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[quote user="dknelson"] A well known midwestern modeler and dealer, Ted Schnepf, has made available excellent copies of "Shipper's Guides" for a variety of railroads.  The C&NW one goes product by product and lists the cities and towns in a given state where the railroad had a history of shipping or receiving that product.  The variety is huge and even a quick read would give a model railroader 100 ideas for industries for a layout. Note that Ted offers "free" access to sample pages.   <a href="http://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/Books/shippers.html">http://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/Books/shippers.html</a> It has to be recognized that in the era before trucks nearly everything you could imagine was shipped by rail -- remember they were only seeking to fill a 36 ft boxcar!  Later when trucks were common, but interstate highways were not, the exclusive shipping by rail was reduced.  It was really in the 1960s when the variety began to reduce, and in part it was when the railroads stopped offering LCL service because frankly the trucks did a better job with that traffic. Broad categories such as "food" "appliances" "home furnishings" "raw materials" -- all have nearly infinite variety.  Even "wood" -- we see flats with dimensional lumber but also plywood sheets.  Finer woods such as veneer were shipped in boxcars and might still be.  Thinking back to my old home town which was on the C&NW, at one siding alone they received bulk oil, lumber, plastic pellets (for the company that virtually pioneered the plastic bags that dry cleaning comes in -- it started as a dry cleaner), raw hides for two tanneries, and raw materials for a pig iron foundry. The next siding served the huge Bucyrus Erie factory and here they both shipped and received -- shipped parts to huge shovels and draglines, but received everything from coal  foundry sand, cutting oil, scrap steel for the foundry, fabricated and sheet steel, lumber for patterns and shipping. The depot siding was a team track that back in the day received furniture, appliances, hardware, and other goods for local merchants, and there was another bulk oil dealer on that same siding.  A coal dealer and lumber yard were also on sidings. One of the more interesting customers made furniture -- heavy tables covered in formica -- the kind you see at "church suppers."  they would get boxcar loads of pressed board and possibly also the huge rolls of formica.  Whether they got the metal legs by rail I do not know.  One factory had its own siding and it made (and still makes) plastic signs, the kind you see at a gas station or fast food place where lights inside the sign light it up at night.  The McDonald's arches are a good example.  They got plastic pellets and possibly also dyes by rail into the 60s and 70s. Just out of town a related complex of factories got the bits and scraps from the animal slaughter, leather hide, and meat packing businesses, for glue factory (bones and hoofs) and fertilizer (everything else).  They shipped the most awful stuff in open gondolas.  I always wondered if when they weighed the cars they included the weight of the flies and maggots ... Dave Nelson <div style="clear:both;"></div> [/quote]   I researched about the C&NW a year or so again when I was just into sports and my interest in model trains was little and I came to loving the line, but now my interest is where it should be and I love reading about anything related to illinois railroad lines, operation or defunct.
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