Railroad traffic for a Salvage Yard business

[trainmasterg]

Hi Everyone.

We're working on a Salvage Yard business for our HO scale modular layout, having started with the Washington Salvage kit by Walthers.  Because of limited industries on our layout, we need to generate traffic for this industry and while we want to boost it a little, don't want to completely unrealistic.

There is a single track spur and room to spot two cars.

Can anyone point us in the direction of prototype information about a similar industry?

Or - are there any articles about such industries in MRR?  We have 30 years worth of issues on hand - there has to be something in there somewhere.

Thanks,

Greg from WNY Train Masters

[7j43k]

Wow.  There sure are some interesting pictures when you do an image search for "salvage yard".  I did not know that meant an end of the line place for old cars.

Seems to me no one would ship old cars TO a salvage yard by rail.  So that leaves outbound.  Car parts, again, don't seem like something a salvage yard would ship out by rail.  They're sold piecemeal to the walk-in trade.

Leaving scrap.  So it seems you get to choose how you want to ship out scrap metal.  I've seen those bales.  So you would need a squisher/baler.  Or whatever it's called. Or, the other approach seems to be shredding.  Thus, a shredding machine.  Either way, you've got gondolas of metal scrap outbound.

You MIGHT be able to justify some sort of tank car, to get rid of all those nasty liquids that are supposed to be properly disposed of.

If you want to go towards the extremely unlikely but possible, perhaps the owner restores the occasional car, and ships outbound in an auto-box.  Yeah, right.  Like I said, extremely unlikely.

 

Ed

[ndbprr]

First of all there are two types of bundles.  #1 and #2.  #1 bundles are higher priced because all nonferrous materials (plastic, carpet, glass, etc.) are removed before crushing.  There is only so much garbage BOFs can handle.  A supplier of #1 bundles would have a group of grunts removing that stuff.  Either supplier would be a fiarly large operation. Steel mills don't deal in onesy twosy load sources.  They deal in 15+ gons full of scrap.  Scrap yards that cut stuff up are fairly large also.  A small town scrap yard such as you describe may have two or three piles of ferrous, stainless, aluminum and copper and brass and are possibly sold through a broker who can bundle loads.

[BRAKIE]

All scrap is not created equal. You have steel,tin,copper,aluminum,mill scrap automotive, home appliance etc all in their own piles..

A scrap yard ships to mills,foundries,recyclers and I knew of one that shipped salvageable automotive motors to a rebuilder.

If I may share my personal thought?  If I was to build a scrap yard I would want a area no less then 18" x  36" with various types of scrap piles...

[dknelson]

There was a good discussion, with lots of links provided, in these Forums about 4 years ago.   

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/221126.aspx

Cody Grivno had a "step by step" on scrap yards in MR Feb. 2011.

The index says there was an article in Oct. 1990.

Dave Nelson

[Lone Wolf and Santa Fe]

Try this link to see a real metal recycler on google maps.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0992319,-117.30013,151m/data=!3m1!1e3

The metal recycler in San Bernardino.

The building in the front takes aluminum cans and other scrap from walk in recyclers. There is a scale to weigh trucks. Besides cans, they take old appliances and of course copper wire which has been stripped by thieves from the city’s street lights, empty commercial buildings and foreclosed houses.

You can see numerous bins which hold different metals. You can also see a pile of cars, a pile of large appliances, and another pile that I can’t identify.  I see two water trucks and several loaders. I see two tanks which possible supply the fuel or water for the vehicles. I also see cardboard boxes which might be their biggest item. 

I am working on a model of this myself but all I have so far is the cardboard and a crane to load it onto the freight cars.

[Lone Wolf and Santa Fe]

Try this link instead

[cowman]

If you have a siding near the edge of your layout, you don't need to model the entire scrap yard.  I have seen many articles that show loads of scrap and it's often loaded by a crane with a magnet, thus ferrous metals.  I would assume that the other metals have been seperated and ship other ways or in separate loads.

Good luck,

Richard

[BRAKIE]

cowman

If you have a siding near the edge of your layout, you don't need to model the entire scrap yard.

That would be the best way and better then my idea I would think.. I will suggest leaving enough room for large piles scrap on both sides of the scrap yard siding.

And guys,don't forget to make the ground yucky looking.

[delray1967]

I was researching the area around Wooster, OH and found an interesting scrap yard. Google PSC Metals in Wooster, OH and you should be able to find it. I also did research on how a scrap yard operates...basically, they weigh the incoming truck full of scrap, then the truck unloads it's load into an 'incoming' pile. Then the trucker gets weighed again to see how much was dumped. The scrap yard guys then separate it it into ferrous, non ferrous, copper, etc to better classify the junk (different metals get different prices...and there are a LOT of different kinds of metals). It goes to a shredder where it's chopped up and sorted even more (by humans, magnetic conveyors, etc. Once sorted, it goes into specific piles where it sits until the price is right then it gets sold and shipped (baled, loose, etc). I don't know all the ins and outs of the business, it's just what I picked up after reading a few online articles, watching videos...it's enough for me to get a basic understanding of how this industry works (I like to research all the industries I model so the models look better). I just got a book on cabooses and it showed old cabooses at a scrap yard (in the 60's)...back then, they trucked (or brought the caboose in on an old flatcar or gondola) somewhere in the yard and set it on fire. After it burned out, all that was left was the stuff that wouldn't burn...metal. It was then cut up by ground crews and sold/recycled. I'm sure environmental concerns stopped the burning so it might depend on the era your group models. I agree, 18"x36" is a good, minimum size to realistically model it, but it can be compressed to fit on a smaller space. While in Utah, I saw a big dump truck dump a load of scrap right near a string of gons, then a crane with grippers picked it up off the ground and put it in the gons. This was right near a yard, parallel to a transloading area used by covered hoppers...I guess that scrap was technically being transloaded.

[BRAKIE]

delray1967

While in Utah, I saw a big dump truck dump a load of scrap right near a string of gons, then a crane with grippers picked it up off the ground and put it in the gons. This was right near a yard, parallel to a transloading area used by covered hoppers...I guess that scrap was technically being transloaded.

I never seen that done but,to my mind that would be a excellent way to add a scrap yard without the need to model the actual yard.

Thanks for sharing that information..

[dragonriversteel]

 Working on a complete auto shreddering machine. From the feeder apron,shredder, conyayors and everything else.

Mine is completely scratch built. Have a look on you-tube under " HO scale auto shredder" Found on Low budget HO scale modeling channel,stay tuned for build progress. Working on a electro magnetic hydraulic materiel handler to feed the scrap aprons as we speak.

 

[Anonymous]

There is such an industry on Lance Mindheim's layout.  It is shown/described in the video on this website (not sure if it is a MR subsciber extra or MRVP).