Model Railroading > Paper Mill Switching Layout

A variety of things inspired me to get some real work done on the umpteenth rebuild of my Paper Mill Switching layout over the past few days. I've done a lot of tweaking on this 8' x 30" module over the years trying to find just the right balance of yard space and switching lead space and other things. This is kinda designed to be incorporated into some future layout. It features a 3 track classification yard, two indoor tracks and one outdoor track at the paper warehouse. This is a white paper mill (like printer / copier paper), so it receives inbound kaolin clay, chlorine and sulfuric acid among other commodities. It will have two tracks with a capacity for 6 woodchip cars, but I still need to "plant" the rotary chip dumper.
 The mill is served by both BN and SP, and outbound cars need to be sorted for each railroad. There is a run around built into the plant trackage, but the left tail track only has enough space for 3 cars, and the right tail track has just enough room for one locomotive. So that alone will make switching interesting. All the mainline and classification yard tracks use #6 turnouts, but the plant trackage as a number of #4 turnouts. Some of my earlier rebuilds incorporated a 3-way and a double slip switches to maximize the usable track. I have a lot more to add to the chemical side of the plant. I'm using parts of a Walthers Oil Refinery and other kits to model the complex chemical infrastructure found at large paper mills.
 Seems I spent months last year experimenting with under the track uncoupling magnets. In the end I determined that the simple Bachmann ones worked best, but you need to have non magnetic wheels to work right. Some cars like Exactrail use a ferrous metal in their wheels, causing to cars to be pulled ahead and uncouple while being pulled from a track. Intermountain's wheelsets are plated turned brass and worked the best as they are not attracted to the magnets. I like the hands free uncoupling of the under the track magnets, and want to keep the use of skewer sticks to a minimum due to the damage they cause on details at the ends of the cars. The cars shown in these photos are not exactly the ones that will be used in operations. I just put a bunch of cars on for some photos. But they are similar to the fleet of tuned up cars that will be used.
 Most of the work over the past few days involved installing magnets, replacing some bad track, painting the track and installing the Caboose Industries ground throws. Lots more work left to do, but I can do some operations for now.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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The rest of the photos.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Looking good.
JB

Very nice switching layout!

Looks good.
Paper Mills are a very interesting prototype. Lots of different car types, lots of traffic along with an intriguing chemical process to follow. The prototypes are getting hard to find and seem to be the subject of environmental and legal action of all sorts, lots of Mills going out of business and becoming major clean up sites with pretty rough results to the local community. But the twinkling lights on the tall structures are a big draw.

+ should add that paper mills really cleaned up their act somewhere in the 80's or 90's. The hallmark of a paper mill in town was a really bad sulpher smell from some sort of process and lots of other gases, smalles, releases into the local streams and rivers. They have installed lots of reclamation ponds, recovery processes and so on to really change their impact on the environment, regardless there had been a huge amount of unwanted poolution from most plants in earlier times. Paper was very essential for literally hundereds of years.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/22 10:28 by TCnR.

To many lawyers.

tomstp Wrote:
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> To many lawyers.

You ever been downwind from a paper mill?

GUYS....Ted created a great feeder plant for local switching and as mentoned, a good variety of cars are worked in and out of the mill, onmy layout, i move a lot of lumber on flats, bulk heads,box cr traffic and wood cips, ots of good ideas for the modelrailroaders to copy, it sure looks good...

PHall Wrote:
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> tomstp Wrote:
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> > To many lawyers.
>
> You ever been downwind from a paper mill?

It's been a long time, but there were paper mills, or were they pulp mills, up in Arcata CA, back when I was a student at Humbolt State University in Arcata.

PHall Wrote:
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> tomstp Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > To many lawyers.
>
> You ever been downwind from a paper mill?

A fellow I once knew lived in a small town where he worked at the paper mill. He referred to it as "The sweet smell of money."

tomstp Wrote:
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> To many lawyers.

Until you need one!

Briefly worked at switching a couple paper mills in Oregon years ago. At the time it seemed like a model railroad puzzle in real life. Wag

Yes was down wind from a paper mill in Camden,  Ark, and yes it did smell.

Oh thank God you dont have one of those new Rapido waffle side cars! I hear there is a square thats thats wrong or something like that. Ok joke aside, this scene is a great looking scene Ted. The Rapido boxcar would look great there as well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/22 20:19 by TomG.

The smell of the Mead corrugated mill in Chillicothe, Ohio reminded me of boiled cabbage, and that is being kind, only much more intense.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/22 19:26 by zars.

TomG Wrote:
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> Oh thank God you dont have one of those new Rapido
> waffle side cars! I hear there is a square thats
> thats wrong or something like that. Ok joke aside,
> this scene is a great looking scene Ted. The
> Rapido boxcar would look great there as well.


I will be getting mine shortly
 

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Not sure if you have any but I just got 3 exactrail Gunderson SP wood chip cars today, boy are they nice.

Which ones? As delivered or later?

Posted from Android

Yep. As delivered. Also got a mail delivery from Australia. 3 Moloco RBLs, 2 WP one MP. They are all great looking cars.
As a side note, I also got a delivery of 4 US Plywood All Door Boxcars. THese are the new Walthers Proto cars. I have a few from 20 years ago that some day i was going to rebuild them. As with all other offerings up to these Protos, they have the nasty mounting tabs and holes in the body. But Walthers fixed that and has separate door hardware an the new ones. These are great additions for WP/SP/ McCloud modelers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/22 16:22 by TomG.

I like the look of where your crossovers are on the main. Just thinking out loud so to speak, would it give you a bit more flexibility if you move them towards the center of the module and gave yourself three or so cars between the points?