I live in a area with very low rail traffic so I'm looking for Ideas for some types of factorys that would have modern factorys that would be recieving and shipping box cars 1980-present. With everything being made over seas these days I was looking for some Ideas for a HO scale I'm planing
Hi,
Well, my layouts always were set in the 1950s (when the USA was THE manufacturer of the world), so I never had the challenge you have. But make no mistake, an awful lot of manufacturing or other activities still take place on American soil. In example.......... petroleum & edible oil refining and distribution, lumber and related product production, auto parts, food (fresh & canned), furniture, non bulk chemicals, animal hides (yuck!), etc., etc., etc.
Of course you need to keep in mind that its your RR, and you can do what you want, and frankly it could be said "there is a prototype for anything and everything"!
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Twot hings spring to mind
1.) Paper products, they use a lot of hi-cube boxcars for shipments the the outside world. You could have a large spur or two full of them waiting to be loaded.
2.) Auto Part Plants. While the American Auto industry is sagging a bit, the European and Asia auto companies are building plants in the US like wildfire. Where I live in East Tennessee, Denso and AISIN both have plants nearbye and both are manufacturers of parts for Toyota. This could be another big industry for your layout.
The nice thing about boxcars is that they can be hauling anything, and aren't tied to a particular industry. I've got a tannery and a company called "Moose Mills" that take box cars, and another generic factory with a loading dock I've never added a name or product to. In a back corner I have a building with a series of loading dock doors. One is "Acme" and another is "Mom's Robot Oil."
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I have a bottle and jar manufacture plant, making glass bottles.
Such a plant requires several sources of sand, as not all sands are identical,and trace elements are importasnt.
So two places to unload sand, and a dock to ship finiched product, in cardboard boxes(incoming) on skids(incoming).
A transfer facility for unloading cars to transport trucks can take any car. Likewise a teamtrack in another town.
General Electric makes many consumer products such as stoves and fridges in more than one place. Many boxcars in and out.
Have fun.
Dave
davidmurrayGeneral Electric makes many consumer products such as stoves and fridges in more than one place. Many boxcars in and out.
Make that "made." GE recently sold its home appliance business. No more GE toasters, etc...
http://online.wsj.com/articles/appliances-sale-shifts-ge-further-away-from-consumers-1410197984
Fortunately, time stands still where you want it on the layout.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Does the industry have to be a "factory?" There are plenty of other rail-served customers.
These two customers are a printing plant, and a grocery distributor.
This is a future drilling fluids plant, that ships well drilling mud in drums. Note the boxcars in the prototype photo.
This one, from an unfinished part of the layout, is another grocery distributor. They're common in my area.
Here's an additional unfinished industry, a salt plant that ships (among other things) bagged water softener salt in boxcars.
I photographed this industry in Gering, NE a few years ago. It's receiving something in boxcars, maybe feed or fertilizer.
Rob Spangler
Another idea I had and am probably going to impliment on my layout is an Electronics manufactuer.
On my future layout I plan on having an industry called "Brickley Electronics" if the layout is running 1990s era time, Brickley would produce cell phones that would be shipped out from Central Virginia, down to Norfolk where they would then be loaded by ship and sent overseas to europe and the middle east. In the modern era timeframe of my layout, Brickley Electronics would manufacture GPS Systems.
The name Brickley Electronics actually is a name I made poking fun at the huge Brick-Sized early cellphones of the 90s.
The big Anheuser Busch brewery in a nearby town has several storage tracks that are always full of boxcars, I'm guessing lots of empty cans and bottles coming in and full ones going out?
regards, Peter
I can offer lots of options, but none of the examples shown are in modern '80s-style structures. There's no reason why they couldn't be, though, and even some current-day operations are in older buildings. This offers a good opportunity to include various styles of structures, and even to kitbash the older ones to accomodate newer industrial uses. Most of these are based on real industries, although no attempt has been made to model the prototype structures. A few are named for friends, too.
