Does anyone know of a concise database that would show model railroad industries and the traffic associated with each? Such as: what types of cars and loads would be coming into a coal gasification plant and what cars out? No, I'm not looking for just that answer, I'm thinking of just about any conceivable business or industry a modeler might want to include while planning a future layout. Someplace we could look and quickly find the answers to cars and loads in and out of any type of business we might want to include. I can find lists for "off layout" destinations but I want to switch cars around on my own layout with a little bit of purpose.
Well, let me start this first reply to your post by saying that the best place to start is by looking at the real world. Look at some of the rail-served industrys local to you and see what types of cars go in and out of there. Also, while out in areas outside of your locale, you may find some other industrys that are not typical of what is local to you. Take some pictures of these while you're at it, pictures stay with you a lot longer than your memories, and, you can pick up the details of a scene that way.
Another good source is how-to books on building/modeling rail-served industrys. Kalmbach and other publishers have many great books on this very subject.
Internet searches are another great resource.
You may have been referring to this list about "off layout" destinations.
http://www.opsig.org/reso/inddb/
It's a good place to start, unless you have industries from another planet or something. They also suggest this link for matching car types to industry/commodity.
http://www.gecapitalrail.com/home
Kalmbach has offered a number of books that look at groups of specific industries including car types. Model Railroader has an irregular series of "Industries You Can Model" (or some similar term) that should pop up if you search the magazine index.
I'm not aware of a concise list as you describe. You have to do some work to come up with one for you layout, but it's time well spent in understanding what freight ops are all about.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Have you seen John Armstrong's "Track Planning for Realistic Operation"? That is the most commonly mentioned book, but I haven't read it so I can't say if it specifically talks about the types of cars/loads in sufficient detail. From the description, it seems like it would give some basic info for a variety of industries. Other than that, I don't know of a single source of this type of info. Kalmbach has books that focus on one specific industry (steel mills, logging, etc.).
My early edition of Armstrong's TPFRO doesn't have exactly that sort of list, although there is lots of info in it that would prove useful in compiling such a list.
Wiki lists the subject of every episode of "How it's made" on the Discovery Channel since 2001. Using your imagination, sift through the titles with an eye toward those that might have multiple and varied components that could make interesting loads, both in & out. Click on a particular finished product and it will display what goes into it. With four segments in each episode over 14 years you'll find nearly 700 products to consider and many will have multiple components. You may come up with industries our printed sources never thought of, or maybe didn't exist when they wrote their book or article.
John Nehrich of RPI fame did a book that included this subject, the title of which I can't remember. Google is your friend.
Jay
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If printed in small but readable type, your, "Concise list," would be a truckload of hardcover books.
The US Commerce Department employs an army of researchers and ststisticians in a vain attempt to keep pace with this subject. They're always playing catch-up, and have occasionally been decades short.
If you want a starting point, just open the local yellow pages - then start Googling the category headings. Even a partial listing of any metropolitan area would make a good Addendum 1 to your master's thesis...
OR, you can narrow your focus to that which is possible on YOUR layout - a much shorter and more achievable project. You don't need to know what's in all those piggyback trailers and stacked containers if the intermodal is just passing through.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with about 90% of my freight traffic just passing through)
Railroad Industry Modeling SIG
http://watt.rrisig.org/
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I have this large spreadsheet with all the customers on the DT&I Tecumseh Branch which includes the Campbell Soup Plant in Napoleon, OH. Here is a listing of the inbound loads and any RBL's would be outloaded with product along with the hundreds of RBL's and XLI's owned by the DT&I for outgoing products. This part is just the cars for Campbell's Soup, other cars were routed to other customers along this branch.
Coal
Rick J
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For the Campbells plant, do they label at the factory or do they load it "bright" and label it somewhere else?
Thanks for the replies and sources. This all came about as I was operating on a layout where I had to spot a tank car at a business I never would have thought received tank cars. My layout is small town/small industry switching. I own most of the "Industries Along The Tracks" books but, quite frankly, those are mostly larger industries than I have. And, as I am modeling the transition era (of course) looking at modern businesses in my area doesn't give me a clear picture. Thanks again!
Trynn_Allen2For the Campbells plant, do they label at the factory or do they load it "bright" and label it somewhere else?
I have no direct knowledge of this but when you consider than many products go ine the same size can it would be easy to confuse unlabelled ones.
Shipping the can bright would entail packing them, labelling the container, shipping them, unpacking them, loading a machine, labelling, repacking in sizes of packs that stores want and shipping again.
It would seem much simpler and efficient to label immediately and pack once. Even more so when automation was less capable than now, and barcode and computor tracking unheard of.
This is only an opinion.
Dave
Hello Mr. Moto,
The OPSIG group has a database of industries and the products associated with them. This link might be along the lines of what you are looking for.
Eric
WOW! Now that's a list!
Your OP got me thinking of classical coal gas processing. From what I can find, the received materials would be coal, and sometimes some petroleum products depending on the process. The output would be gas, which would go out by pipeline, and again depending on the process, coal tar, ammonia and coke, all of which might go by rail.
Excuse me, Mr Moto, but my mind first flashed back to the late '40s to mid-'50s, when steam was getting ready to be phased out, through the Transition Era, and into the time--'53--when we moved from the Village of Pewaukee to Waukesha, when there wasn't a steam locomotive to be seen in Waukesha. Several times in Pewaukee I'd watched local freights, pulled by Consols or Ten-wheelers, service a number of industries in town, and Geeps and RS3s doing same in The Big City.
So, what era are you aiming for? I can't say for certain, but I think a lot of model railroaders might just choose the days when cabooses traIled most freights because more businesses were switched in those days. Our home in "Peeville" had been heated with coal, then oil, and one of the first things Dad and my big brothers did when we moved into our new house in Waukesha was to tear out the coal bin in the basement because the house was heated by a gas furnace (hot water). Just about every village and city had coal yards and oil tank facilities--and steam locos in our area burned coal, too--and railroads need lots of oil in just about any era.
I'm sure others will advise you further on earlier eras and later years--after my modeling interests got stuck on both sides of the turn of the 20th century--once they know the time period of your choice. Good luck--and have fun!
Deano
Del Monte ships bright. That's the reason I ask. I was just curious if Campbells did that as well.
When DMC shipped bright, the cans, were stacked usually about 16 high on paletes, and the cans themselves had already been coded. So it wasn't all that difficult for the labellers to get the right labels and boxes for a load. Often times the brights were shipped to a labeller when one plant had canned more than anticipated (not hard to do if you get the right whether and surplus field crews) or were shipped to plant to label if it was closer to the distrubutor, as it was found there was less wear and tear and breakage for the product out side of a box than in, and the labels were just a pain if they didn't go straight into the box.
The question of shipping "bright" cans or labeled ones prompted me to remember the 1960's, when I worked for a smallish grocery store chain. Our store brand of catsup was actually made for us by Del Monte, but carried our label. It makes sense to think that Del Monte might send out unlabeled catsup bottles, with the labels to be affixed later, after the appropriate labeling had been decided upon. Soup cans all look alike, and no. 303 cans (vegetables) all look alike, so it would require careful monitoring to avoid mixups, but it could be done.
Tom
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Well, it *is* your railroad, and you make the rules, so far be it from me to add anything to that, but it is more work than what I would ever consider doing.
ROAR
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