Model Railroad Lumber Mill

Here’s some more pictures of my friends model railroad that I took. This is an old lumber mill from around the time diesel locomotives were just starting to displace steam locomotives.

The interesting structure to the right of the lumber mill is called a wigwam sawdust burner. I had seen some of these type structures when driving around here and didn’t know what they were. When I saw it on the model railroad I had to look it up.

Apparently the earliest lumber mills just got rid of the sawdust by burning it in giant piles. This caused a lot of pollution so they were made to burn the sawdust in these structures to reduce it. The top has a mesh to prevent the embers from getting out and spreading a fire.

Modern lumber mills use the sawdust for a variety of wood products and burners like this are all but phased out in most places.

Here’s a view with the top removed so you can see all the details inside the lumber mill:

These old lumber mills were very interesting in their operation. There is a lot of information out there about them if you do a search. I got interested in them and found out a lot about how they were operated with steam power after looking at these models.

These model railroads are a lot of fun to photograph. I would like to go back and do some more detailed photography, perhaps with some different lighting effects. You can see how a lot of movies could be made by zooming in through a detailed model like this to set the feeling of the scene.

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Thanks for reading! I always value your support and comments. The pictures were taken by me with my Galaxy S9+. Text and graphics copyright 10/25/2018 lightsplasher & litesplasher.