Our club was invited to see a real rotary tipple here at the Evergreen Paper Co in Canton NC about 20 miles west of Asheville. The plant started in 1908 and still has the original 175' tower in place. It is just this year being taken down in lieu of two new taller ones. The mill buys wood from a 200 mile radius and produces milk cartons and similar containers as well as paper. They produce 60% of their own power and the rest they buy from Duke Power for $1 Million per month! Quite an operation.
We met there this morning and were given a tour of the rotary operation. You may notice that they have some old SOUTHERN hoppers and that some of them are 'blue' which I must assume were originally black. Unlike Lionel's cars with their rotating couplers, a man has to manually uncouple the car before rotation. It was quite interesting to watch from inside the operators block house.
Enjoy these photos I caught earlier.