Reply To: Pulpwood and wood chip operations

[peggyrothschild]

Bill
I’m getting much more information from the former sales director that handled IP on three different occasions during his career and have the car management guys involved who handled the car supply and car types. Plus the manager who ran our Shreveport offices when the Payou Pierre mill started up operations. I’m not going to add any additional information here and will prepare a larger article for The Eagle magazine so others can see this research.

Paper Mills on the Missouri Pacific – Circa 1977
International Paper had six paper mills on the Missouri Pacific located in the southeast part of the system. IP never allowed a mill to be served by one railroad and would (wisely) play one carrier against the other. Generally outbound carloads were close to 50/50 but if one carrier shared more of the operating expenses (ie., plant or yard switching) the carload percentage would shift to cover costs. Besides the production of various paper products a byproduct of paper manufacturing was turpentine which the mills shipped out in tank cars during the month. I don’t recall this being a high number of loads – perhaps 1 or 2 a month.

IP used shipper car orders (Car Service Rule 15) for ordering their empties for loading and would not use customer assigned cars from the railroad due to the cost. CSR 15 allowed them to contest demurrage bills due to ‘run around’ claims meaning the switch crew had placed a newly arrived empty railcar into their plant before a previous arrived railcar that had been on ‘constructive placement’ longer. Demurrage was always an ‘active’ subject between IP and Mopac. IP liked having a surplus of cars near so cars would flow back to the nearest classification yards in an agent pool and then be applied to a car order.

Pine Bluff, Arkansas
This mill was served jointly by the MP and SSW. Pine Bluff mill used wood chips and produced xxxx outbound paper products. The mill was switched by both railroads; the Mopac switching the mill on first shift and the Cotton Belt on second shift. Third was rotated between the roads on an as needed basis. To maintain the plant inventory a railroad clerk was assigned to work in the IP offices on site. In 1977 Mopac installed a dedicated railroad computer terminal in the IP traffic manager’s office for car tracing, billing and ordering empties cars which was one of the first in the railroad industry.

Bayou Pierre, Louisiana
The Bayou Pierre was the last mill built on the Mopac with its facility south of Shreveport, Louisiana. Missouri Pacific built a 4 mile lead track from their mainline into the plant. They crossed three bayous between the main and the mill. The station was named Bayou Pierre because that was the last, and largest bayou that they crossed before reaching the mill. The mill was served by the Mopac and KCS with Mopac responsible for the switching. The railroad hauled in wood chips for paper production but logs were brought in by truck. This mill also received inbound boxcars of scrap paper as a fibre source. The KCS would bring cars into a setout track and the Mopac would pull these empty cars and replace with outbound KCS loads. MP built a dedicated rail yard just outside the plant and the mill was served by a TSE that went on duty at Bayou Pierre.

Pineville (Alexandria) , La
Served by the MP and KCS. More information to follow..

South Texarkana, Texas
This mill was served jointly by the Mopac and KCS. Not much else I know as I think IP was trying to close this mill when they opened Bayou Pierre.

Natchez, La
Mopac served this mill via a railcar ferry we operated from Ferriday, La across the river. The Illinois Central also served this mill from the east side of the river. Due to high maintenance costs, the MoPac discontinued operation of the ferry and all traffic to/from the mill was via interchange with the IC.

Bastrop, Louisiana
The Bastrop mill was an older facility and still received round wood (logs) for paper production. It was served by the Mopac and ALM. Interesting the MP engine foreman was required to know what types of wood was in the serving yard as the plant would order either soft or hard wood during the shift. There was nothing on the waybills or switch list to denote this detail so it was up to the various foreman to have this unique knowledge by walking the yard and marking his own list.

Round wood loading
The round wood was loaded on special flatcars with bulkheads on either end. After the cars were loaded by the shipper and before a bill of lading could be tendered a railroad carman would inspect each load to ensure the logs were not outside railroad clearances and were loaded so the wood wouldn’t fall off the cars while in transit. Once the carman signed off the cars could be billed and moved to destination.

More to follow…in The Eagle.
Charlie