Newsprint car

[sirenwerks]

I haven't been keeping up with the conversation here recently but did a quick search and came up with nada so... has anyone seen the True Line ad on the bottom of page 13 in the June MR? The one featuring their first N scale release, an N scale version of their HO 50' newsprint car? Is this news, or am I late to the party?

[ljudice]

Wow!

[Puddington]

Haven't seen June MR but this is news to me - True Line are a different bunch - I thought they'd given up on n scale after the RS 10-18's.... Hope it's ture.

[Walkercolt]

Don't newsprint cars get that icky black ink on your fingers? ???

[ljudice]

Maybe, but one day I was railfanning down the road when Conrail SEAL (Selkirk - Allentown) rolled by. A boxcar had a door open and two rolls of newsprint, which weigh like a ton were dangling out the side.

I called the CR Police - and reported the problem and location, noting it was on the SEAL train going west through Jutland, NJ.  The person on the other end proceded to first claim there was no such place and then started asking questions about how I knew the train symbol. Then they hung up on me.

Understand I listen to scanners a lot - and on several 911 calls on the road regarding accidents, I've been asked by police dispatchers "what police department are you with".

Nevertheless, I never bothered to call the CR police again! Then again maybe I should have said "I just saw a train thingy go past with a big roll of toilet paper hanging out of the caboose - I don't know what direction he was going and I'm not sure where I am - I think I'm near New Jersey??"


 

[Puddington]

I work in the paper industry and I can tell you first hand that there is nothing like watching a 7000 lb roll of containerboard come blasting out of the back of a trailer on  major highway and go rolling down the road, all the while unspooling and causing utter and complete destruction.....

There are two types of loading for paper - butt loading and bilge loading. Butt loading is safer as the rolls are stood on end - this is far safer but it is less space efficent than bilge loading. Bilge loading allows the shipper to load rolls on their sides - usually a boxcar is load with a first layer of rolls on the butt and then a second layer is loaded on their sides; or on the bilge on top. This is common with containerboard as opposed to newsprint - containerboard rolls are ordered in larger widths (up to 110") as opposed to most common newsprint applications. Normally you can't get two containerboard rolls to stack when on the butt and fit into a boxcar or trailer. The bilge rolls are supposed to be wedged with wooden shims to help stop their rolling action... I said normally; sometimes this isn't done very well and you get a significant amount of transit damage - especially to the core of the roll, it can crush making the roll useless unless re-wound onto a new core.

I've unloaded bilge loads and I can tell you I found it very frightening to watch a roll start to move towards me as I pull the one in front away. But the space savings is significant.

[sirenwerks]

Puddington,

what's the diameter on those containerboard rolls and, when they bilge load, do they load so the rolls would roll end-to-end or side-to-side (if they could roll, I assume they're restrained so they can't)? They use the forklifts with a lance to load/unload these, right?

[Puddington]

In North America the standard diameter of a containerboard roll is 58" - heavier grades of linerboard such as bleached clay coated might be wound to 54" due to weight - rolls that exceed 7,000 lb cause problems for some lighter clamp trucks. There are two basic types of containerboard - linerboard which is used for the facings and corrugating medium which is a porous sheet used to form the fluted center of corrugated board. Most mills specialize in either linerboard or medium although there are a number that have multiple machines and make both.

Most mills and boxplants use a clamp truck not a lance to load and unload. usually the roll clamp truck can handle virtually any roll shipped, but the height they might want to stack the rolls might be limited ( we store some corrugating medium four rolls high, coated linerboard might only get stacked 2 high due to weight) Bilge rolls are loaded such that their cores are facing the doors.

Roll paper is very fragile - shunting and humping can damage the core of a poorly loaded roll of paper - rolls need to be wedged and doors need to be blocked and wedged to avoid any meovement of the load. Mats are sometimes used under the rols to increase the friction and help avoid slippage. cars must be clean and free of sharp edges and foreign objects. Even a small "ding" or rip will cause many inches of a roll to have to be "slabbed" off - if the sheet is torn on a side it won't run on a corrugator without tearing and causing serious downtime and/or damage. Paper hates water - "leakers" are a huge issue.  Paper is expensive too; currently linerboard is over $ 400.00 ton, thus each roll is over $ 1,000.00. A full boxcar might be worth over 50 K depending on the grade of paper being hauled.

Roll width is a highly variable issue. The largest corrugators in North America are 110" wide, thus 110" paper would be the maximum used. 87" and 98" are the other industry standard widths. That said, you use a wide variation of roll widths to minimize waste off the corrugator and to "trim" the mill. So a boxcar full of 20 odd rolls might well contain several basis weights and several sizes; depending on the mill source and the needs of the boxplants.

