Rising Tide: The Tide Factory by Menards

The Tide plant features two large storage tanks as well and two additional deck level above the roof.

Clean up your town: The no. 279-5518 Tide soap factory by Menards ($99.99)

One thing the arrival of the Menards building line has done is greatly expand our ideas of what a train town will look like. Skyscrapers, parking garages, strip shopping centers and major industrial buildings such as Pepsi and Morton’s Salt structures. Even nuclear power and sauerkraut plants have a place on the train table!

The Tide factory is a structure with a mission I didn’t anticipate: Laundry soap.  I have no idea how it is actually made, but I suspect there must be a big tank involved for filling all those little soap pods!

The building easily fits into a 12x11-inch space. It packs a lot of detailing in the small space – crossed structural support beams, plates with steel rivets, yellow safety railings, ladders, and pipes galore around the tanks. The front has two bold yellow orange and white Tide logos.

Up top are two levels of decking and smaller storage tank with piping that runs from a larger tank, down into the structure.

Just above the run-through, you’ll find Tide signage on each end. These are nifty animated lights that follow through a sequence of illuminating the letters. While you can clearly see them in normal lighting, they look amazing in darker settings.

I’ve been pondering where else you might be able to use this. You would have to change the signage, but I can see this being co-located with the Pepsi factory or even the nuke plant (Gotta store that radioactive water somewhere, right?) Heck, even setting it behind the Sprecher Brewery would certainly boost the amount of soda pop they could make each day.

The Tide factory looks good as-is, but for lighting and the flashing Tide logos you’ll need a Menards Plug & Play 4.5 volt power supply, sold separately. 

This is a unique building with a compact space requirement. It is also safe to say, nobody else in O gauge has made a building for keeping your duds clean!  Go to WWW.Menards.com/Trains for more information. Don’t forget to opt for free sipping to your local Menards store!

The factory may be gray in color, but safety yellow, orange vests, and green grass liven the scene.

Up top, the tanks have LED warning lights and an additional storage tank (right).

The run through insert has truck loading dock decoration on each side. Remove them and traditional or more scale-like cars fit right in.

The second level is illuminated and up top flashing red lights are mounted atop the tanks.

The signage has a neat sequence illuminating the letters.

The ring goes first.

T and then I.

TID...

TIDE.

The sign looks good in normal lighting. But philosophically, what cars should be here? Boxcars or tankers???