This is Wilkinson-Kompass, an industrial supplier offering mill supplies, tools, hardware, and iron and steel:
John Bertram Co., manufacturing machine tools (lathes, drill presses, milling machines, etc.):
Evell Casket Co., supplying coffins of all types (only partially modelled. Its siding is part of an industrial staging yard):
P&M Languay Ltd., (Pump and Compressor Division):
Elfrida Stove Works, originally a maker of wood stoves of all types, but currently (late '30s) offering furnaces for home and industry. A modern version might also offer air conditioning units:
National Grocers Ltd., a wholesale food warehouse and distributor. This type of industry is well-suited to an '80s-style tilt-up type or all-steel building. It could also be served by reefers:
Coffield Washer manufacturers washing machines, for both domestic and industrial use. I see no reason why you couldn't have an appliance factory in the '80s - a good industry for using big boxcars - 60' and longer, along with hi-cubes:
Bowyer Manufacturing makes brooms and brushes, but it could just as easily manufacture vacuum cleaners or central vac systems in the '80s:
Finally, this is GERN Industries, a totally made-up industry. It's product is flux, but forget that back-to-the-future nonsense - GERN predates it by several decades. Think more of flux as "in-a-state-of". I designed it mainly as a traffic generator, and it may utilise boxcars, tankcars, covered hoppers, and pretty-well any type of car you may wish to justify on your layout. The plant itself can be anything from a 'phone booth-size shed to what's shown below, and there are ones even larger. Pick a prototype structure which you really like but for which you have no use on your layout, slap a GERN sign on it, and you're in business.
If you're interested in GERN, contact me via PM.
Wayne
OMG Wayne, I was just about to suggest GERN.
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Mike Kieran
Port Able Railway
I just do what the majority of the voices in my head vote on.
Hi, do not mean to criticise, but, I could not see an electronics manufacturing firm in the 1990's using railcars.
Using motor vehicles, yes, semi-trucks and box trucks. Shipments of parts would not warrent box cars, too damn big, also too slow.
I would change the product.
Then again, it is your railroad.
There's a wal-Mart distribution center served by rail in Flagstaff, AZ. Of course, it's about as big as my layout.
I have two photos of the Bassett furniture factory having box cars either spotted or pulled. One features a modern pair of NS diesels. The other plant switcher is a Y-5. Moral? A lot of present-day industries do their thing in 19th and early 20th century buildings.
You can always put noncommittal signage on a building, and spot box cars at their loading door. Just what does Smith & Jones, Inc. produce and/or distribute? Only their customers know for sure.
The hardest part, on the average model railroad, is finding space for buildings big enough to justify rail traffic. I've seen too many cases of a modern 60 foot box car spotted at a building that, empty of all else, wouldn't have the car's cubic capacity.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Kind of on topic, but if you can't decide on a specific industry and/or space is an issue, you might try building interchangeable modules. On my N scale layout I have more industries that I want to service then I have space for. For example, I have a grain elevator module that can pop out and be replaced with a feed (as in animal) distribution center. Similar scenery but a completely different industry and rolling stock needs (grain hoppers vs. boxcars). As long as you build the permanent (non-module) scenery rather generic or with a similar theme in mind for the industries you want to module then the sky's the limit with what industries, operations, and rolling stock your model railway can service/use. I got the idea from an article written in "N Scale Magazine" by Bob Ferguson.
Happy modeling and good luck!
Don.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that both engines have failed, and we will be stuck here for some time. The good news is that you decided to take the train and not fly."
Lumber and bricks.
Looking back to the February 1961 Model Railroader (I picked up this back issue in 1965 for 50 cents) -- There are two coming CR&T "industries" to include: "A factory for those pickle cars" and to power the traction is "Traction substations." As the article title indicates, pickle cars need a pickle factory (which will have a fairly small layout footprint).
So, build a factory/industry around a type of railroad car. P.S.: Don't overlook what goes into covered hoppers, or a milk train/dairy, an ice house, or; team tracks/depot/ramps for a Pennsy TrucTrain's TOFC (Trailer On Flat Car), etc.
Another idea is today's, 2014 Short Line Award -- Reading Blue Mountain & Northern, resurrected from much of fallen flag, Reading Railroad. Note the industries on the first page alone from coal to the recently built spur to the new (and quite large) Yuengling Brewery (also the USA's oldest brewery), and other small business industries that require forklifts. Also see the many types of Passenger Excursions at their Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway -- If you've got the layout room and the urge to do scenery, bridges, foilage, etc.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
The problem with the Squire Dingee pickle station is that it was a dying breed in 1961. A few years later they would all be gone.
Traction substations (or any other kind of electric substation) receive and deliver by wire. Not much electricity shipped by rail.
