Modeling a Paper Mill - Part 2 Operations

This is the 2nd part of my paper mill discussion, and I have tried to explain the thoughts that went into designing the mill and more importantly the amount of traffic it could generate and handle.  You may not realize it, but a paper mill makes a great central industry on a layout. The mill gets inbound shipments of chips from lumber mills, chemicals from everywhere, and ships out boxcars of paper (and trailers for the intermodal trains) to all kinds of satellite industries such as paper converters (cut rolls of paper into various size sheets for copiers, notebooks, ect.), corrugated box plants, newspapers, and printers.  Therefore, rail transportation includes:

• Raw logs to a mill from a log reload offline
• Chips from the lumber mill to the paper mill
• Various types of chemicals from multi-sources that are used in the paper manufacturing process
• Paper from the papermill to a paper converter
• Various chemical by-products which are shipped to numerous types of industries for their own use
• Paper sheets from the converter to a printer
• Coal and other products brought in for power generation

Let me first say that I firmly subscribe to the thought that building a layout by following what the prototype has done is the simplest and most realistic way of achieving your goal. My first mill track plan had some crossover and other trackage that just didn't seem realistic, mostly because it wasn't following what the prototype did.  So it was back to the drawing board.

During the summer of 2001, I had the opportunity to take the family for a trip on the short-lived Timber Train excursion.  Started by the Mattawa Temiscaming Excursion Co., the train was intended to shuttle tourists between Mattawa and Temiscaming, Que. for the day.  The Timber Train used the existing Ottawa Valley RaiLink line, and RaiLink provided the power.  During the stop in Temiscaming, you had the opportunity to walk and shop around the town, or go on a informative tour of the paper mill. Unfortunately, the 7.5 hour journey through the scenery of Ontario and Quebec ultimately did not survive.  When the Timber Train went belly-up, the Adirondack Scenic RR picked up all or most of their cars at bargain-basement prices.  Engines went back into RaiLink service.  But for me, the tour of the paper mill was very much worth the entire trip. Informative from both how paper and pulp is made, but also informative from a railroad operations standpoint.  No wonder the train staff was looking at me kinda funny as the train was entering the mill.  I was the only one at the window trying to photograph every building and track in front of me.  Ultimately armed with knowledge gained from trip as well as observing the other mills I discussed in Part 1, I would pattern the Spruce Creek Pulp & Paper mill after these operations as much as I could.

So let's start with a discussion with what the Spruce Creek plant produces and how it actually is made from the various raw materials which are needed. Similar to the Temiscaming mill, I modeled operations to include three main mills that manufacture different forest products, including specialty cellulose, high-yield-pulp and coated bleached board (containerboard) as well as a chemical products facility.   The chemical products division produces a variety of products made from spent sulphite liquor (primarily alcohol, resin or lignin based).  

Tembec's Temiscaming, PQ operation

Temiscaming - Chemical Division in background; bark & chip storage buildings in foreground

Temiscaming Specialty Cellulose Mill

It goes without saying that modeling four operating plants takes up a large amount of space, which typically is not available with a model railroad regardless of which scale you're modeling.  However, I have used photos from the Kapuskasing and Temiscaming mills as backdrop, which is how I incorporate each of the mills.    

As I mentioned in Part 1, my Spruce Creek Pulp and Paper Mill is located on two 2’ by 6’ modules in the center of the room.  Starting from the left side, my buildings include a power plant, the pulp mill, alcohol plant, acid building, kaolin building, specialty cellulose mill, board mill and the warehouse.

High Yield Pulp - the pulp mill is a manufacturing facility that converts wood chips or other plant fibre source into a thick fibre board which can be shipped to a paper mill for further processing. Pulp can be manufactured using mechanical, semi-chemical or fully chemical methods (kraft and sulfite processes). The finished product may be either bleached or non-bleached, depending on the customer requirements.  In our mill, kraft pulp is produced using softwood pulp, while the "B" mill can produce either softwood or hardwood pulp.  Similar to the Boardmill, final products are shipped via both rail and truck.  The Kraft mill also produces large amounts of lignin liquor, a byproduct of the digestion process. This material can be shipped out in tankers, dried, or fed to other bacterias to make yeast.  The Kraft mill also uses other chemicals such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) and sulfuric acid. Kaolin (slurry form) is brought in to make glossy paper. Kaolin is often supplemented by calcium carbonate (lime) slurry and titanium dioxide.

