Favorite Industry.......

Medium to large oil refineries. Putting out fuel oils, gasolines, propane, butane, diesel fuels, Lots of tank car types for out going and some for incoming. Some box cars and flats for items to expanding and for repairing the refinery.

Then elevators with large concrete and metal silos. Having attached packing and sorting associated gives both covered grain cars, boxcars and trucks for out going loads. I guess a lot like what I have on my layout.

Food industries because of the variety of cars they take (box, reefer, corn syrup tanks, vegetable oil tanks) and the flexibility they offer with respect to how you can lay out the structure footprint.  A close second would be team tracks, again because of the flexibility.

Lance

Visit Miami's Downtown Spur at www.lancemindheim.com

  Long coal drags and the occasional sand and gravel train from the quarry pulled by double headed steam and pushers on the back have got to be my favorite.

  While it may not be an industry I can pass a few hours of the day just pushing hoppers across the scale track and sorting by product for outbound trains. Doing one car at a time like the old times is kinda fun.

       Pete

The favorite industry on my old East Texas Santa Fe layout was the Dixie Darlin Peanut Butter factory.

I don't have any pictures-- but I will keep the memory alive by using it as an unmodeled shipper represented by staging, shipping to "The Olde Peanut Butter Waqrehouse" on my Galveston-theme layout, to be bashed from two DPM Goodnight Matress factories... 

Prototype at Galveston...

Hey ken, have to agree that refineries are preety cool. thats why i have fertlizer dealerships that recive ammonia in tank cars

Hard rock mining is my favorite. Lots of inputs, remote communities to support, and extensive facilities for processing, often located at a distance and with their own logistics chain all make this an exciting industry. My layout's operations are based on more energetic than prototype operations to serve mining communities centered around the D&RGW's Silverton Branch running north from Durango.

Tough call.  For visual appeal, I like older feed mills, small oil dealers, and lumberyards.  For variety chemical and mineral processing plants (like kaolin) have both visual appeal, process a lot of cars, and a wide variety.

Unfortunately, some of the best industries in terms of cars in and out and variety such as paper mills are too big to model effectively in a small space.  Even just  a spur to no where representing the plant calls for 20-30 cars in and out.  A simply two car spur just doesn't represent it well. 

On a railroad such as mine where a five or six car train is the limit, I tend to stay with small businesses to keep them in proportion to the rest of the railroad.

I like my Walthers Magic Pan Bakery. It is flexible enough to take grain hoppers, box cars, and tankers and it looks very similar to a Kraft foods bakery that gets rail service here in Portland

I :heart: sawmills and lumber yards.  There's something about the soggy Pacific Northwest, log trucks and center beam flats that really gets me goin'.

.

A close second would be the aggregate industry.  Gravel plants, 100 ton hoppers and Difcos dumping along the right of way all give me a thrill.

I like cattle. for the variety of scenes, in the field, being milked, milk stops and early containers, creameries and dairy factories. lets not forget the beef industry that gave rise to the terms such as "cow catcher", "stock yards", "stock market", "bullish" to name a few. Upstate NY small farms had to be a mix of many western types not any one thing till much later in the 20Th century.

I can't say one industry because there are several that I like but,I'll select one of my favorite types..

Many of you may recall I like boxcars so,one of my favorites is a grocery and restaurant distributor because I can spot several boxcars loaded with can goods,dry goods,paper towels,napkins etc.

gabeusmc: I think mine are grain elevators also. I photographed one in Kent, Michigan that had no less than 5 different types of silos all painted in different colors! I have scratch built a number of grain elevators in N and HO for sale on ebay. They sell well.

LOGGING!!!!!  [See website link below; no further explanation required]

gabeusmc

What's Your favorite industry and why?

 River barge terminal - functions like a team track (i.e.a general destination and/or source of tank cars, boxcars, hoppers, gondolas, flat cars etc), but also allows the modeling of barges, docks, cranes, pipes, tanks etc.

 Smile,
 Stein

I've got to say that I'm a little torn between grain elevators and power plants.  With elevators you've got the silos, the rail traffic, the truck traffic, lots of action, with power plants you've got the high-wide loads and special moves, and for coal-fired plants, the unit trains of coal inbound with empties outbound, can get pretty hectic moving around.

My favorite industry is - the railroad itself!

I model a rural area which is, by Japanese standards, very sparsely populated.  Other than freight houses and the collieries served by my short line, all of the action is purely railroad related.  Most freight is simply passing through from staging to staging.  Most of what would be local switching involves routing cars to interchange or transloads (with narrow-er gauge connections.)

While I own, and run, a variety of car types, they are all one basic color -- black - and not all that visually interesting.  Add in that my favorite operating hat is dispatcher...

I do like the idea that will finally shape my collieries - I `minefanned' the prototypes a half-century ago.  Still, they will simply provide traffic, not be an end unto themselves.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - 24/30)

Hey all.  Its been interesting reading what peope like.  I myself have not started my layout yet but still in the planning phase and still considering what i'm going to have on my layout for Industry's but i deffinattly want industries that work with each other like a log yard that i can pick up logs at and bring to the mill.  I think i would like a concrete plant but not sure what that would go with.  so I'm still in the process of thinking and planning

Anyone has more suggestions please let me know of some industries that work together i guess you could call it.