There's a re-purposed substation in Rapid City, SD. It is a factory (a place where things are made) but doesn't ship by rail - either way. Jewelry (Landstrom's Black Hills Gold, specifically) isn't made in (box)carload lots. (They used the old substation because of its bombproof construction. Getting in would be a problem for an Abrams tank. )
Shortly after WWII a lot of industries were set up in large size Quonset huts, bought cheap as government surplus. A few still exist, but most have been replaced by more modern rectangular steel or plain concrete buildings.
Baghdad firefighter I live in a area with very low rail traffic so I'm looking for Ideas for some types of factorys that would have modern factorys that would be recieving and shipping box cars 1980-present. With everything being made over seas these days I was looking for some Ideas for a HO scale I'm planing
Hmm..if you mean a modern industry that both receives AND ships boxcars. I think those are few. Boxcars are not used as much in the modern era, whereas hoppers and tank cars have taken over.
Perhaps a paper mill that makes new paper out of recycled paper. Any 50 foot boxcar in...hi cube 50 footer out.
- Douglas
There are a lot more out there than you might think, most of them pretty big to enjoy rail service and large enough to need multi car deliveries. Problem is many of these modern factories are located just behind the tree line that hides them from the highway so unless you know they are there, you don't know they are there.
If I can get the link right, here are several:http: //binged.it/1sYLXWd
Just trace the number of spurs heading in various directions.
jim
Jim, in my area the rail-served industry might be ten miles from the highway, but still cleaarly visible over the greasewood bushes. Tree? Wazzat? You can count the naturally growing serious trees on any square mile of Clark County without taking your other hand out of your pocket.
The area I model is diametrically opposite. Stick a seedling in the ground, then jump back out of the way. Amazing what a difference adequate rainfall makes.
I think this foundry would make a real neat model. Likely take quite some time to scratch with all the industrial piping but, so cool!
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=p9txt863j722&lvl=18&sty=b&q=bing%20maps%20el%20paso&form=LMLTCC
Chuck, yep, understand. Spent about 15 years in Colorado. The CF&I mill in Pueblo was visible for miles. In Tenn where I work now once had an extensive rail system serving the plant, but nothing is visible from the highway except the gate.
Mom's Robot Oil :-) I've chortled a couple of times seeing that sign in past post pics Mr. Beasley. I've finally gotta ask, is there a story behind that?
Jim
Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
If you go to Google maps and zoom in on the back of the factoty , you will see boxcars at the loading dock. It was Keyes Fiber Company when I worked there in the 1970's Appearance hasn't changed since then.
http://www2.us.huhtamaki.com/foodservice-products
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
don7 Hi, do not mean to criticise, but, I could not see an electronics manufacturing firm in the 1990's using railcars. Using motor vehicles, yes, semi-trucks and box trucks. Shipments of parts would not warrent box cars, too damn big, also too slow. I would change the product. Then again, it is your railroad.
Automotive inustry uses rail for auto parts. I used to drive truck for GM and a lot of the plants I picked up parts for, came from a rail car.
These three business' are about an hour plus from me in the Sacramento Valley. I have know idea what the first two do, but there are lots of box cars used. The last one, I believe is some kind of a foods distributure.
Ken G Price My N-Scale Layout
Digitrax Super Empire Builder Radio System. South Valley Texas Railroad. SVTRR
N-Scale out west. 1996-1998 or so! UP, SP, Missouri Pacific, C&NW.
LakeSacramento Valley. I have know idea what the first two do, but there are lots of box cars used
Lake, Might those facilities be along the east side of I-5 near Williams? A lot of rice is grown in that area, maybe rice processing plants?
Regards, Peter
Capt. Grimek Mom's Robot Oil :-) I've chortled a couple of times seeing that sign in past post pics Mr. Beasley. I've finally gotta ask, is there a story behind that? Jim
It's a reference to Futurama, the cartoon-for-grownups set a few thousand years in the future. Since there are so many robots, it's the show's example of a huge, evil mega-corporation.
I had a large space to fill, and I ended up buying the Walthers "Empire Leather Tanning Company" kit. I figured it would take some boxcars and that would be about it. When I read the instructions, though, I found they had included a bit of information about tanneries that I was completely unfamiliar with.
As it turns out, they receive hides from slaughterhouses, typically in old boxcars marked "Hide Service Only." The decal sheet in the kit even had a couple of those. They also use acid (tank cars) and salt (covered hoppers) and then they might ship in either trucks or clean boxcars. I ended up with 4 more cars specifically for this industry, not counting the clean generic boxcars that will take the final product.