Railcars of firewood?!?!

[Dave Shepard]

Saw a couple of railcars full of firewood last night. Has it become valuable enough to ship in from across the country? I didn't get a name off of the cars, but talked to someone who thought they were from the north west.


Dave

[Ron Wenrich]

The railroads advertise that a gallon of diesel will take a ton of goods 400 miles.  A truck can take 30 tons about 7 miles, so they are doing about 4 miles per ton.  That certainly makes the range a lot further and can take you to higher end markets.

I think it would work best if you had a processor on a rail siding and loaded directly into an open gondola.  Those cars will hold about 2 truckloads of wood.  On the other end, you'll need some sort of knuckleboom loader to unload the wood.  I think its very doable.

[stonebroke]

would it not be easier to ship log length and process whenyou were unloading?

Stonebroke

[Cedarman]

A truck that carries 30 tons for 7 miles is equal to carrying 1 ton for  210 miles.  So trucking is 1/2 as effiecient as the railroads are and 3 times as fast.  Railroads have big problems as far as I am concerned hauling goods.

[David Freed]

If you want it there when you need it, use a truck. If you want it there someday, use a train.

[beenthere]

A lot of pulpwood is moved by rail car...in pulpwood lengths. Seems the processor for making wood into firewood length would be at the receiving/distribution end. 

But interesting to learn that firewood is loaded onto rail cars now. Might be a way to return empty coal cars with a payload (or a break-even load) back to the Montana area coal mines.

[Ron Wenrich]

Yep, my early morning math was off.  But, you also have to factor in the return trip.  Its hard to find anything to bring back when you are shipping processed firewood in bulk.

I think whichever end you do the processing may depend on labor costs and siding costs.  If you own the process on both ends, then whichever end you process on doesn't matter.  If you're selling processed firewood, then unloading becomes the customer's responsibility.  Apparently, someone has it figured out.

If it takes a real long time to deliver, you can load green firewood and have it seasoned by the time it arrives.   ;)

[Ironwood]

A friend's fab shop builds the rail coal dumping machines. THIS IS AMAZING, the time it takes to gravity unload a car is TOO great, they now ROTATE the whole car. The machine is HUGE, the cars stay connected via a swivel connector and the train moves forward for each car, it takes a few seconds per car. The steel work is MASSIVE, something like 100 tons per rotator. 40' in diameter. There is a facility down near Woodsteach's place on the Monongahala River upstream from Pittsbugh. I have yet to see one in person. Perhaps that is how they are unloading.

Ironwood

[woodmills1]

you sure they weren't throwin that firewood into the boiler on the engine :D

[Dave Shepard]

you sure they weren't throwin that firewood into the boiler on the engine :D

:D :D :D :D


Dave


This was tree length. ;)

[tyb525]

trains also pollute less per ton.

[cantcutter]

We are under a firewood moving ban here in kentucky, have been for over a year. I don't think you can even bring kiln dried wood into the state.....wonder how that works if its just passing through.

[Ron Wenrich]

But, if its tree length, how do you know its firewood?

[beenthere]

Right Ron, my thought too (I assumed called firewood, it was bucked to firewood length and split) 

Dave
Just descriptive of some pole wood on a rail car?

[Dave Shepard]

You are right, it may not be, but what would it be? If it's pulp, it wouldn't be unloaded where it was.


Dave

[beenthere]

Know what the species happened to be?

I've a neighbor who has a horse farm, and he liked the rail fences around farms out West, made from lodgepole pine poles. He had a couple rail cars loaded and sent to him here in WI, so he could have his horse fences the same as those out west.
Possible that is a similar story. A specialty product, of round poles. Heard 'em referred to as peckerwood poles.

He is deceased, and the fences have been replaced with treated southern pine 2x6 on posts.

[Cedarman]

My curiosity is curious.  Why did they replace the poles?

[SwampDonkey]

I'll bet it was treelength pulp. Not long ago, in the mid 80's Fraser was loading mill sawdust and 4" pulpwood onto rail cars. I'm sure Irving trains it from the US just as they would off their ships importing it. It goes on all the time, where ever they can get it the cheapest to the mill.  ;) Irving is one of the rare forest products companies that have rail, truck and ships to move it. I mean they own them. I don't get to see much of it any more because our local rail lines where tore up 20 years ago. I can go up to Drummond and watch rail cars with forest products head west on a daily basis.

On the rail fencing, there are still old cedar rails here on farms that have been reclaimed by forest. Been in place since the mid-late 19th C. A lot in my area were turned into kindling wood. I remember helping dad cut a lot of them up and when the first telephone poles were replaced they were untreated cedar. They got used for kindling to.

[beenthere]

My curiosity is curious.  Why did they replace the poles?

I believe the widow, who kept the horse farm along with a couple daughters, decided the lodgepole fence poles were not that attractive, and I suspect after about 25-30 years, they were needing more maintenence than they wanted.  The husband (lost in a plane crash flying into a lake in Canada) had more of the Western flair, than did the widow and girls. The lodgepole pine fence lasted much longer than I thought it would.

This fence was the buck and rail fence, as is shown at this site.
http://www.lodgepoleproducts.com/buck.html

[SwampDonkey]

I guess I missed Dave's last note about the location of the off loading. Well, firewood is worth more than pulp now. But, either landowners in the area aren't willing to allow access to firewood or it was real cheap wood. It's a mystery for sure. Well when you see the chain saws and axes or processor going at the pile, we'll have our answer. ;D

[Ron Wenrich]

Of course, you could go over and ask where the wood was unloaded.   ;)

[Dave Shepard]

Nobody around to ask. I've seen log trucks parked on this siding. If it's pulp, I don't know why it would be unloaded here. About the only paper mill left is Crane, and they use cotton rag. (They're the ones that make the paper for our money ;) )

Firewood or pulp? You be the judge : 



Two cars, three bunks each.


Dave

[beenthere]

Can you identify the wood?

Smacks of rails for fencing...  more so than pulp or firewood.  : :

Thanks for the pic...

[tyb525]

I would say pulp. They could be parked on a siding for a number of reasons

1) engine trouble, have yet to get a replacement (those cars aren't high priority)
2) transfer to log trucks or another train
3) one of the cars might have had a problem and hasn't been fixed yet

and my final guess:
5) Crane actually does use some pulpwood

I've never heard of the railroad carrying firewood (at least not these days).

[Tom]

Pulp logs are chipped for fuel too.  Crane might be using it in there boilers to process the rag.

[WDH]

Pulpwood.  We bought it by rail for years, not anymore though.  Railroads priced the freight to the point that they killed the business.  Trucks took over.  Who knows, maybe the circle will come full circle again with these fuel costs.

[SwampDonkey]

Looks like pulpwood to me also. I wouldn't make fencing out of that crooked stuff, some is even quite small.

[Roxie]

I'm thinking that the weather might have something to do with this.  Remember on the Ax Men that Oregon had the worst storm ever last winter, and there was blow down every where.  Maybe some genius figured to move that wood as firewood to the cold Northeast.  We won't be needing it for a couple months, so a slow train wouldn't make any difference.  It'll catch a purty price come November in this area.