Model Railroading > Kraft Paper and the SP

Many of you may not be aware of important segment of traffic that filled many boxcars on SP trains traveling between Oregon and California. Prior to WWII, boxcar loads of "box shook", thin wood slabs of mostly yellow pine were transported to Box Factories in California where they were stapled together to create the wood crates that handled fruit shipments in reefers to the east coast. But following WWII change was on the horizon.

The Germans created the process to create Kraft Paper in the late 1800's. Kraft is german for "strong", and the process was cheaper and easier than other processes, so was growing ever more popular during the 1930's. WWII delayed it's expansion to the west coast of the US, but during the 50's and 60's several Kraft Paper Mills were built all across the northwest forever changing a variety of industries in the PNW including the railroads.

The Kraft paper mills were perfect to convert the waste wood products of sawmill into the familiar brown paper used in bags, cardstock and cardboard boxes. So all those smokey wigwam burners that were drawing the ire of concerned citizens and regulators were replaced by woodchip loaders that could load open top boxcars and high sided gons with the waste material. But those kraft paper mills also saw to the closure of many sawmills producing box shook. A big part of the reason for the sudden building of the kraft paper mills was that they produced linerboard (aka fiberboard), and the process had been perfected to turn three sheets of linerboard into corrugated cardboard. And of course corrugated cardboard boxes were much cheaper that the wood crates which were getting much more expensive as the pine forests were being depleted. The easy forests had been logged, and the remaining pine was harder to get to and much more expensive to log.

Railroads found themselves short of cars to handle the linerboard rolls. Only a single layer of rolls could be loaded in plate B or C boxcars, but Hi-Cube cars could handle two layers of rolls. SP had to convert a bunch of cars by raising the roof to handle the second layer of rolls. That is also why SP started buying large quantity of Hi-Cube boxcars in the late 60's and 70's.The paper rolls were also susceptible to contamination, especially from water. So SP started to paint the doors of the specifically designated "paper cars" with a yellow stripe, or fully painted yellow. Those cars were to only be used in paper service and kept in the best shape possible. Paper cars also frequently sport plug doors, as they sealed better than sliding doors keeping the dust and water out. That practice fell by the wayside in the 1980's though, but some of the yellow door cars were around into the 1990's before getting rebuilt in the "Golden West" program by Greenbrier.

Even as much traffic that used to travel in boxcars now finds itself in truck trailers, paper still remains a primary commodity found in Hi-cube boxcars today. Modern box plants receiving boxcars of paper can be found in all major cities and many smaller cities all across the US. They are much more common in fruit and vegetable growing areas. It's also a great industry to put on model railroads. You often see damaged paper rolls stacked outside, and will be loaded back into boxcars to be shipped to a recycler.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/20 18:51 by funnelfan.

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Is that bag factory at Longview still operating?
Bill Pyper
Lacey, WA
 

Great insights, thanks Ted.
TC

Yellow stripes were plywood service

Good Stuff Ted,  I have a linerboard recycle mill on my layout so knew most of this, but it is good
info for other modelers to understand and consider for their layout.
Remember most EVERYTHING comes in a cardboard box. Whether it's the Amazon box on porch, new fridge,
canned goods,chips or fresh produce to the store. Also the cases of paper bags and wrappers for every McDonald's, Taco Bell
or In and Out.
On my Mill, I take in scrap bailed cardboard (anyone who's worked a grocery or big box store know about the bails generated)
in standard old 50ft  IPD boxcars like railbox cars. The output is rolls of linerboard whitetop (the slightly heavier paperboard used
for lining boxes and in dividers and things like shirt cardboard (hope that makes sense) The white coating on one side allows 
me to bring in Kaolin and then have a few other Chemicals and the like. Output goes in the highcube box cars like shown.
Thought I'd share that as another way to incorporate a papermill for those who can't afford the space to bring in woodchips and
pulpwood and the like. 

Agree that papermills are great traffic generators. They also have quite a bit of Chemistry and Industrial technology going on. The ones I remember from the golden age of trains and industry were also very smelly and were found to be major polluters of ground and water courses. Recent environmental work has made them much less smelly and much less polluting. In many ways paper has gone out of fashion but yes it has it's place and is very useful and indeed recyclable. I was able to tour a paper mill a few years ago and they had lots of recycled cardboard being used, the facility was right on a river near the ocean and was very concious of not screwing things up.

There had been a paper mill model discussion group on Yahoo Groups, there was quite a bit of discussion, prototype and model photos... and then it dwindled away. When the rules changed on yahoo that group simply went away. Oh and yes I have a scaled back paper mill as a major industry on my Layout.

A few slightly O/T comments about pulp and paper. I grew up around pulp and paper mills.  There were several in Massachusetts on the Nashua River in and around Fitchburg and Leominster in the 1950s and 60s.  These used almost exclusively recycled paper some of which was generated by paper drives by organizations to raise money.  Magazines and newsprint were collected and then re-pulped.  Those plants made a lot of liner board and ticket stock.  The river would stink and turn a wide range of colors depending on the due being used that day! Fishing and swimming in that river in that area was problemmatic to say the least!  Fast forward to today and the Nashua River is a trout fishing riiver!  Exvironmental cleanup for the win. Later, I used to take my forestry students through pulp and paper mills on a regular basis.  Any scrap paper (called "broke") generated during the papermaking process is/was always recycled e.g. re-pulped and re-used.  I had a lot of papermakers tell me that they needed the "broke" to make good paper! Modern mills use everything but the squeak in a manner of speaking!

Bruce

WAF Wrote:
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> Yellow stripes were plywood service

Same for yellow door?

Another industry you could model is where the bales from the customers and loose cardboard is baled and then loaded in boxcars for the trip back to the mill.
Doesn't need as much space and it's a place stuff like the plain RailBox cars can be used even if you model today!

SPDRGWfan Wrote:
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> WAF Wrote:
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> > Yellow stripes were plywood service
>
> Same for yellow door?

Solid yellow door was Paper service

I actually do do that PHall. I have a couple of places that load scrap paper bound for my
mill. One is a repurposed freighhouse, another a Sears warehouse/distro-center and even
a team track location.