From: Jim Hayes <jimhayes97225@...>
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Lumber Loading
To: STMFC@...
Date: Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 11:06 PM
Greg said
Tom, did you ever get carloads of 1x4 and 1x6x6' fence
boards of California
Incense Cedar in a box? I can still smell those SP boxes
with the "pencil
cedar" smell.

Which brings back memories of boxcar smells. In the Summer
of 1959 (whew,
just under the wire) I worked for a vinegar company in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
One method of shipping vinegar was in cleaned (my job) used
whiskey barrels
which arrived by boxcar. It was mid-Summer and hot and we
had a boxcar to
unload. Wow what a smell. By the time we finished we were
high just on the
fumes.

Jim Hayes
Portland Oregon
www.sunshinekits.com

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 7:27 PM, <tgregmrtn@...>
wrote:

Tom wrote:

Guys,
Although it's past the time frame of this group, I

worked in a wholesale

lumber yard on Florida's west coast during the early

to mid 1970's. I'll

relate some of my experiences based on the type

lumber. First a few givens.

The interior width and length of box cars, the IW is

about 9-2 and the IL is

about 40-6/50-6, plus or minus a few inches. Random

length lumber was not

loaded randomly. It was loaded to fill the width and

length of the car, but

there were still a few inches of space for things to

move. At this time

1x2's and 1x3's were bundled 8 or 10 pieces with

string or tape. 1x12's

would layer 9 wide, 1x10's would layer 11 wide, and so

forth for the other

widths. Lengthwise in a 40 foot car there would be 2

16's and an 8, or 2

12's and a 16, or 2 14's and a 12, or whatever

combination equaled the IL.

The "pick-up-stick mess" was generally the top layers

getting thrown around

by heavy coupling or slack action. The end "lumber

doors" were for lengths

longer than 1/2 the IL plus 1/2 the door width.
1x and 2x Spruce/Pine - We unloaded 3 or 4 40 foot CP

boxcars of this a

week. They would be loaded to about 14 to 18 inches

below the top of the

door. Us "young skinny guys" would have the pleasure

crawling in on top the

lumber to begin the unloading, just make sure you

didn't touch the inside of

the roof during the summer. A 3 or 4 man crew would

take about a day and a

half to complete the unloading.
1x and 2x Redwood - This was usually in a 50 foot

double door SP car, about

1 car every 2 weeks. These were loaded to be unloaded

by forklift, but there

was some hand work to clear out for the forklift. In

good car, 2 men and a

forklift could be done in about 1/2 a day. If the

banding had broken or the

load shifted it became a hand unloading job.
3x and larger Timbers - Most of the time these were 50

foot double door SP

cars set for forklift unloading. Unloading was similar

to the redwood cars.

One memorable load was 1/3 a car of special order

6x12's 24 feet long that

was a hand job.
A few other observations:
We received flat car loads of just about everything

(wrapped and unwrapped)

- 1x and 2x spruce/pine, timbers, scaffold planking.
Between the different lumber, moldings, and other

items, 6-7 cars a week

were normal.
Occasionally while unloading a car you would come to a

layer of craft

paper, at which point you would close the door and

reseal it. Or you would

open one up and there would be a partial load with the

paper on top - LCL.

The "Thrall-door" boxcar was basically a bulkhead flat

car with a roof and

doors.
When moving cars, take some of the slack up on the

hand brake beforehand or

you will not stop before the derail.
You can punch a hole in a car or knock the door off

when trying to

open/close it with a forklift.

Tom Christensen


I find Tom's message amusing as he sounds like he

started in the business

about the same time as mine as I was a junior in High

School when I started

in the business.

I have an old promo booklet somewhere that was put

together by Weyerhaeuser

circa 1964 announcing "YARD PACK" which was showing

that they were

standardizing at least their packaging and the use of

paper wrap for Kiln

Dried Lumber. It does go beyond the scope of this list

so I won't go into

detail, just a note as to perhaps the very beginnings

of the paper wrap era,

not to say they were the first by any means. Paper

wrap in my recollection

was reserved for higher quality lumber what we called

"uppers" i.e. clears,

and common boards in all species.

I actually have a photo of a double door 50-foot GTW

box I will share with

Tim, Dennis and Tom showing the unloading of dimension

lumber by hand and it

dates in the late 40s, perhaps early 50s. I have a

couple of other shots I

will share with them as well.

Tom your notes of the "young Skinny" guys getting the

duties of unloading

the top layers of the car remind me of my first lumber

Boss (when I got to

be an "office guy" and no longer a "yard dog") Del

Windisch who was hired on

at the old Barr Lumber facility in the Wilmington/Long

Beach area after

arriving in the LA area in 1934 and he had the same

duty "top

loader/unloaders" as he was smallish at the time he

hired on.

Dennis is correct for the most part that most

dimensional lumber ended up

in boxcars if for no other reason than its

marketability. Timbers seemed to

be reserved for flats but gondolas as well . Jim

Singer made me a photo copy

of a PRR gondola being loaded with timbers at

Simpson's Shelton, WA facility

(as best I can tell) with a gantry crane on piece at a

time, one layer at a

time. It was a promo photo from the WCLIB.

I suppose I was lucky as the lumber yard I worked for

did most of the

unloading with forklifts, and I was the chosen one to

get the duty of

running the "boxcar special moving the lumber through

the car and handing it

off to a forklift on the ground as we never had a

loading dock, clear the

door, lift the forklift into the car open both doors

so you maneuver in the

car and pray you didn't go out the backside. Broken

bands, well we were

union and the re stacking was done by the Lumber

Handlers not the forklift

drivers on the ground, their time was too valuable. I

wished I had a buck a

thoughts for ever car I had to hand stack and re band.

If you wanted ot

claim the SP for the damage, the agent would come out

and say."improper

bracing and blocking, call the mill guy..." In other

words your screwed...

The early 70s were transition years for open top

loading rules, and only a

few cars still had the "stacks with saplings and wire"

the new rule was

interlaced bands and stacked layers... again that goes

beyond the scope of

this list.

Tom, did you ever get carloads of 1x4 and 1x6x6' fence

boards of California

Incense Cedar in a box? I can still smell those SP

boxes with the "pencil

cedar" smell. And the Redwood, well by the end of the

day your hands were

stained blue after handling the green stock.

By the late 70s the Thrall Door Boxes were somewhat

common but again for

Redwood (LP cars)"uppers" or KD Fir/Larch out of

Bennett Lumber a rare sight

on the SP in Southern California. Centerbeam cars,

well the first one I ever

saw was unloaded at Randle Lumber behind us in

Huntington Beach and by gosh

it went over when they unloaded the wood all off one

side without unloading

the other and of course what was painted on the inside

of the bulkhead a

huge note saying, "unload material evenly from both

sides at the same

time..." Oops!

Greg Martin

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