The Chemical plant consists of products which are made from the spent sulphite liquor generated within the facility.  The plant can be divided into an alcohol division, resin division and lignin division.  Most of this operation takes place within numerous tanks situated within three central buildings.  Due to their relative size, I chose to model only the fronts of the buildings and blended the building into the photo backdrop.

Refined from wood pulp, specialty cellulose is used in a range of applications across many industries – cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, personal care, food, coatings, electronics and energy.  Specialty cellulose is manufactured in both rolls and bales.  Similar to the chemical plant, this area was modeled using only the front of the building set against the photo backdrop.

The Boardmill Division produces high quality paper and manufactures newsprint for publishers of daily newspapers and commercial printers, as well as controlled bulk paper for mass-market paperback book publishers and commercial printers.  Coated bleach board is a product used for a broad range of commercial printing, publishing and packaging applications.  Newsprint production uses wood fibre obtained from four separate sources, including thermomechanical pulp (TMP), recycled pulp, groundwood pulp and kraft pulp. 

Part 3 will look at the rail operations inside the mill.

Modelling a Paper Mill – Part 1 Origin of the Spruce Creek Pulp & Paper Mill

One of the key features on the layout is the Spruce Creek Pulp and Paper Mill, located on two 2’ by 6’ modules in the center of the room.  The mill was modeled after several mills located in northern Ontario, including the mills at Kapuskasing, Smooth Rock Falls, Iroquois Falls and the Tembec mill at Temiscaming, Quebec.  While each of these mills offers unique aspects to model, they also have several common themes, including rail access, locations along a major water source, multiple ages of buildings and general building architecture.  Several of them have operated with their own switcher engine, which shuttled empty and full loads between the mill and nearby storage tracks.  It was this particular aspect that was of primary importance and I wanted to include in my paper mill complex.  Therefore, observers will quickly find that switching power for the Spruce Creek plant consists of both an Alco S13, patterned after the Spruce Falls 108 and the newer GMD GP7 Mattagami 168 (ex ACR 168).  Both units may still be found in Kapuskasing, although as of 2017, neither unit is active and sits on the mill property in pieces or in the weeds.

What’s in a Name 

One of the first and toughest decisions was what to name the paper mill, since it would be a major feature of the railway.  I had no intent of modelling a town to go along with it, but I wanted to recognize local features of the area, yet at the same time create a fictional area that was in keeping with other local town names.  I ultimately chose Spruce Creek Pulp & Paper as my fictional paper mill and town.  Spruce was chosen based on the varieties of spruce found as predominant trees in northern Ontario.  While I wanted to add a waterway feature to the name, "Falls" was already done and it basically came down to whether the second part of the name would be river or creek. For no real reason, creek won.

Like many layouts and modelers, I borrowed certain aspects of each of the mills to form my own.  I wanted a fairly heavy and diverse amount of traffic, so the choice to model both a paper and pulp mill became obvious.  I was also lucky enough to have toured several of the mills, so I was able to incorporate some of the aspects I had seen on these tours into my layout.  And lastly, I had to compress as much of the mills that I had seen into a small, finite space on the layout. I knew that certain buildings would have to be scratch built, while others could come from kitbashing or using straight builds from existing kit structures.  I also wanted to use photo backdrops of the mills into my scenery.  Certain large areas such as chip unloading would not be possible, due to size restrictions, while at the same time maximizing the amount of trackage was key.

So let's take a quick look at some history for the area.

