So as Im planning my layout, I'm trying to figure out my industries. I'm wanting to set it into the 1950s, but generic enough to also go into the early 1970s.
For now I have a 4x8 with 3 spurs, but can fit a 4th with little modification. Im wanting to have boxcars, gondolas, flat cars, hoppers, and tankers.
My original idea was a brewery taking in boxcars of fresh bottles, hoppers of grains, and flat cars of pallets.
I also had a fuel & oil dealer, for the tankers, as well as a freight terminal for other box cars or other freight.
I'm not exactly sure how the freight terminal will work, but I dont habe an industry for the gondolas, and feel I am putting a lot of cars to the brewery. Would flat cars and box cars fit going to the freight terminal?
I was thinking I might add a truck dump as an extra industry, to add the gondolas to the mix.
I'm also not sure if any of this would fit into the eras I'm trying to squeeze out of the layout. If it wod be better to go for the 70s and just have it look "odd" with smaller cars Im fine with that. It will be a beltline somewhere in the Midwest (Michigan) that takes cars in with different locos.
Brewers consumed a lot of coal in the back then days. Wort kettles are all electric or gas now, but there was a time where you were boiling it in coal fired kettles.
For the time in question, grain would arrive in boxcars. Covered hoppers for non-mineral material were still in the future. I'm also reasonably sure that pallets, if needed at all, would have arrived in boxcars (you could fit more) or just been made on site from lumber locally sourced.
Brewers, or any bottler, had a gondola hanging around slowly filling up with all of the broken glass from bottles that never made it out of the brewery. They also had to ship out all of the ash their boilers were making.
NittanyLion Brewers, or any bottler, had a gondola hanging around slowly filling up with all of the broken glass from bottles that never made it out of the brewery. They also had to ship out all of the ash their boilers were making.
Paper mills were big in any era and had plenty of different pieces of rolling stock drop in. Maybe model just the spur going into the plant with the idea the plant switcher will place the car in the correct spot.
TomO
dknelson NittanyLion Brewers, or any bottler, had a gondola hanging around slowly filling up with all of the broken glass from bottles that never made it out of the brewery. They also had to ship out all of the ash their boilers were making. Indeed and in the days of returnable bottles there was also a ready supply of even more broken glass to be disposed of. Called "cull" if memory serves and some brewers shipped it out in hoppers, as well as gons. I recall a local recycle place in Milwaukee that got its cull by rail and what was interesting is that the ballast on the tracks heading toward that industry sparkled like diamonds in the sun. Breweries are great examples of industries that use multiple car types for various loads in and outbound. The entire "food" business is like that as well for that matter. Just as ethanol plants ship out spent grain as animal feed so did breweries, and the Schlitz brewery in Milwaukee sent its spent grain to a duck farm it owned south of Milwaukee. Not only did they sell the ducks as food, but Schlitz also owned cranberry processing plants and the cranberry wastes were mixed with duck, um, "wastes" and the inedible grain wastes to make a potent fertilizer for farmers and gardeners. Big chocolate factories also get a wide variety of cars, from powdered and liquid and solid products inbound as well as packaging inbound, to shipping waste and by products. Dave Nelson
but would a rail served brewery fit not only in the 40s, but in the 70s as well. I want to dual Era model it so I can run my Burlington Northers, but also run a steam engine?
I'm not opposed to changing the industries. Right now I was thinking if I have the Fuel & Oil, a Gravel plant, and the Freight terminal, I would have Gondolas, Hoppers, Tankers, and Box Cars. That leaves out the flat cars, but I'd assume something going to the freight terminal could be on a flat car.
I'm looking at Walthers kits, Interstate Fuel & Oil, Glacier Gravel Co. and Water Street Frieght Terminal.
If it's easier to just go for one era, I'd have to go early 70s just because that's the locos I already have.
Brewing changed a *lot* between the 40s and the 70s, but one thing that still worked was large production still requires large delivery.
My currently dormant layout has a brewery that received covered hoppers until they ceased operating at their original location in 2009. They moved to a higher capacity plant about 50 miles away that is not and, as best I can tell, never has been rail served.
Sugar beet plants also saw a lot of freight car variety. As the seasonal crop usually caused a shipping emergency, railroads used anything they could get their hands on to move the sugar beets. Hoppers and gondolas of all sorts were typically used to move the sugar beets from the fields to the processing plant. Various fuels and chemicals were shipped into the plant using tank cars, covered hoppers and boxcars. Molasses was shipped out in tank cars while processed sugar could be shipped out in bulk using covered hoppers or bagged in boxcars. Flat cars would be used to ship in machinery and tanks. Boxcars, hoppers and gondolas were used to ship out sugar beet pulp for use as cattle feed.
