Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 157, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1917 — LOADED TRAIN GIVEN BATH [ARTICLE]

LOADED TRAIN GIVEN BATH

Flat Cars, Loaded With Ties, Run Into Steel Cylinder and Immersed In Preserving Fluid. A strange-looklng train, composed of a narrow-gauge oil-burning engine and a number of very low flat cars of corresponding width, constitutes an Interesting part of a tie-treating plant recently opened at Riverton, Wyo. A string of these cars, loaded with about 500 ties, is backed into a strongly built steel cylinder, 132 feet long. The engine is then detached, the big circular door at the end of the retort is tightly dosed, and a zinc-chloride solution is forced Into the chamber by a vacuum process. When the ties are completely Immersed in the preserving fluid it is put under pressure to force it to the wood fiber. After six hours they are thoroughly saturated and are removed/ —Popular Mechanics Magazine.