 

History of Local Mills

Kapuskasing (Spruce Falls Company) - the timber limits around Kapuskasing were sold to Kimberly-Clark in 1920. The new Spruce Falls Company Ltd. began the development of the first pulp mill in Kapuskasing under the direction of F.J. Sensenbrenner, a Vice President of Kimberly Clark Corporation for the next 20 years. The small sulphite mill started up in late 1922 with four 12-ton digesters and a daily output of 75 tons of pulp. Spent liquor was discharged untreated into the Kapuskasing River.  In 1923, a water storage and hydro electric dam was built by Morrow and Beatty Ltd. of Peterborough at Spruce Falls. In 1925, the Spruce Falls Company Limited was awarded additional timber limits to the north and south, bringing their total limits up to 11,830 square kilometers (4,570 sq mi).  In 1926, the Spruce Falls Power and Paper Company was incorporated under joint ownership of Kimberly-Clark and The New York Times. The new company negotiated two additional hydro power leases to the north on the Mattagami River at Smoky Falls and Devils Rapids. Work to build a 550 ton/day paper mill at Kapuskasing, a 75,000 HP hydro generating station at Smoky Falls and a 80 kilometers (50 mi) railway and power line connecting the two got underway in the spring of 1926. The contractor for the entire project was Morrow and Beatty Ltd. of Peterborough.  Since July 13, 1928, The New York Times has been printed entirely on Spruce Falls paper. The mill has run continuously ever since.

Tembec's mill at Kapuskasing (2017)

Smooth Rock Falls (Tembec) - the town of Smooth Rock Falls lies on the Mattagami River and on Highway 11, between Cochrane and Kapuskasing.  The Smooth Rock Falls economy was dominated by the Tembec Malette pulp mill, which unfortunately was closed on December 5, 2006.  The pulp mill was subsequently dismantled and demolished, leaving nothing but an empty field and some vague hopes for redevelopment.   

Smooth Rock Falls - photo courtesy Mike Robin and onrgallery.com

Iroquois Falls (Abitibi) – Iroquois Falls lies on the banks of the Abitibi River, west of Lake Abitibi and approximately 40 miles northeast of Timmins.  Iroquois Falls' primary industry was a large mill producing newsprint and commercial printing papers.  The paper mill, then called Abitibi-Price, merged with Stone-Consolidated, and then with Donohue Forest Products, and finally with Bowater to create Abitbi-Bowater. On 17 April 2009, Abitibi-Bowater sought bankruptcy protection, emerging from it as Resolute Forest Products. Five years later, Resolute announced its permanent closure.  As of 2017, the buildings housing the paper machine and other structures are in the stages of demolition, although the engine house still stands.

Iroquois Falls - photo courtesy Mike Robin and onrgallery.com

Temiscaming (Tembec) – the southernmost of the mills actually resides in Quebec, located at the south end of Lac Témiscamingue on the upper Ottawa River.  The area experienced major growth when the Riordon Pulp and Paper Company built the Kipawa Mills pulp and paper mill there in 1918.  The Canadian International Paper Company, bought out the Riordon Company in 1925.  In 1972, when the company decided to close the mill, the employees formed Tembec to take over the operation of the mill. The mill produces chemical products, specialty cellulose, boardmill and high yield pulp. Unfortunately, the Temiscaming mill is located across the river and rail operations are difficult to photograph with all of the trees along the rivers edge.

Temiscaming mill

Monday - still heading home

OK I wasn't going to post the pics from Monday, as we woke up to totally overcast and dark skies. However,  someone on FB requested that I post them, so here they are.  The rain held off while we were in Englehart, but just after leaving and getting ready to photograph 214, it really started to rain and got even darker.

Power for today's SB 214, ONR 1733 and 1730; a decent lashup. Now if that rain would only hold off

Maybe this is the power for the SB train...not to be

Northbound  coming into Englehart with 2103 leading.

Earlton - OK it's dark, rainy and railfanning is over for the day. 

Sunday - Time to head our separate ways

Sunday morning starts with breakfast at the nearby Husky station and then it's time to pack the cars and head back to our respective homes.  It was great seeing everyone again and I look forward to the next convention, which Peter plans to announce and share some details in the coming weeks/months as things firm up.

So while no trains were moving in Hearst, Mike had provided us information that the ditcher would again be working the Kapuskasing Sub, and we were able to find it watering down the loads just outside of Val Rita before heading to its next location to dump some ballast.

ONR 1802 leaving Val Rita and headed for Hearst with fresh ballast.

Adding ballast and watering the loads at Val Rita.

After leaving the ditcher, we were once again headed for Kap, as we knew that 313 had been called for 1100 out of Cochrane and would be making it's way towards us.

