"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

What does the mill do with the HOKX Acid or Caustic Soda car?

That would be caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). It's the main ingredient in "white liquor", which is used to dissolve the lignin (essentially, the glue that holds the wood fibers together) in the pulping process.

PS Useless trivia: The HOKX mark denotes Oxy Chem, or Occidental Chemical, which seems pretty random. But "HOK" was Hooker Chemical's reporting mark; Oxy was formed ages ago when Occidental Petroleum purchased Hooker.

Thanks. I couldn't quite see the placard which is sad at 7 to 8 MPH the train is going. I remember switching
those cars to go north and wondering where they went.

PBMcGinnis wrote:MRL21131....
Was an inbound carload of talc in bags from Sappington, MT. Apparently used in some aspect of the paper or pulp making process.

It's unloaded in the pulp mill... what it's used for in that process, I have no idea.

gokeefe wrote:

GP40MC1118 wrote:The only thing odd about it is that its clean and not tagged!

Still curious how it could be that a Montana Rail Link customer would be buying mill products from either Jay or Rumford. Alternately what's out there that could be coming here?

That's quite the journey for a single box car.

Inbound raws of bagged powder clay from Imerys Talc plant in Sappington, MT. You should look up Imerys -- one of the largest providers of coating raw materials.

Imerys has a terminal in S. Portland, from which a large number of kaolin tank cars are loaded for Maine paper mills.

Nice to see the 90s logo SLR boxes floating around.

Rumford upper yard stuffed full of boxcars this week. Lower yard full as well. Very busy ... Appears to be entirely mill traffic. No logs and no steel ... Bay Line gondolas nowhere to be seen.

47 cars on PORU yesterday. Recent average has been 40 or less.

56(?) on PORU ... Pretty sure it's from today. Another flat car of steel and 2 of the NDPX gondolas making their way back to Rumford.

55. 11/44, first 18 for Rileys, PTTX flat of steel for ARC, and the remainder for Rumford. 310/383/313 for power.

RUPO, 49(?) ... Interesting car from Procor ... first time I've seen a placard on a hopper.

It’s a chlorate hopper... they’re up there all the time.

Spotted a 12 axle DODX flatcar going east on Friday. Anyone know where it went? Maybe reblocked in Portland for PNSY?

gokeefe wrote:RUPO, 49(?) ... Interesting car from Procor ... first time I've seen a placard on a hopper.

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They come in from both the D&H (Saratoga) and from one of the interchanges in Maine when I worked there. They were quite common though Old Town and Lincoln got the majority. Oddly this placard class does not require burying, you can put them on the headpin.

They primarily come off the CMQ out of Magog now, with some occasional Barbers. Not all hazmats need to be buried, the dirty dirt cars and asphalt cars being other examples of ones that can be placed right behind the engines.