The Walthers Greatland Sugar plant kit makes for a nice scene. If you don't have the room for such a large kit, you could model the beet dump area on the layout and use background and/or foreground flats to represent the plant structures. Whole anise seeds make nice looking HO scale sugar beets (you can find them in the spice section of your favorite supermarket). However, use a good flat clear sealant atop these seeds so they won't attract bugs with their licorice smell.
Hornblower
As far as the gons go a scrap yard is ideal . Scrap in from suppliers. Scrap out to steel mills. Every scrap yard fits the space available and is never aquare. Ideal for a model railroad
Sugar beet plants use diamaceous earth to settle the solids to the bottom, before pumping the sugar liquid to be made into granular sugars. The pulp is dried and sent out to be uses as an ingredinet in animal feed.
Breweries also ship out the brewers dried grain (the wort after the beer is mae) to be used in animal feed. they alos bring in yeast in boxcars or covered hoppers.
A tannery and a slaughterhouse might provide what you are looking for. The slaughterhouse takes in livestock, so stock cars are used. Cut meat would be packed up in refrigerator cars. But, the hides would be shipped separately, generally in old boxcars labelled Hide Service Only, because once used for hides they would be unwanted for anything else. The hide boxcars end up at the tannery. The slaughterhouse might also disperse gondolas of guts, more correctly referred to as offal.
The tannery mostly takes in hides. It might ship finished leather goods in boxcars. But, the tannery also needs salt (hopper) and acid (tank car.) A large enough tannery might also take in fuel oil in another tanker.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
NittanyLion Brewing changed a *lot* between the 40s and the 70s, but one thing that still worked was large production still requires large delivery.
Yes in common with many industries, fewer were rail served or as dependent on rail service by the 1970s, but I would say the 1970s are on the tail end of a great deal of traditional rail service (and traditional beer brewing, including regional and almost local breweries which were pretty good sized for a layout rather than today's micro breweries). Indeed I'd hazard the guess that there might be more difference between 1970 and 1985 than there is from 1940 to 1970.
Dave Nelson
dknelson Indeed I'd hazard the guess that there might be more difference between 1970 and 1985 than there is from 1940 to 1970.
Indeed I'd hazard the guess that there might be more difference between 1970 and 1985 than there is from 1940 to 1970.
Definitely. The plot for Smokey and the Bandit doesn't even work nowadays.
So Im probably going with a smaller Grain Elevator, a fuel & oil dealer, and a freight house/terminal. I figure with the freight terminal I can have a random load or 2 come in through there of machinery on a flatbed or rolled cable in a gondola, or other random stuff I'll make to slap in one of thsoe 2 cars.
Eventually I'm going to expand the table a bit and come off the layout with a double main line at the interchange section, and have it run each side to its own bigger loop, with an extra industry at least on the one (probably a big gravel plant or something. The other side i haven't figured out yet. Somewhere in there as well will be a yard. Im just waiting for the room to open up so I can set it all up. I'll probably have to change up the interchange, so the 4x8 can go in the middle of the room, probably just eliminate the switch and have it Y out to the loops (not sure what that would entail, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there)
You may want to consider having one industry be a team track. This can basically take any car type.
All you need to do to model a team track is have an empty lot, with maybe a loading dock in one area. Then you can have a stock of vehicles and other details that would be used for unloading your various car types. You can switch them out based off what industry is currently using the team track.
Regards, Isaac
I model my railroad and you model yours! I model my way and you model yours!
SPSOT fan You may want to consider having one industry be a team track. This can basically take any car type. All you need to do to model a team track is have an empty lot, with maybe a loading dock in one area. Then you can have a stock of vehicles and other details that would be used for unloading your various car types. You can switch them out based off what industry is currently using the team track.
That's pretty much what my freight house will be used as. I was talking with my grandpa about what was local around here back in the 70s, and there was a freight house that was like that. Also had all the groceries delivered there too he said.
I can modify my Interchange to be a single line in/out instead of a switch and 2 open ends, and can fit a bottle gas dealer (a propane distributor) which would fit with that and the grain elevator. I'm just not sure I would want both the gas dealer and the fuel dealer, so I'm looking at replacing the fuel dealer with something that would take open hoppers in the 70s.
I was thinking a cement plant or a brickplant, but not sure if those would fit with my industrial/commercial park theme
It might be more than you're prepared for, but a carfloat terminal can serve as a universal industry, providing a source and destination for any other rolling stock you might need.
My HO scale carfloat holds about 18 short freight cars, basically all 40 footers. I built mine to sit on a fold-down extension which is out of the way when not in use. I could use it as a cassette to remove and introduce different rolling stock if desired. I will eventually build the other float which is still in its original box.
You do need additional storage tracks for unloading and loading the carfloat when it comes into port.