#313 crossing the Buskegau River ? outside of Hunta

After shooting the 313, it was time for another quick refueling stop for some lunch and then we were headed south again, our destination for today being a room in Englehart.  We wanted to check out the condition of the former paper plant at Iroquois Falls.  After approximately a years worth of work, this is what it looks like. Paper machine rollers scattered about and lots of concrete and steel rubble.

Former paper mill at Iroquois Falls

Abandoned engine house (tracks were on the other side)

Note rollers and other parts of the paper machine in the right side of photo

Arrival in Englehart late in the afternoon and no power visible in the Yard.

Monday saw the three of us leaving Englehart and chasing the SB 214 freight towards North Bay.  However, the weather didn't want to cooperate and the skies opened up, so after some quick shots at Earlton, we headed the Prius southward.  Arrival in Mentor at about 1045 and Vermilion 0000.  So a long week of driving and shooting trains, but well worth it and it was great to hand out with everyone for a few days.

Saturday Convention Activities

Saturday sees the convention attendees getting up and heading to Kap for a tour of the paper mill.  Great tour, however, they did ask that we restrict the amount of photos and not post photos from inside the mill to the web.  Therefore in order to abide by this request, I have only posted photos of the rail power and views from the public streets.

Blue skies and a nice sunrise are always a good start. Some foreign power arrived in the middle of the night.

Some MOW action outside of Hearst

Tembec paper mill main gate at Kapuskasing

Ex-ONR 1600, now a leased unit serving the mill

#168 sitting out in the weeds

Old Spruce Falls switcher #108 in the shops

Sunset in Hearst

Demonstrating the latest in railfan technology, Mike gets his drone ready for a demo flight in the parking lot of the motel

After a sunset flight over the Hearst mill, master drone operator Mike Robins readies his drone for landing.

Visit to the Hearst Sawmill museum and interesting discussion of history and transportation politics in the north with our hosts.

Friday Convention Posting

2017 Hearst Convention - Officially Day 1

Waking up to a cloudy day that turns quickly into a great sunrise

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Tour of the Cochrane shops

Otter Rapids dome car

Re-building passenger car 650

Passenger car 650 interior

Engines 1603 and 1601

General view of the shop floor

Ever wonder what it takes to keep the maintenance are clean?

After returning to Hearst for dinner, the group got together for a presentation by Bram Bailey and discussion of some group business.  Bram's presentation was about railfanning in cottage country and showed a progression through time of various locations on the ONR, CPR and CN.  Bill Woods also brought some fantastic models that he has built, including the canoe car and a wood chip hopper.  There were several more but these were the only ones I got photos of.  Thanks for sharing Bill.

ONR Convention 2017 - Thursday

After arriving in Englehart yesterday, our plans were to railfan our way to Hearst, arriving just before the dinner with other convention attendees.  So were up early enough to catch the morning lineup, and meet with Peter Ross as he stopped by the station.  Our plan was to see what was moving in Englehart, and get to Cochrane in time to catch the 313 departing for Hearst.

Bill Woods, Bram Bailey and Peter Ross checking out the action in Englehart

Train 214 - departing 0900 for North Bay

The chase begins as 313 departs approximately 1130 for Hearst.  Some quick planning and were off.

Train 313 leaving Cochrane

While there are several great locations to catch 313, we plan our first for Poplar Rapids. Lots of growth at track level so Bram and I make our way through the brush to catch it close to water level.

#313 across the Poplar Rapids bridge

#313 crossing the Groundhog River bridge at Fauquier

#313 at Moonbeam

A little post production by Bram and we get a true flying saucer pacing the 313.  Those two green guys staring out the lower windows were railfanning as well.

New leased switcher at Tembec's Kapuskasing paper mill; ex-ONR 1600

#313 crossing the Kapuskasing River while switching

#313 departing Kapuskasing

         

Wednesday Activities

Wednesday - ONR Convention T-2 Days

This blog starts the travels of two Ohio railfans and one Niagara Falls fan as we head northward for the 2017 convention.  We start our trip early, let's just say 0-dark early on Wednesday.  Bram departs his Vermilion home at just about 0001 Wednesday and picks me up on the eastern side of Cleveland shortly after 0100. A quick load of the Prius and were headed east towards Buffalo and then Niagara Falls.  Bill Woods joins us at about 0430 from his home in Niagara Falls and we're again headed towards the traffic of Toronto and destinations northward.  Luckily even though the traffic is heavy, we sneak past all of those busy commuters as the Prius hugs the HOV lane and we hit the 400 northward just around 0600.  A quick bite at the McD in Barrie and we're again in the car and headed towards Washago and our first and really only train of the day.  Green light showing at Washago, although very overcast and no real shot to be had between the clouds and the overgrowth.  So we we watch CN 3101, a long stack train, rumble through on its way southward before we're back and heading north on Rt. 11.

