Pat,

You entered a link for the Athearn RS3 at TrainWorld. I deleted that and entered the text you see, now.

As far as models go, Walthers produced an accurate wood chip car in MP livery several years ago. Athearn’s current release appears to be accurate for an older design car.

Mopac served a number of International Paper mills, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, South Texarkana, Bastrop, Louisiana and Bayou Pierre, Louisiana. So there were lots of the large wood chip hoppers at least around Pine Bluff.

Interesting on the round wood flatcars the engine foreman or conductor was required to know softwood from hard wood. The plant could order so many cars of softwood and the conductor would go out and sort through the yard picking out the right species of wood.

There was only one STCC (Standard Transportation Commidity Code) code for ’round wood ‘ and I tried to get it broken up into two STCCs (hard or soft wood) so the waybills and computer yard blocks could be used to sort the cars but I couldnt get the other railroads to agree.

@Patrick wrote:

who actually loaded those wood racks, after sorting?

The shipper loaded the cars but I seem to remember the railroad would have a car inspector come by and check the width to ensure the logs were within a certain envelope and were secure.