Bear "It's all about having fun."
I don't have the kit, but I looked at the picture on the Walthers site. It looks to me like it has a loading platform on one side at boxcar (or reefer) door height, and a stock ramp on the other side. If you have the room, you might want to put a small stockyard / pen on the ramp side where you could bring in stock cars.
Another operational addition to your layout could be an icing platform for ice-bunker reefers, if you're modelling the pre-mechanical-refrigeration era. They you could have full stock cars coming in, empty reefers going to the ice platform and then to the packing company, and finally full reefers going out.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I spent too much time in those places. The Kit does build into a reasonable meat plant.
The ramp on the side takes cattle up to the kill floor. Then fluids, guts, meats etc are all processed downwards to the loading dock. It is clear to me that perhaps there is no "Blast" freezing units on site, nor are there any brine houses for hides and facilities to handle guts and body parts that people are not supposed to eat that will be sent out.
Having said that, this walthers kit will have the feedlot or holding area very near to or part of the entrance to the killfloor ramp. The cattle can be brought in by truck or by rail and unloaded into the pens. I think a full bore meat plant can process 1000-4000 kills per day. But assuming the size of the facility I will call it 200 kills per shift and 4 reefer loads of swinging beef shipped out each 8 hour shift.
I dont know how many cattle that can fit in a railroad stock car, some of these are like 2000 pounds. I guess 20 can fit in a cattle car. Suddenly you see a need to carry siding capacity next to the stock pen with room for 4 cattle cars. And a second siding next to that one for more stock cars with more cattle. Call it 8 stock cars in the second siding. You can probably extend the cattle pen siding to the end of the building for a total of 12 to 16 cattle cars every 8 hours.
Your 4 reefers sit at the loading dock on the other side of the facility for 8 hours as they cool down constantly (They are iced before loading)
You can have about 12 Reefers each day on a seperate icing facility elsewhere on your railroad. By switching out the loaded ones and dropping off 4 iced empties to be loaded during the next 8 hour shift.. you can keep pretty busy.
If you have additional room for more buildings then you can place those buildings near the main facility (No windows... minimum of doors because of the stink) and you can run sidings to those buildings. Tank cars of brine inbound and older tank cars taking away inedible fluids to be burned or re-processed into something else.. like medicines or make up. You can have the oldest boxcars taking your hides away. Gonolas for the rest. Those bones and stuff probably gets burned up on site to become char.
Just one siding is not going to cut it on that meat plant.
bearman wrote:I'm planning on using the Walthers HO Champion Packing Company on my layout and I was wondering if anyone has it on their layout and how it is placed in relation to the spurs that service the industry.
As the other poster noted - there should be a truck dock but we don't have one. We can truck cattle in, but not meat & by products out.
In an operating session it is almost a full time job working this facility, because of all the internal moves to places that are short term desitinations.
Oh, and don't forget that the packing plant will need other supplies in too. Paper, boxes, equipment, small quantities of chemicals, etc. This means an occasional in coming box car to the dock is needed.
And then you'll need the BLI sound-equipped stock cars that moo or oink when jostled.
Or maybe you could call it the "Dahmer Meat Packing Plant" and use passenger coaches on the input side...
Wash facilities of those places are huge users of supplies. I would think a boxcar every two days would do it for just that one item.
I forgot about the boilerhouse, they use steam alot close to live steam as a way to kill bacteria and clean the process line, tools etc.
The actual killing is probably nothing more than a gigantic stun paddle placed against the animal's heart after the thing is guided into a slinghoist.
Those that die before being delivered TO the slaughterhouse, they get dragged off to one side and kept out of the human food chain. It might take a few days before they are processed.
If you use BLI sound cattle cars, dont forget to add up the amp usage and ensure you have sufficient electrical "BEEF" (Sorry Had to say it) to carry it.
