Mt. Union, PA, Pennsy Tie Plant

There is a Tie Plant down the road about a mile from me in Falls Creek Pa and thats all you can smell at night all summer long.

I believe on of the Triumph PRR books may have a picture of it.

Hmmm..from what I am reading about creosote plants, and I don't THINK they are

still using creosote, but I want to build a historical model, living close enough to smell

it was too close, in places like St. Louis Park, Minn.  I see Falls Creek is just off I-80

in north central Pa., not an area I have been through but once, usually driving the

Turnpike past Carlisle and the site of today's bus accident.  I will have to root through

some Pennsy books to see what I can find....there are photos of creosote plants on the net, but just of parts, such as single buildings, with no overall view or sense of cohesion.... 

Im going to try and show a picture of the Falls Creek Plant not sure if this will work?

The UP had one in Laramie I think. The UP historical society did a big article on it in their magazine The Streamliner. You might see if you can find it.

My father was in charge of the PRR's Mt. Union creosote plant from about 1950 until it was closed about 1960.  There is an article about the plant in the August 1953 issue of the Pennsy, the magazine for Pennsy employees. Unfortunately, the only photos I have of the place are those in the article.

One very intriguing feature of the Mt. Union plant was that it was largely a dual guage facility.  Standard railroad tank cars brought the creosote to the plant.  Coal for the boiler came in standard Pennsy hoppers. Ties came in for treatment by either truck or standard railroad gondolas. Treated ties were shipped out in gondolas.  However, in the plant, ties were moved from the green tie stacks to the plant and out to the black tie stacks on narrow gauge equipment.  As reflected in one of Stauffer's Pennsy Power books, the plant had a narrow gauge steam engine to move the ties around in the plant.  Stauffer does not mention the narrow gauge diesel was in the plant toward the end.  I understood that it came from the Navy.

As I recall, there were only two major buildings in the plant. (There were perhaps, a few sheds on the property.) One was the office, a two story building resembling a switch tower with the second floor windows looking out on the plant.  The other building was the creosote plant. It was a fairly large corrugated metal (as I recall now) that housed the coal-fired boiler and the pumps and piping for heating and handling the creosote.  Another part of that plant was a large horizontal cylinder. One end was a hinged end of cylinder with a bolt arrangement around the circumfirence to seal the end.  Green ties loaded onto cars looking somewhat like skeleton log cars were pushed into the cylinder. A connecting piece of track was removed and the end closed and sealed. Heated creosote was then injected into the cylinder to treat the ties.  After the treatment, the cars were pulled out of the cylinder.

A large self-propelled yellow railroad crane would then stack the treated ties in large stacks.  The MTH American crane is a fair resemblance of the crane, but I do not believe that model is powered.  The crane would unload gondolas and trucks that brought the green, untreated ties to the plant and stack the green ties to age before treatment.  The crane would also take the green ties from the stacks and put them in the cars for treatment.  After treated ties cured a bit, the crane was used to laod them into gondolas.  The crane was also used to move standard railroad gauge cars around.

There was a small pond behind the plant that had narrow gauge track leading to it.  From the color of the water, I would guess it had waste creosote in it. Perhaps some cleaning of the tie cars took place there since the were in the cylinder with the creosote.

I regret that I do not have any pictures of the place or a track plan. But it essentially consisted of stacks of green (untreated) ties; stacks of black (treated ties), the plant, the office and associated trackage.  One standard railroad siding ran alongside the plant for the delivery of coal and creosote.  As I reccall, the firebox for the boiler was below ground level so coal dropped by gravity into the bin for the boiler.

Unfortunately, my father passed away some years ago, so I cannot ask him anything about the plant. 

Andy

Hope these help out :

http://www.shorpy.com/node/7900

http://www.shorpy.com/node/7900?size=_original

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/50486

Jerry

Wow!  Thanks to prrforever1 and baltimore trains for progress....good information! That Santa Fe facility photo shows the retorts in a building and being loaded...first I've seen of that.

(interesting that in all the trackage, narrow gauge, etc., in that facility, not a tie is

showing.. D'you think they laid rail on concrete sleepers?).  Shows ties, poles and trestle/bridge timbers being treated.  Looks like a model will take a LOT of trackage.

I won't go with narrow gauge, but will use two rail trackage, continuing from three

rail, since cars can be pushed into retorts in strings by a small switche.  Logging cars should work....boiler house, office, and retort building should make up a small facility.

Nice pictures, Jerry.

As you can imagine from the photos, the PRR plant in Mt. Union was much smaller and more compact.  It only had one of the cylinders shown in the photo. I guess that is what they are calling the retort.  The one in Mt. Union was in the same building as the boiler.  As I recall the Mt. Union facility, there was almost no hard surface like concrete except for foundations of the office building and boiler/retort building. I do not recall the metal loops over the tops of the tie cars, but they could have been there.I've looked at the photos in the Pennsy again.  The Mt. Union cars had bands - two on each car near the ends.  The bands seem to be double wires that were fastened on one side with hooks and perhaps simply hinged on the other.

The plant had a single tall metal stack and a roof tank for creosote. In the distant shot, it looks like a metal tank.

Andy

PRR, from what I can gather many of the creosote plants are either now Superfund sites or in legal battles over health issues. In Baltimore near where I grew up there was a company on Lombard St. that used to make pilings and pier components and it always smelled like creosote near the plant.

Jerry

Thanks again for more information.  That Mt. Union one with one retort sounds like

what I would want to build.....just a destination for products from my logging/sawmill branch. (as I noted in a post some time ago, there was an HO kit for one made in the

1950's/1960's, but bet it wasn't popular and finding one now to plagiarize......??)  I

am not going to model a specific one, although the Mt. Union one sounds appealing, just free-lance one, but it has to be believable and possible.  As for Superfund, most of the plants I came up with on the net were like old breweries, just vacant lots now, except they had "no trespassing-hazard" signs all around them.

Jerry

Great Video Jerry,, Makes me think. If you would you see todays kids work that way...I am old school if you had to build a railroad with todays younger talent. I wonder how long they would last working in those conditions.. Amazing how saftey has progressed . Those guys earned their pay not doubt..

Redman, got the video from another post today. You're right about the folks today not being able to handle a job like that, they have to carry a bottle of water around with them while they're out walking, they'd need a 50 gallon drum working like this.

At work I have a poster on my office wall that shows a mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion, an astronaut on the Moon saluting the flag, a pair of flip flops and an extension cord with the title of ,

"Guess which 2 OSHA considers as for making a dangerous work environment?"

Whenever OSHA come around they don't particularly care for it! 

Jerry

I found this online

I just found this, really detailed description of the creosote treatment process

pages 450-475 have some pretty detailed plans of the plant set ups in Somerville Texas and several pictures too.

Creosote

I'm going to have to look thru this when I get some more time.

Jerry

I long since finished my freelance creosote plant and posted it on here (will have to

look for that posting).  That Mt. Union plant, with everything in a nice straight line,

unlike mine, looks ideal for a model RR, as not taking up THAT much real estate.