Here's what it looks like...

So far.  Intermodal yard in the foreground, mainline and siding, then the spur to Pendant Publishing Inc in the background.  Still have some painting and weathering to do to the building and then finish off the scenery around the tracks.

Paper boxes

Boxcars hauling paper have to be clean and "tight" (no leaks).  Paper is also heavy, so cars have to have strong floors to support the forklifts used to move it, especially if it's in roll form.  This means mostly single door cars are used, preferably with 10' doors.  Some roads bought plug door boxcars for paper service.

In most cases any newer 50' boxcar will do.  A handful of 60' boxcars were built for paper too, but there are no models of those that I can think of.  (They are not the same as 60' autoparts boxcars.). The latest generation of 60' double-plug door boxcars, think TBOXs, can be used for paper, but I've only noticed them in kraft paper (to make boxes) service.

When the weight limit was increased in 1995, a lot of new 50' high cube paper boxes were built for newsprint.  These mostly have plug doors as well.

In the plants I've visited the door spot didn't matter.  The paper rolls are moved by forklift so the small extra distance didn't matter.  Now perhaps in the days before forklifts it might have mattered if the plant's material handling system was set up that way, for instance with conveyor belts to move boxes of paper, but I've not been in such a plant that was receiving paper.

I don't have a printing plant on my layout, but I do have a box manufacturer.  Built in the '70s, its doors are spaced for 50' cars with cushioned underframes.  If cars with shorter draft gear are received, like Railboxes, they have to be uncoupled to line them up with the doors.  An added twist to switching operations.

Scott Chatfield

Newpaper

The Omaha World Herald is the last rail served industry in downtown Omaha.  It has one spur and gets several boxcars of paper a week, spotted as needed.  They cars are spotted at one dock.

When I had a couple different paper mills on my territory, there were several grades of paper, generally 50 ft IPD boxcars where the primary cars and then some paper was shipped in plug door boxcars, usually the higher grade stuff, the plug doors lessened damage to the rolls.  They also had some shipments in taller boxcars in order to stack the taller rolls two high.  The the plants made was most kraft paper (brown paper) that went into bags (dog food, fertilizer, kitty litter, etc) and white paper that went into making milk cartons.

Newsprint

Some newspapers and printers got Canadian newsprint in the purpose-built newsprint boxcars, which were 50' plug-door cars.  National Steel Car made most of them, starting in the mid '60s with smooth-side cars like the models sold by Proto:1000, and later rib-side cars like those made by Atlas.

Soo Line had a bunch of plug-door paper boxes built in the '60s and '70s as well.  They were mostly built from "kits" at their North Fond Du Lac shops.

"Paper boxes" are not to be confused with insulated boxcars (RBLs).  Aside from not having insulation, they also don't have "loader" equipment like moveable bulkheads.

You asked about scrap paper outbound.  Some plants generated quite a bit, about one car of scrap for every ten inbounds, but I think they were the exception.  On the Southern near Atlanta we had a customer that made high-quality paper products like envelopes, and they shipped out scrap paper.  The newsprint and boxboard plants, not so much.

We also had a firm that shipped baled scrap paper from many sources, including newspapers.  We gave them the dregs of our boxcar supply, mostly Railboxes.  

Paper is BIG business to the railroads but I feel it is still undermodeled, especially the consumption end.

Scott Chatfield

Loads in Loads out.

I have dealt with a number of paper plants and paper receivers.  I will echo the 50’ boxcar as the dominant car type with the occasionally 60’ car for speciality products. 

A number of the places I have dealt with were designed to take the whole car inside the building to reduce the risk of moisture or contamination of the product. As stated the cars had to been dry and clean or they would be moved to other service or sent to the shop for repair. The handful of locations that that did serve from a door were lower volume customers and took only a few cars at a time, for example a small town newspaper.

one thing that made all of these interesting was that even though the all received loaded cars they also produced loaded cars. Some were daily other one car a week of bailed scrap paper. It really depended on what type of business they were in na dhow much cutting they were doing. The loaded outbound car was always the car closest to the bailing machine. This would sometime be the last car in the string, first car, or right in the middle. For us it was pretty easy as they were all connecting road cars that originated from the same carrier. We just lined them up and shipped them back in a block to be sorted out later. Most times the same company/plant that produces the paper received the lid back to the plant. The car arrives and switched into the receiving area of the plant. Once the car is empty it is cleaned, inspected and added to the list of cars to use for loading.  

Inland Container

Jack Hill wrote about Inland Container, an interesting paper consumer on his older blog:  http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/2011/01/inland-container-layout-design-element.html.  Lots of detail about how the prototype works.  Paper and starch go in, scrap paper goes out.

Thanks for the info

Thanks for the information so far, lots of good stuff.

Scott, thanks for the background on 50' paper boxes.  I have a few of the green CP newsprint cars and a small fleet of the Soo Fond Du Lac cars.  Soo's westbound Bensenville-KC freights often had a cut of green CP cars near the front.  Here is a photo of one example going by Union Station in KC.

https://flic.kr/p/89A93B

Interesting point about the Omaha World-Herald, Dave.  I remember a short blip in Trains Magazine about the Kansas City Star being the last rail served industry in downtown KC.  I think it was the late 90's or early 2000's.  

Greg, I wish that I had enough room to include a spur running inside the plant.  You know how track planning goes, I originally thought I had 6" to work with and ended up with about 3".  So I had to settle for outside doors.  I might scratch build some overhangs to protect the doors/docks from the elements.  I have seen one example of that at the Quad Graphics plant in Sussex, Wisconsin.  

Ken, thanks for the link to Jack Hill's blog.  There is a wealth of information there that I will be adapting to my operations.  That's a great resource.

Printing Facilities

There are three such facilities here in Kentucky where I live that do commercial printing for various companies, such as magazines, etc. They range in size from large to small and all are boxcar intensive industries (my personal favorite). The companies are RR Donnelly (RRD) and LS Communications (LSC). LSC seems to be a division of RRD as both the LSC facilities were formerly known as RR Donnelly & Sons plants.

In Danville, KY LSC has a rather large plant that is switched daily by Norfolk Southern and receives 50ft and 60ft boxcars; some have plug doors others sliding doors. The LSC plant in Danville is located at the end of an industrial spur:  https://goo.gl/maps/UiY4sF6A1dUmtRKm8  As can be seen in the map link, the plant in Danville has one track that goes inside the building and two tracks outside used for both car storage and switching.

In Glasgow, KY RRD has a good sized plant that has two tracks that enter the building and switched by CSXT by a local that works the Glasgow Branch;  https://goo.gl/maps/pFdo6kUBnQAcLppB7 

On a more model railroad size plant there is the LSC plant located in Lebanon Junction, KY, switched by CSXT and appears to only handle two or three cars at a time:  https://goo.gl/maps/sRU9SbWLqQ6MSsEC7 

To my knowledge, none of these plants ships out any product by rail and the traffic is all inbound print paper.

Just some ideas for you to look over.

Thanks Ed

Thanks for the links Ed.  The LSC plant looks like a good size to model and 2-3 carloads a day is what I had in mind for operations as well.  

Detroit Newspapers plant in Sterling Heights, Mich.

The former Detroit News (now prints the both News and Free Press dailys) printing plant along the Conrail Shared Assets line (former NYC Mackinaw Branch) just south of 16 Mile Rd (east of Mound Rd) and CR's Sterling Yard. I recall DW&P and CV newsprint boxcars over the years, and later CN cars. I believe these were similar to the Walthers Proto boxes noted earlier. The facility has a couple tracks for offspots, plus a spur leading indoors for unloading newsprint.