Blue Ridge Southern at Canton Mill
3 Blue Ridge Southern SD40's are switching in the Canton yard getting train T31 ready for the trip down to Asheville. The Evergreen Packaging mill in the background accounts for 70% of the line's business. The company announced that it will close the milll early in June. There's been a paper mill in Canton for over 100 years and it identifies itself as Papertown. There are signs around town asking "Have you prayed for the mill today?". The company attributes it to market conditions for food packaging but I suspect they have enough capacity at their other mill and chose this one to close due to high upgrade costs. I have a pretty high tolerance for industrial smells having been in lots of refineries and chemical plants over the last 50 years. But the paper plant smell is a special kind of stink. Locals tell me it used to be a lot worse but there are mills that don't smell as bad. Makes me think that there is more they can do that they don't want to pay for. And makes me glad I didn't get the job in a paper mill that I thought I wanted getting our of school.
Blue Ridge Southern at Canton Mill
3 Blue Ridge Southern SD40's are switching in the Canton yard getting train T31 ready for the trip down to Asheville. The Evergreen Packaging mill in the background accounts for 70% of the line's business. The company announced that it will close the milll early in June. There's been a paper mill in Canton for over 100 years and it identifies itself as Papertown. There are signs around town asking "Have you prayed for the mill today?". The company attributes it to market conditions for food packaging but I suspect they have enough capacity at their other mill and chose this one to close due to high upgrade costs. I have a pretty high tolerance for industrial smells having been in lots of refineries and chemical plants over the last 50 years. But the paper plant smell is a special kind of stink. Locals tell me it used to be a lot worse but there are mills that don't smell as bad. Makes me think that there is more they can do that they don't want to pay for. And makes me glad I didn't get the job in a paper mill that I thought I wanted getting our of school.