More and more mills ship to centralized warehouse in major centers and then distribute to boxplant in a JIT format the rolls they need for immediate production, so depending on your era you may have direct full car shipments from a mill to converter or you might have bulk shipments to a warehouse for cross docking.

Major paper companies own their own mills and converting plants (International Paper; Georgia Pacific; Packaging Corp of America; Smurfit Stone; Rock Tenn; Norampac etc..) and these are called intergreted companies. These companies "trade" paper - that is to say that company X might have a mill on the east coast while company Y has a mill in the mid west. Both produce containerboard. They make an arrangement to supply each others needs for a specific grade or grades that their mills make and ship to the other companies plants near those mills. At then end of a specific period of time they review the "switch arranegemtn or trade, even up the number of tons and then re-negotiate the arrangement on capacity and need. This does two things - it reduces the number of grades a mill has to run and it reduces shipping costs. Thus it is not uncommon to see your compeditor's railcars; trucks and roll labels in your own plants. Non intergrated companies buy paper on the "spot market" and they will have a wider range of different sources of supply.

With regard to tonnage produced; there are a number of variables ( machine capabilities, basis weight/grade being produced, type of furnish, etc...) but here's an example of one of our mills shipments.

- 2 paper machines - average daily production = 1,800 short tons/day
- Average 42 lb linerboard roll = 2.2 tons = @ 800 rolls per day. (various sizes etc....)
- 50' "paper hauling box car" capacity = 40 rolls (this is highly dependant upon basis weight of a roll - example 90 lb linerboard roll might weigh 4000 lb while a 26 lb roll might weigh 6000 lb at the same size and diameter - this is because the amount fo fibre in each roll)
- Therefore if the mill ships exclusively by rail it would need over 20 cars a day to move it's production.
- Mills usually have room for about 72-96 hours production on their floor ( some newer mills have more) so they need rail car delivery or they have to eventually shut down for lack of room. They will "mix and match" each car based on it's destination and the orders from that client - it may be a mixture of inventory and "make and ship" paper....

Wow..... talk about a "paper nerd"... sorry, just got going and didn't stop to take a breath......

[3rdrail]

Interesting, Puddington, because I was the General Traffic Manager of St. Joe Forest Products, a linerboard mill, from 1984 to 1996, and Director, Marketing & Sales and similar titles for its railroad, the Apalachicola Northern from 1981 to 1999. St. Joe Paper company sold the mill to Florida Coast Paper Company in 1996 and it ended production in 1998. The railroad continues to be owned by the St. Joe Co. but is leased to Genessee & Wyoming Industries.

One experience we had put the lie to the fragility of linerboard, though. The AN had a derailment in which one carload of linerboard slid down an embankment on its side and lay there for almost a year before we attempted to salvage it. It was picked up by our American crane and brought back to St. Joe, where it was placed in the No. 1 warehouse, which had been replaced by the No. 2 for regular loading. Believe it or not, well over half the rolls in the car were undamaged! More merely required rewinding on a new core.

The mill was a moneymaker, but the box plants managed to lose most of the mill's profits...So St. Joe decided to develop its real estate,  and is now hurting badly.

[Chris333]

I work at a newspaper. We used to receive paper rolls by rail, now we use trucks. The rolls are 50" wide and "roll" right off the truck once you pry up a 2x4 nailed to the floor. We roll them off the truck and into a special elevator that lowers them to the basement. The thing is the rolls are stacked on top of each other. So once you roll out the first one, the second roll falls down. We roll the first one out as slow as possible and the second roll will fall as softly as we can. The rolls are 2200-2500lbs each.

Later this year the press will be cut down so the rolls will then only be 48" or 46" wide. The press is 4 pages wide so a 46" roll would make the paper 1" narrower than a 50" roll. It costs about $750,000 to cut the press down, but they make that money back quickly since paper is sold by the pound.

Sometimes they want to put the paper in a big garage we have. So the rolls get pushed the back of the truck and the tow motor "grabs" them. Yes there have been a few times the rolls rolled right off the truck falling 4' down and kept rolling down the street  :

Steve (SAH) has some photos of Conrail dropping off newsprint boxcars at the old Erie freight station across the street from us.
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o235/SAHRR/CR8002xxWarrenOatFrtStac.jpg

[Chris333]

Gregg, We have bought paper that was in a train wreck before. I believe they buy it from brokers by the load so we take what we get. A few of those rolls only lasted a couple minutes on the press because they vibrated so bad, but I'd say most of the rolls ran. If left in the motor housing that rotates the roll reels will crack and send about 70,000lbs swinging. The motor and housing is $50,000 to replace. Management buys the paper ($$$), if it's bad they tells us to run in anyways. Then they question why these expensive motors need replaced. Instead of just being lucky no one was killed!