From what I have seen, I will say 9 of ten workers in such a place are foriegners here illegally trying to create a new life for themselves. Natural Citizens have died off and those cultures lost... take Fort Morgan Colorado. Long ago alot of Germans that were subject to military draft by the Czar in the Volga area immigrated to Ft Morgan. Now it's full of mexicans and what not.
Another good idea with the Champion Packing Co is to open up the building along the backdrop so that it is twice as long as it would be free standing. It is a much more impressive building that way. If you don't have that much room, cut down one of the long sides and make it 1.5 times longer along the backdrop.
You can then put the stock yard across the tracks with the boilerhouse. The 'walking tunnel' for the stock to reach the top floor can then go over the tracks. The stockyard doesn't have to be that big, since you could model inbound stock trucks instead of rail movements. Rail movements of livestock were way down by the 60s/70s.
Andy
sounds great! i too have bought one and the stock yards and also ice docks. would love to see your plan
ray
ramoutandabout wrote: sounds great! i too have bought one and the stock yards and also ice docks. would love to see your plan
Which one, Champion or Schrock's? I'm working on a preliminary plan for the meat packing plant area right now.
champion, the stock industry will be one of my main features
UP2CSX wrote:If you're going to be modeling in the 60's and 70's, you'll still need to add provisions for an icing dock. Ice reefers, especially for meat, were still in common use until at least 1975 or so. PFE still had a huge icing facility in the Roseville CA yard in 1970.
Marvelous, now I have to find an icing dock.
ramoutandabout wrote: champion, the stock industry will be one of my main features
What are you using for an icing dock, seein's how it looks like I will have to make provisions for one? But, as I indicated, I am leaning to Schrock's because of the footprint. I suspect that an icing facility is still in the cards.
Walthers makes this one:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3049
...and it's on sale right now, too.
Safety Valve wrote:How long is the platform on that walther's kit in terms of car capacity in 40' reefers?
The kit length is 11 1/4 inches, so it's going to be two reefers in HO.
yes the icing platform i bought was walthers . now i just need to get honey do's done so i have time to work on my stuff.
MisterBeasley wrote: Safety Valve wrote:How long is the platform on that walther's kit in terms of car capacity in 40' reefers?The kit length is 11 1/4 inches, so it's going to be two reefers in HO.
Well, two isnt enough. Ive a minimum of 4 in mind with 8 as ideal.
**Taps calculator... on sale that will work out to 80 dollars for 4 of these kits. I will probably have to settle for two, using one of the icehouses for the creamery.
Looking at the Walthers picture, I would think you could get two of them and put the two platforms end-to-end. That would give you 4 cars on one side, and probably room for 3 more on the other side of the platform, although with the arrangement shown, the icehouse structure would only allow that side to be a dead-end siding. With a bit of scratch-building, though, you could build a "bridge" across from the building to the platform, and allow a through track on either side of the platform.
If you had this on a long passing siding, though, you could service a string of reefers on the fly, just moving up two cars every few minutes on a single track.
bearman wrote:I never expected this kind of activity from what I thought was a simple question. I'm gonna print out Safety Valve's and Gandy Dancer's explanation of the operations, will take some study when it comes time to run trains.
As for the icing house ours is Walthers as well, but we purchased the ice platform extension kit so we can get more cars in simultaniously. The picture shown in that link has the extention kit.
Do you still have the box or paperwork from the extension kit to get the stock number for it?
Im all over the Walthers website trying to dig it up and it is driving me nutz how they lay page after page on a search...
It's 933-3050. But, it's $15.98 just for the extension, vs. the sale price of $21.98 for the whole thing. Besides that, the extension is not in stock.
Search methodology: I took the icehouse part number and added 1. Dumb luck. The keyword for the search would have been "add-on."
Well, it is going to have to be the pricier Schrock's for the smaller footprint, plus the Shrock's cattle ramp appears to be coming down off the side of the building towards the back so I have a preliminary track plan which can unload into pens between the unloading tracks and the ramp. With a track that leads to the front and another spur off that for the ice dock and I think I am good to go.