Lumber loads for center beam flat car

[Riograndad]

It`s 20 years or so ago that I worked in the Timber/Building merchants and so this is from memory,timber came in white plastic wrapped stacks with metal banding and bearers to allow forklift and sideloader unloading and normally from Scandinavia and either sawn or PAR(PLANED ALL ROUND) to finished size,round cornered stock was "core" and more expensive as knot free,the stock lengths(in meters) were,1.8 ,2.1 ,2.4, 2.7, 3.0, 3.3, 3.6, 3.9, 4.1, 4.5, 4.8, 5.1, 5.4.so if 1.8 was a 6ftish the 2.1 is a 7ft and so on, easy to scale in model terms but I think that US would measure in feet and inches and also not sure if the stock lengths would be the same over there.Plywood and other wooden boards would also come wrapped in the same way with metal banding and would normally be 1200 x 2400mm(8x4`s) although other sizes such as 5x 10 could be ordered.The stacks were all the same height so that they were easily transported together the only difference was the amount of sheets per pack,maybe there`s another car load food for thought..Just posted as a little general information that may help someone.

 

[PhilP]

1200 x 2400mm(8x4`s)

<pedant mode>
2400 x 1200 (or 8 x 4, in old money) as the grain (of the outer veneer) would run along the greater dimension..

1200 x 2400 would be a 'special', with the grain across the sheet..
</pedant mode>

 

[trammayo]

As well as PAR, there was PSE (planed square edge), and the rounded corner timber was CLS (Canadian Lumber Standard). I can remember when a bundle was called a Standard but cannot remember if that was based on cubic feet. Whilst we (in the British Isles) would have called a length of timber by its' widest measurement - like 2"x1" and planed timber of that notional measurement as ex-2x1, our cousins across the pond would use the narrowest measurement first (1"x2").