Now if it was brand new prime paper from a mill and even one roll had a small nick in it we would sometimes refuse the whole shipment. We rarely buy prime paper now a days.

[Puddington]

"Thank goodness for re-winders eh "? We re-wind a fair bit of paper, either due to core damage or after slitting for size - at $ 300.00 per roll, I think I should buy a slitter-re-winder !

The ecconomics of the intergrated is a matter of great and endless discussion... if you're mill driven you can take the profit at the mill end; trim the mill, run the grades that are sweet and then shove the paper down the boxplant's throat. Mills make out well and the boxplants will lose. If you are conversion driven boxplants must compete and live or die at market price; they don't have to take paper they don't want and then some will live and some will die. It's a complicated chain....I've worked in both situations, netiher is perfect.

I've seen paper survive a fall from the third level onto concrete and have no damage - I've seen a boxcar of squished tubes that were once containerboard.... linerboard is like a box of chocolates Forest.....ya just never know...

PS: I ran some St. Joe board at a TAPPI trial at Stone in Jacksonville in 92 I think.... not too bad at all !

[DKS]

Wow..... talk about a "paper nerd"... sorry, just got going and didn't stop to take a breath......

Golly, don't apologize--I was completely sucked into the whole conversation. I think perhaps it might be useful to have a section at Railwire devoted to detailed accounts of industry operations from insiders' perspectives. Kind of like Proto Photos but geared to detailed operations instead, like Proto Ops. It could be a big help for modelers looking to model industries who would like to learn more than just the basic "empties in/loads out" stuff.

Please, keep it up!

[Ryan87]

Wow..... talk about a "paper nerd"... sorry, just got going and didn't stop to take a breath......

Golly, don't apologize--I was completely sucked into the whole conversation. I think perhaps it might be useful to have a section at Railwire devoted to detailed accounts of industry operations from insiders' perspectives. Kind of like Proto Photos but geared to detailed operations instead, like Proto Ops. It could be a big help for modelers looking to model industries who would like to learn more than just the basic "empties in/loads out" stuff.

Please, keep it up!

Yes... what he said. 

[Puddington]

The True Line rumour is indeed true.....



TrueLine Trains

Canadian Release
50ft Newsprint Cars

600000 CNR Flush Plug door, brown car, white lettering 6car Assortment
600001 CNR Flush Plug door, brown car, white lettering #1
600002 CNR Flush Plug door, brown car, white lettering #2
600003 CNR Flush Plug door, brown car, white lettering #3
600004 CNR Flush Plug door, brown car, white lettering #4
600005 CNR Flush Plug door, brown car, white lettering #5
600006 CNR Flush Plug door, brown car, white lettering #6

600007 DW&P Recessed Plug door, brown car, white lettering 6car Assortment
600008 DW&P Recessed Plug door, brown car, white lettering #1
600009 DW&P Recessed Plug door, brown car, white lettering #2
600010 DW&P Recessed Plug door, brown car, white lettering #3
600011 DW&P Recessed Plug door, brown car, white lettering #4
600012 DW&P Recessed Plug door, brown car, white lettering #5
600013 DW&P Recessed Plug door, brown car, white lettering #6

600014 CP Flush Plug door, green car, white lettering 6car Assortment
600015 CP Flush Plug door, green car, white lettering #1
600016 CP Flush Plug door, green car, white lettering #2
600017 CP Flush Plug door, green car, white lettering #3
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600020 CP Flush Plug door, green car, white lettering #6

600021 CV Recessed Yellow Plug door, brown car, white lettering 6car Assortment
600022 CV Recessed Yellow Plug door, brown car, white lettering #1
600023 CV Recessed Yellow Plug door, brown car, white lettering #2
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600026 CV Recessed Yellow Plug door, brown car, white lettering #5
600027 CV Recessed Yellow Plug door, brown car, white lettering #6

600028 BC Recessed Plug door, dark green car, white lettering 6car Assortment
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600033 BC Recessed Plug door, dark green car, white lettering #5
600034 BC Recessed Plug door, dark green car, white lettering #6

600035 Boise Recessed Plug door, white stripe, black lettering 6car Assortment
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600037 Boise Recessed Plug door, white stripe, black lettering #2
600038 Boise Recessed Plug door, white stripe, black lettering #3
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600040 Boise Recessed Plug door, white stripe, black lettering #5
600041 Boise Recessed Plug door, white stripe, black lettering #6

MSRP $29.95 CDN /car
Due Late 2008


This is off the Credit valley Railway Compnay website

http://www.cvrco.com/whatscoming-n.htm