Thanks,

Jeff

Since I model steam and early diesel, I'd have to say the fueling facilities for the servicing terminals.  That would include incoming coal, diesel fuel, and sand and outgoing ash.  I also like freight depots.  Lotsa action - both from train and truck pick ups and drop offs.

Tom

The Ferroequinologist

I photographed one in Kent, Michigan that had no less than 5 different types of silos all painted in different colors!

Where can I see a photo?

Goodness181

Anyone has more suggestions please let me know of some industries that work together i guess you could call it.

Thanks,

Jeff

There's one `industry' that works with anything, from alcohol distilling (whether ethanol or Jack Daniels) to Z-bracket fabricating.  It's called either an interchange track or hidden staging, and frequently consists of a hybrid of both.

While `paired' industries have been touted as a good idea by the model press, realistically they don't meet the suspension of disbelief test.  If the power plant was really that close to the coal mine the two would be connected with a conveyor belt, not a unit train.  (That Walthers `coal mine' was connected to the open pit that actually fed the separator by a mile-long covered conveyor - 60 actual feet in HO.)  Most things loaded into or onto railcars travel hundreds of miles between origin and destination.  The only practical way to simulate that on a layout smaller than a gymnasium is by running almost everything to or from staging.

Someone asked about a cement plant.  If you mean a cement production facility, they range in size from huge to humongous, receive coal in 25-car cuts (or unit trains) and ship in unit trains of covered hoppers.  OTOH, a local cement batch plant won't be too big - but its product output will leave on rubber wheels in ready-mix.  If it receives sand and aggregate from local pits in trucks the only rail traffic will be cement hoppers - a few a week.  Now throw in a block plant and ornamental stonework, and suddenly there's a lot more cement inbound, plus gondola loads of pretty-colored boulders...

Of course, the most interesting way to handle the situation is to do some prototype research and find out what was being moved by rail.  If you model the present, use the features of your favorite map program to take a look at commercial and industrial areas, or invest a little time and motor fuel and go look.  For the recent and more distant past, check with the local historical society of the place you are modeling.  My own informtion comes out of photos and field notes I took on-site almost half a century ago.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

thanks tomikawa.  I was looking at some of the books that kalmbach sells and probably will invest in two or three of these very soon when finance allows.

Thanks

You people are crazy! Steel mills are waaaayyyyy better than any grain elevator or refinery.

I like steel mills so much, it is the only industry I model!

sfb

My favorite industry to model is an operating gravel loading plant and also dumping the hoppers at another location on my layout. It is modeled after a sand and gravel pit that was once located in the Los Angeles area.  The Southern Pacific ballast cars seen being loaded are detailed and painted Tyco operating hoppers. I really like live loaded freight cars, makes for other things to do on the layout.

Automotive assembly.

Lots of boxcars & autoracks!

Am cheating here, listing all my favorite UNUSUAL l/o industries. Wish all could be fitted on my tiny pike.... just not enough room!.  Early New England Brickyard/  Firetruck Restoration Facility/  Sand & Gravel Pit on Switchback/  Diamond Match Matchbook Plant/  Diesel Locomotive Recycler/  '50 era Coal-Oil dealer on two levels.   If anyone wished more info on any, they were all posted months ago in Prototype Info for the Modeler section of Forum or ask me and will try to find out how to send you a pdf format  individual article.  TTFN.....Old Tom aka papasmurf in NH

Not quite a Top 10 list, but after listing my favorite [hard rock mining & smelting], I saw a lot to like in what others here have listed. In fact, all these industries have some sort of traffic pattern/presence in operations on my layout. All serve to support mining, but also have interlocking relationships with each other, in case that's useful for someone wanting a big picture idea of how this works on one layout.

grain elevator/ag supply

oil refinery

food wholesale

coal mining and power production

logging, milling, and lumber distribution

stockyards and packing plant

cement plant

Then there's the one I can't mention because it's secret : uranium refining and fabrication

[quote user="Goodness181]

  I was looking at some of the books that kalmbach sells and probably will invest in two or three of these very soon when finance allows.

[/quote]

Get these books. I have all of the Industries along the Tracks( i think thats what you are talking about) and they are great and fun to read.

[quote user="gabeusmc"]

[quote user="Goodness181]

  I was looking at some of the books that kalmbach sells and probably will invest in two or three of these very soon when finance allows.

[/quote]

Get these books. I have all of the Industries along the Tracks( i think thats what you are talking about) and they are great and fun to read.

[/quote]

Yup those are the ones that i was talking about.  I think their are 4 of them, but yea I am deffinatlly looking at getting all of them.  Once finance are released from my financy manager (ie Wife).  Right now im in planning stage were i dont have room for any sort of layout I'm making alot of track plans on paper right now and have some good starts to some but i think if i can tie in what types of industries i want on my plan i can plan better.  I'm planning on going to the show in Concord New Hampshire thats coming right up and hope to get alot of ideas their.  I'll be sure to take alot of pictures.

Probably a tie between a Corn Syrup Plant and a Port Terminal.  Both can be very interesting supporting it's own switchers.  Like Steel Mills and Paper Mills both Corn Syrup Plants and Port Terminals could also be layouts in themselves.  A Port Terminal can not only have large warehouses and overhead cranes but also contain large concrete silos for solid bulk commodities and steel fuel tanks for liquid bulk commodities.  

Tim G

President and CEO

Seaboard Central Railroad