Pulpwood Loads/Jigs

As I may have mentioned a few times on this blog, pulpwood logs are a significant traffic item on the Algoma Central, and a type of load I’ll need quite a supply of for my flatcars and gondolas. I’ve been doing some playing around and simulating with some car cards and waybills and I figure on using anywhere from 15-20 pulpwood loads during a future operating session (when I have a layout to actually operate on some day), and these loads can be moved in at least five different types of cars (52′ flatcars, 40′ flatcars, 52′ gondolas, 61′ gondolas, 48′ gondolas), so I need a lot of loads and several different types of loads.

While there are some cast resin or plastic loads that you can get to fit certain models, they won’t fit some of the customized cars I have, and I’ve never really seen one made for a standard gondola. Moreover, just nothing looks as good as a load made of real logs.

Fortunately these aren’t too complicated to make, collecting real twigs of an appropriate size and cutting them to length. (If you – or a friend – has a bandsaw, cutting a lot of them very quickly is a breeze.) Really the trickiest part is selecting good twigs that are nice and straight so you can actually get a lot of logs out of them without “wasting” most of it.

Pulp logs in northern Ontario are typically cut to ~8′ lengths. This is a perfect size for loading crosswise in bulkhead flatcars and gondolas (with usually a 9′-9’6″ inside loading width) and purpose-built flatcars (or rebuilt/modified from plain bulkhead flatcars) for pulpwood service with side stakes have the stakes evenly spaced out for logs of this size. Once the “logs” are cut, they’re just stacked up on the cars. On the prototype, gravity and the friction of the rough surfaces of the logs is usually enough to keep everything in place (although trains carrying pulpwood loads “without side stakes and chains” are often subjected to speed restrictions and ACR timetables included special footnotes in the Special Instructions section to keep a close watch for shifted or protruding logs en route so it obviously isn’t 100% perfect and an obvious reason why the side-stake cars really took over in popularity.) On the model these physics don’t quite scale the same way, and we can make it much easier to load and unload the cars by gluing the logs together into a solid load.

To make it a bit easier to work on making some of these loads, I spent a little time in the workshop this week and tossed together some sheet styrene fixtures to the exact loading dimensions of some of my common car types for pulpwood service. This lets me assemble and glue together some loads on the workbench without banging actual cars around and risking damaging their details or getting glue on them. (And white glue peels right off the styrene when dry so a bit of liberal over-use is no bad thing when building in the fixture.)

Assembly fixtures for 52’8″ bulkhead flat, 52’6″ mill gondola, 40′ pulpwood flatcar. The flatcar load at top was previously a load for a kitbashed 51′ flatcar at the club which got dropped on the floor and turned into several pieces to be re-assembled. The missing area at the one end and a few gaps at the bottom still need to be filled in here

52′ flatcar load completed in assembly fixture

Finished load on Walthers 52’8″ bulkhead flatcar

Finished load in Rapido 52’6″ gondola. Note vertical logs at ends to extend the height of the load. This was a common practice for loading pulpwood in gondolas.

Next steps: collect and cut a LOT more branches. I have three loads completed and I’m out of logs. I need at least 15-20 more to cover my eventual needs. Maybe more spread out across all the possible car types just so I have enough if the mix of loaded car types changes session to session (e.g more 52′ flatcars one session, more 61′ gondolas the next).

Lumber Wrap Assortment #14

Playing around with logos again today. Some modern versions.

Aspen Planers (blue logo) (Merritt, BC) – ~2007
PDF | XLSX Prototype

Aspen Planers (redlogo) (Merritt, BC)
PDF | XLSX – Prototype

iLevel Lumber (Weyerhauser) – ~2009
PDF | XLSX Prototype

Longlac Lumber Inc. (Longlac, ON) – 2015-Present
PDF | XLSX Prototype

Nakina Lumber Inc. (Nakina, ON) – 2018-Present
PDF | XLSX Prototype

A couple of updated modern wraps

Just added a couple of new current-day lumber wraps added to the collection.

Rayonier Advanced Materials (RYAM) is a new one on the scene in northern Ontario/Quebec. In November 2017, Tembec, which has assembled a large network of lumber and paper mills in both Ontario and Quebec announced the sale of the company to Rayonier, with the operations re-branded as Rayonier Advanced Materials, or RYAM.

Rayonier Advanced Materials – RYAM – 2018+ (was Tembec)
PDF | XLSX Prototype

The next wrap is an updated Resolute Forest Products wrap, which updated and simplified their style a bit in late 2017.

Resolute Forest Products – 2017+ (was Abitibi-Bowater)
PDF | XLSX – Prototype

Final one for now is a new wrap for a Quebec producer Chantiers Chibougamau, based in Chibougamau in northern Quebec. (Tall 3 1/2′ bundles)

Chantier Chibougamau (Chibougamau, QC) – ~2013-2017
PDF | XLSX Prototype

And of course, the entire archive of lumber load wraps can be found here:
Lumber Loads

More Lumber Wrap Graphics

Playing around with a few more modern company wraps recently.

Edgewood Forest Products (Carrot River, SK) – 2012-Present
PDF | XLSX – Prototype

Foothills Forest Products (Grande Cache, AB) – ~2016
PDF | XLSX Prototype

Kirkland Lake Forest Products (Kirkland Lake, ON) – ~2017
PDF | XLSXProtoype

White River Forest Products (White River, ON) – ~2017
PDF | XLSX – Prototype

Lumber Wrap Assortment #11

Decker Lake (Burns Lake, BC) – ~2005-2012 *Revised*
PDF | XLSXPrototype

Domtar – ~2000-2010 *3.5′ Bundle*
PDF | XLSXPrototype

Nechako Lumber (Vanderhoof, BC) – ~2010
PDF | XLSXPrototype

Riverside-TOLKO (Kelowna, BC) – ~2005-2015
PDF | XLSXPrototype

Riverside-TOLKO (Kelowna, BC) – ~2005-2015 *3.5′ Bundle*
PDF | XLSXPrototype

TOLKO – ~2005-2015
PDF | XLSXPrototype