The circle banner., 1924-06-20
N.P.RY. FRIES TIES
LIKE DOUCHNUTS
NEARLY ELEVEN MILLION FEET
OF LUMBER SAVED ANNUALLY
BY TIES TREATMENT
Railroad has plant at Paradise where
hot creosote and fuel oil is forced
into lumber; each tie gets three
gallons mixture.

Treating railroad ties is abou
the same as frying doughnuts," says
]. E. Squirting, Northern Pacific
freight and passenger agent OF Bill
ings 1.-The contrast between the two
processes is this: In frying dough
nuts, 1T is not desired to have the fa1
soak into the dough, but in treating
ties the boiling preservative is forced
into the wood"
Nearly II, 900 900 feet of lumber is
saved by the Northern Pacific rail-
way every year through the Lowry
process of treating railroad ties.
Treated ties, dyed to chocolate
brown or coal black, are familiar to
nearly everybody, but the treating
process is little understood. Many
people believe that the ties are mere
" dipped in vats of preservative fluid.
The process is not as simple as that.
Process Scientific
The treating process is highly
scientific. Each kind of wood requires
some variation in the treatment, and
rigid attention is given to every de-
tail. 1t costs SO cents to treat tie,
and half of this sum is for preserva-
tive alone, so that all reasonable
economy in handling preservatiye
must be exercised.
Birch, ash, elm, maple, red oak,
cottonwood, jackpine and other So
called inferior kinds of timber have
been made available for ties for the
Northern Pacific by the Lowry treat
IT,, Il, 4I.1 I~44 10 Of
timber formerly used is now con-
served for more particular purposes.
Treat Many Ties
Many thousands of ties are treat
ed every year at the Northern Paci-
fic's tie-treating plants at Brainerd,
Mimi, and Paradise, Mont. Quite Of
ten the tie yards contain a million
ties. After six months of seasoning
they are ready for the process. Load
ed on round-shaped cars they are
pushed by fifty horsepower electric
locomotive over a narrow guage rail-
road into a huge cylinder-133 feet
in length by seven feet in diametre-
for treatment.
The cylinder is closed and the hot
preservative, which is half fuel oil
and half creosote heated to near the
boiling point, flows in from overhead
tanks. When 10000 gallons has en-
tered, the cylinder is full. Then hy-
draulic pressure is applied and an
other 1000 gallons is forced in. All
this surplus amount enters the ties
in the cylinder at one( etaoin etaoin
and, as there are between 700 and
500 ties in the cylinder at one time,
each tie gets about five gallons of
preservative. When the required abb
sorption has been reached the pres
sure is released, the drain valves are
opened, a vacuum pump is set at
work and the cylinder is drained as
quickly as possible.
Dope Forced In
AS the preservative is forced into
the tie, the air in the pores of the
wood is naturally compressed. With
the release of the pressure, the i'm
prisoned air expands and forces out
the oil. The result is that about two
gallons of oil are recovered from each
tie. so that the net absorption is about
three gallons. These three gallons add
about 27 pounds to the weight of |
the tie. The average green tie weighs |
from IT'S to 200 pounds, and six |
months good seasoning reduces its |
weight by half.
Before treating, the ties are bored |
for the spikes and aided for the tie |
plates, so that the treated tie pre-
sents no vulnerable places for the |
raVages of weather, grubs or insects.