such as is shown in the original post's image, above), with a freelance paint scheme (these were undecorated cars when purchased):

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How the cars were often unloaded is seen here as these car-types have their loads raked off into a water plfume at the West Point, Va. paper mill.

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gonx Wrote:
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> Are these wood ops still around or have they
> followed the life of the dodo bird?

Dodo lived, and is dead.

Gilman had a significant operation in New Hampshire, too.  I believe they used 50T GE units there in the end. Maybe some 44T as well.