July 19, 2012 - The Durbin Rocket

Today we drove to Gaudineer Knob to look at the second strand of virgin forest.  This forest is only in existance because of a surveyors error.  It is also home to the Cheat Mountain Salamander.  What kind of wildlife and biodiversity would you expect to see in a virgin forest near the top of a mountain?  Take a look at some of the pictures below and see if you can identify different species of trees.

 "The Durbin Rocket"--

We finished up the day riding on another restored logging steam train.  This was different from Cass in the fact that there were no steep grades for the engine to pull and push the cars.  We followed along the Greenbrier river and were able to see some of the foundations of a lumber company that used to sit on the banks of the river. 

Another difference on this train was the fact that you did not have to stay on one car, you could travel between an open car, an old dining car, a passenger car and a caboose.  It was neat to be able to experience the ride in a variety of ways. 

On our trip back, we had to stop and fill up the tank from the local creek.  Using the same process that the Shay engine used to "siphon" the water into the tank.

I found it just as interesting as Cass but in different ways.

 

Filling up in the creek . . .

 

July 18, 2012 - Cass Scenic Railroad

Today we went to Cass to ride the train that is using one of three types of geared locomotives that were designed specifically for better traction on the rails.  An all wheel drive train . . . did you know there was such a thing?  If you look on the page above about steam geared locomotives you'll get to see pictures of each one and a brief description of them. 

Cass uses both Shay and Heisler engines on their rails.  Shay engine 11 is the one that pulled us today.

She was designed to prevent the train wheels from slipping on the track.  All the wheels were attached to gears that helped all the wheels from slipping.  The Shay 11 had three trucks and three large pistons on the side.  You can see them in the picture above on the left side of the engine and a close up shot of the gears below.

The drive shaft on the Shay was located on the side of the train.  As you can see in the picture below, it runs the length of the engine.

Moving on to the timber part of Cass, it was once a timber company that made paper.  Most of the hills surrounding Cass had been cut and used to make the paper.  At the first stop on the ride we were able to get off the train to look at some of the models of camp life.  Below is a picture of a typical camp shantie that the lumberjacks would stay in while cutting timber on the mountain.

The skidder that was used to pull logs up the hill was also on display. 

As we were making out way to the top of Bald Knob, you could see the change in eleveation through the changes in the types of trees in the forest.  Can you see in the picture below where the line of tree species begins to change. 

July 17, 2012 - Colonial Millworks and Armstrong/Bruce Hardwood flooring plant and Historic Beverly

The millworks company we visited today was much larger than the one we saw yesterday.  They made mainly casings, mouldings and trim. The company had been in business since 1958.  As lumber comes in, it is graded to determine that the shipment they ordered is correct.  The lumber is then sorted and restacked according to the type and amount needed to fulfill orders.

Once the boards have been sorted they are sent into the plant to be cut at appropriate widths.  Lasers are used to show the workers where the cuts on the board will be made as they send it through the saw to be cut into appropriate width with less waste.

Once the board has been cut, the strips are sorted according to size and sent out to the different parts of the plant to be cut, sanded and stained.

This plant, as well as the others we've visited, also did some recycling.  Any scrap wood they had were sent out to the shredder to be made into saw dust which is used to sell to other companies like Hamer Pellet fuels.

 

July 16, 2012 - Tour or Hamer Pellet Fuel plant and Wilson Lumber

We started off the day visiting the Hamer Pellet Fuel Company.  Being in the lumber business to begin with, the company realized at one point that they were spending a million dollars to have their waste sawdust disposed of.  They decided to take their waste and turn it into usable fuel my making pellets.

The making of pellets begins with saw dust.  Truck loads are brought in (at $60-$100 a ton) and the type of saw dust (oak, walnut, maple, etc) is logged in.  The different types of saw dust are then "mixed" by a loader and then put into a large dryer.  The dryer is a 55 million BTU burner that runs on saw dust.  (Click here to find out what BTUs are).  The dryer is capable of drying 15 ton of saw dust in an hour.  They also use wood chips BUT, they are chopped up and turned into saw dust as well.

Picture of the dryer (big blue drum)

When the saw dust is dry, then sent by conveyor to the building where it is mixed with vegetable oil and water and then put into the extrusion machine.  During this process the mixture is pressed out small holes which produces the pellets.

This is the large machine that produces the pellets

These are the pressing wheels inside that "squeeze" the saw dust mixture through small holes (at the bottom).

Here is an "outside" view of the small holes with pellets sticking out.

These pellet machines can produce up to 6 tons of pellets per hour.  How many pellets can they make in a normal 8 hour shift?

Once the pellets are made they are sent to be bagged.  The quality control is to check 1 in 50 bags to look for size of pellets and amount of dust particles per bag.  If too much dust is being created, they slow the process down. Why do you think slowing the process down would help with the amount of dust particles in the pellets?

Here is a video of the bagging process.

After bagging, the bags continue down the conveyor where a robot stacks them on a pallet and then the pallet is wrapped to keep it togetehr and keep the weather out.  Here is a video of that process.

This company was able to find a way to reduce both their waste and make money from their waste.  How is this helpful to our environment?

WILSON LUMBER COMPANY

Our next stop was just next door at the Wilson Lumber Company.  The company started in the early 1960's.  They got their first wood drying kiln in 1961 and by 1987 their kiln capacity was 250,000 board feet.   They buy their boards directly from the saw mills.

In 2004, automated stickers came out that helped speed up their process.  Sticks are used to separate the boards to help the drying process while in the kiln.  The picture below shows a stack of boards with stickers ready to go in the kiln.

This is a picture of one of the kilns being filled.

Enjoyable trip to the pellet plant today! Cool!!

Will be back shortly to comment on today's tours.  Meanwhile, check out the pictures from today on the facebook page I've created!

July 15, 2012 - Cathedral State Park

The start of our trip began at Cathedral State Park, one of only two virgin timber forests in West Virginia.  Back in the early days when timbering was prevalent, someone chose NOT to allow timbering to occur on their land and now we have this small plot of land with timber that has been allowed to naturally grow, prosper and die without the help of human intervention.

One of the first things I noticed as I entered the forest was that a lot of the trees had very few (if any) lower limbs within reach.  I was expecting to be able to reach for a limb and look closely at leaves so that I would be able to identify them more closely but . . . . there were very few close enough to reach (As you can see in the picture below).  This made it more difficult to look at the leaves to determine the type of trees we were looking at.

Another thing that I noticed was how thick the canopy of the forest was.  This may be the reason why the lower limbs were not present . . . no sun to reach them.

The types of trees most abundant in this forest were hemlock.  There were also a lot of maple and oak trees.  The first picture below is of a large hemlock tree.  You can see the massiveness of its base compared to Mr. Colegrove standing to the side.

Here is a large oak tree located near the edge of the forest. Notice the difference of the underbrush at the edge of the forest compared to the picture above with the hemlock.  The amount of sunlight coming to the forest floor at the edge of the forest definitely makes a difference.

We also did testing on the pH of the soil.  We chose 4 different places to test the pH.  We had to dig down about 3 inches through the leaf litter and peat to get to the soil.  The picture below shows the difference between the peat (on the right) and the soil (on the left).

We found that the acidity of the soil fell in a range of 3.5 to 4.5.  Proving that the acidic soil is perfect for the type of trees and shrubs growing here. . . hemlock and rhododendron for example. 

One of the things we've been doing is calculating the board feet that can be found in trees so we picked a large hemlock and did the calculations.  They're shown in the picture below.