[Espee] The Slow Death Of A Boxcar
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Got it!
Thanks!
From: <Espee@groups.io> on behalf of "Doug Debs via Groups.Io" <dougdebs2472@...>
Its sugar cane.
The second photo shows a 4-mule team hitched to an empty wagon, used to haul sugar cane from the field to the portable jib crane loading station. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagasse "Bagasse (/bəˈɡæs/ bə-GAS) is the fibrous matter that remains after sugarcane or sorghum stalks are crushed to extract their juice. It is dry pulpy residue left after the extraction of juice from sugar cane. Bagasse is used as a biofuel and in the manufacture of pulp and building materials." Bagasse, on the other hand, was generated at the sugar mill. In this era, the mill boilers used all or almost all of the bagasse as fuel. Burning bagasse doesn't generate much heat (low BTUs per lb, especially if still wet), but it was what they had in abundance at no cost... except for the semi-unskilled labor needed to dry the bagasse, move it to the furnace firing floor, fire the boilers, and remove the ash afterwards. But labor was very cheap in that era. Special chain-grate stokers were developed to handle the large quantities of low-BTU bagasse used by sugar mill boilers.
Bagasse looks looks different than cane:
- Doug Debs
From: BRIAN PAUL EHNI <bpehni@...>
Cane or bagesse?
Thanks!
From: <Espee@groups.io> on behalf of Bob Chaparro <chiefbobbb@...>
This almost certainly was the last "assigned service" for T&NO 35247. Its glory days were long gone. The photos are from the Library of Congress. Loading sugarcane into boxcars near Delcambre, Louisiana, 1938: Bob Chaparro Hemet, CA
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Alex Huff
The bagasse that wasn't used as boiler fuel was shipped by rail after being baled into cubes roughly three feet on a side. In Louisiana, the destination was a Johns-Manville plant in Harvey, LA, a suburb of New Orleans. The plant converted the bagasse after grinding it into a rough cardboard like product under the brand name Celotex. It was used as interior paneling for both walls and ceilings. The rail move was in gons that were on their last legs, sprung sidewalls and end walls due to overloading and not uncommon were gons with bowed centersills from being grossly overloaded. My first job on a Class I railroad was switching the Johns-Manville plant in 1973.
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Schuyler Larrabee
Oh, so THAT is what that crap was made from. Pardon my French, but if used as paneling in a humid environment, the building could never get dried out again. Worked as a sponge quite well . . .
Schuyler
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Alex Huff
The bagasse that wasn't used as boiler fuel was shipped by rail after being baled into cubes roughly three feet on a side. In Louisiana, the destination was a Johns-Manville plant in Harvey, LA, a suburb of New Orleans. The plant converted the bagasse after grinding it into a rough cardboard like product under the brand name Celotex. It was used as interior paneling for both walls and ceilings. The rail move was in gons that were on their last legs, sprung sidewalls and end walls due to overloading and not uncommon were gons with bowed centersills from being grossly overloaded. My first job on a Class I railroad was switching the Johns-Manville plant in 1973. |
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