Planning Mills

[NW Modeling List]

We had a large planning mill located next to the East End RR yards in Bluefield, WV. When I was taking a shop class one of the students got a 24” wide piece of Poplar planned there. He made an unreal table with it and finished with a clear varnish. Our teacher had the owner apply multiple coats.

It was one of the best, awesome, projects of the year. Hard to picture many large trees left that would give you a 24” board.

Howard Leedy

From: NW-Modeling-List [mailto:nw-modeling-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Modeling List
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2015 1:10 PM
To: NW Modeling List
Subject: RE: Planning Mills

Planing mills were a common feature of early railroad yards that built or repaired railroad cars that were made of wood. Another common feature were lumber storage sheds. If you search “planing mill” online at NWHS “search our archives” tab you find 128 documents listed. If you search on major yard locations such as Portsmouth Ohio you may find pictures of planing mills. Attached is a photo for East Portsmouth yard planing mill.

Alex Schust

Moderator:
  http://nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=20653

From: NW-Modeling-List [mailto:nw-modeling-list-bounces at nwhs.org<mailto:nw-modeling-list-bounces at nwhs.org>] On Behalf Of NW Modeling List
Sent: Thursday, October 01, 2015 10:12 AM
To: NW Modeling List
Subject: Re: Planning Mills

David

The purpose of a planning mill is to take rough cut lumber and mill or plane the surface to a finished size and smoothness.  This for the use in making furniture, flooring, etc. that requires a smooth surface.  The mill was usually in close proximity to a sawmill or mills on the raw material side or furniture factories and other wood users on the output side.  You might find more of them on the N&W located either in Virginia or North Carolina.

Rail traffic at a planning mill would be small, boxcars for finished wood shipping or incoming wood, kiln cured, or flat cars with open air cured wood.  hopper cars for the wood chip and sawdust residue.  Most all other requirements would be procured locally and not brought in by rail.

There are two very good kits for planning mills.  BTS makes one as part of their McCabe sawmill series and Campbell makes a two part kit to make a planning mill.  The Campbell kit(s) were based on a mill in North Carolina.

Hope this helps.

Larry Smith


On Thursday, October 1, 2015 5:39 AM, NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org<mailto:nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>> wrote:

HI all,

I am working on an N&W town, but i am striking out on any prototype photos of a planing mill that was served by the N&W.  In addition, I have never seen a planning mill in real life and do not know the complete purpose and what would be rail served (what cars are provided to the mill from the N&W).

Does anyone know of some photos and info to help with this?

David
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