A bit of a stop at Bracebridge for Bram to shoot some of the downtown businesses, the location of the old station and and old industry location.  All are for reference purposes and Bram will be glad to tell all of his new expansion plans for the layout.

Another stop at the former CP station and now hobby store in North Bay to admire all of the products on display before we make a quick lunch stop and head towards Englehart.   Of course, another stop is needed in Temagami to check out the station and art display that's on hand.  Unfortunately the Bee appears to be permanently closed, so it's a good thing we grabbed lunch in North Bay.

Unfortunately our arrival in Englehart by mid-afternoon sees us finding no trains or action.  However, the 701 steam engine is looking fantastic since the last time I saw her, complete with new paint job. After walking around and shooting some photos of log cars, we find an ONR employee who tells us that the Rouyn-Norando train should be headed back later in the afternoon.  So we adapt and check into the motel and grab some Subway before heading to Kirkwood Lake and a previously done photo stop just at the Ontario-Quebec line.  After 90 minutes of so of battling the deer flies and lengthening shadows, we decide to call it and head back.  A check of our string marker near the crossing by the hospital confirms that somehow we missed that train.  It's been a long day, so we head back to the motel and shut-eye.  Hopefully tomorrow will see us finding some rail action.

2017 ONRH&TS Convention Preview

Follow along as the guys from Ohio (plus one Niagara Falls attendee) make the trek to northern Ontario and this years version of the ONRH&TS convention.  This blog will try to keep a running tab on railfanning and convention activities as we go through the week.

The Bailey Prius mobile departs Vermilion at 0001 dark Wednesday and travels eastward to pick me up around 0130 before we head towards the Peace Bridge and hopefully reach Toronto early enough to avoid the daily traffic snarls.  Along the way we will add Bill Woods in Niagara Falls to our Prius seating and depending on what is moving, probably will spend the night in Englehart.  A side trip to Bracebridge along the way may be in order if the weather cooperates, as Bram would like to get some building shots for a potential expansion project to the layout.  But I'l let Bram fill you in on those plans at the convention.  On Thursday we plan to chase our way to Hearst, making our arrival in time for the group dinner.

Current plans are:

Friday - tour the Cochrane shops
Satursday - tour the paper mill at Kap
Sunday/Monday - travel day home (although the OH car will be railfanning along the way so it takes us two days to get back)

So stay tuned to this blog for updates and some photos.  Photo bag is packed and batteries charged.  Extra radio is also in the bag and ready to catch some ONR action.  The weather forecast looks good and I'm really looking forward to touring the paper mill and maybe getting some new ideas so that I can finish my own paper mill modeling project.

Passenger Service comes to the KLR

I have thought about adding an RDC to the KLR ever since they were first introduced by Rapido.  But I held to my original thought that the KLR was simply too small a railroad to have need of such equipment.  Well several weeks ago, after running on Bram Bailey's Ontario Central, I decided that I also needed at least one RDC.  Bram has three OCR units running on a regular passenger train route, and those Rapido's just run so nicely that after hearing them spool up to speed, I was hooked.

RDC 9051 picks up passengers at the Peterborough station.

After some Internet searching, I found someone in Indiana (of all places) selling a CP Rail RDC-1 at a decent price. The treasury of the KLR was able to come up with the money and the purchase was made.  The unit arrived this week, and after a little break-in session and some tweaking of the DCC system, everything was working and the RDC has been placed into service.  I'm still working on the details of its service, but for now it's going to function similar to what some of the RDCs used in British Columbia were used for.  That is the transport of school children and workers.  So until more details are worked through, the RDC will run in the early morning and late afternoon to transport everyone to Pembroke.  These will be whistle stops and all are welcome to flag down the unit for pickup.

RDC 9051 begins to pass over Eels Creek on it's way to Pembroke