They've been mentioned earlier in the post, but I'll add my vote to quarries as an underappreciated industry for modelers. To actually model a believable quarry would take a lot of space, but they're a great 'background' industry. My quarry is in a corner of the room, where the layout curves. I designed the layout to allow for a duckunder and space to stand and work in the corner behind the backdrop. (This was necessary because there's a plumbing shutoff valve up in the ceiling there.) The lead to my quarry goes through the backdrop to a couple of spurs that curve along behind the backdrop. It's a simple empties in/loads out operation, shipping both sand and gravel for a bit of visual variety. On the layout, there's a chain link security fence along the property line (including an operating gate across the track), with a lot of trees and brush inside the fence (which is typical around an open pit operation). I used the trees to hide the opening in the backdrop and pasted a cutout photo of a rock crusher and some gravel piles on the backdrop behind the trees. It looks good, generates a lot of switching action and traffic, and best of all, instead of taking up space it makes use of space that otherwise might have been wasted.
Another idea that hasn't been mentioned is an auto parts plant. These take up a lot less space than an assembly plant but can generate a fair bit of interesting rail traffic. Back in the 70's, I worked a few summers in a facility that was two plants in one. One side was an engine assembly line that brought parts in (spark plugs, timing belts, etc.) and shipped finished engines out to assembly plants, using both truck and boxcar. It had an indoor loading track. The other side was a foundry that made castings (engine block, cylinder head, etc.). Again, boxcars to deliver metal ingots and ship finished parts out to other plants. Casting sand could be delivered by hopper car. I also saw tank cars there; not sure what they were bringing in. As a security guard, I had the run of the place, but was pretty ignorant about the actual casting process!
One need not model a large industry on the layout. You can have a siding to a chain-link fence gate with the track continuing behind a hill/line of trees that can lead to a multitude of possibilities: explosives plant, military base, virtually any type of inustry that is fenced in.
In Model Railroader and other train magazines in the 80s, they actually advertised smells for stuff like, maybe not offal, but they did offer rendering plants, leather tanning plants, pickling plants, meat packing plants, and smells like real burning coal and diesel oil smells. You didn't see those ads anymore in the 90s, however. Anyone with a wife can understand why that wouldn't work. Probably why they'll never have smellovision.
I have a string of open-top coal hoppers. Pretty ordinary, I suppose, but these are the old Tyco clamshell door hoppers that actually dump coal out the bottom. I have an old flood loader from Vollmer, I believe, and also one of the old trip-tracks that would open the hopper doors and dump the coal. So, I have a coal industry that both loads coal into hoppers and then unloads it into a waiting bin on the other side of the layout.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
rrinker That's a good one too. Palmerton, PA was home to a NJ Zinc plant, served by its own railroad but also right by a fatastic LNE bridge which no longer exists that crossed the Lehigh River, as well as CNJ and LV tracks. You can still see evidence of it being there in the surroundign hills, but I remember as a kid the hills were all completely bare of vegetation, the fumes fromt he smelting process killed everything. Years of cleanup has resulted in most of it coming back, but you can still tell when driving through the area. --Randy
That's a good one too. Palmerton, PA was home to a NJ Zinc plant, served by its own railroad but also right by a fatastic LNE bridge which no longer exists that crossed the Lehigh River, as well as CNJ and LV tracks. You can still see evidence of it being there in the surroundign hills, but I remember as a kid the hills were all completely bare of vegetation, the fumes fromt he smelting process killed everything. Years of cleanup has resulted in most of it coming back, but you can still tell when driving through the area.
--Randy
Glad you chimed in Randy. My grandfather retired from Dixie Cup. And I lived a few years in Palmerton after college. It's amazing how green the mountain is now, compared to when I was a youngster in the 80s. It looked like Mordor for 50+ years.
The zinc plant's rails were ultimate owned by CNJ. They had a subsidiary railroad, the Chestnut Ridge RR, which ran 10 miles east to Kunkletown. Mostly general goods for Kunkletown, but the Chestnut Ridge started its life in the early 1900s with financing from Rockefeller and JJ Astor as both a line to a resort destination, as well as a line serving a unique white clay mining operation. Never quite panned out, though.
I model the western end of the CRRR at its junction with the CNJ at Hazard, just west of Palmerton. Sadly, the CRRR only runs about 3 ft from the interchange track into a tunnel as hidden staging as I just didn't have space to model anything of the shortline or the zinc plant in Palmerton.
Jason
Something I seldom see is the cotton industry. A cotton mill would generate a lot of traffic, at least into the early 70s era and provides a great backdrop industry for a small town becasue of it's linear design. Also in that industry would be a cotton gin & oil mill. The town where I grew up had one with a fascinating "E L Moore" like mix of brick, corrugated, and wood structure. I even took pictures of it to model some day, if I could find the pictures.
Related to a couple of posts others made, the town we now live in still had a row of very model genic industries that were still rail served until around 2010. In the space of a couple hundred yards were a wholesale grocery that received both box and refrigerator traffic; a warehouse; a small propane dealor that looked like it came out of a Walthers box; and a tannery that received hides by rail. Every one of these was pretty much the "boxcar is bigger than the factory" yet completely real.
jmbjmb Something I seldom see is the cotton industry. A cotton mill would generate a lot of traffic, at least into the early 70s era and provides a great backdrop industry for a small town becasue of it's linear design. Also in that industry would be a cotton gin & oil mill. The town where I grew up had one with a fascinating "E L Moore" like mix of brick, corrugated, and wood structure. I even took pictures of it to model some day, if I could find the pictures.
My new layout will recycle some structure parts that I used on the old layout. Notably, DPM modulars. These are a repeating design which mimick the linear and repeating brick designs of many cotton mill structures I have seen in the SE USA. It's already assembled for the most part, and is a background structure that uses those old parts plus a few new modular sections. It will represent and abandoned mill that is no longer rail served, sometime in the 2000s.
- Douglas
There were several cotton mills in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, but most of them have been torn down.This one, Imperial Cotton, is no longer a cotton mill, but it's still around and houses many small artisan-type industries, plus an art and photography school.
It has also been on several of the local "Doors Open" tours, where interested parties can visit sites normally restricted from public access...
...it was rail-served...
Basically a steel-framed building, the floors are 2"x6" lumber, installed on-edge, in two layers at 90º to one another. This was to support the heavy looms and carding machinery used to make sailcloth, industrial belts for power transmission to machinery, roofing for railway cars, and awnings.
I modelled another cotton mill in my home town, a much larger curtainwall-style structure, which no longer exists.
I really like DPM's modular wall systems, but I find them to be grossly over-priced, even moreso than when I used them to build this grocery warehouse...
Wayne
doctorwayne I really like DPM's modular wall systems, but I find them to be grossly over-priced, even moreso than when I used them to build this grocery warehouse... Wayne
Nicely done Wayne. Yes, the modulars are pricey. I've gotten most of mine from breaking down poorly built DPM structures individuals sell at trainshows. Once I got the huge DPM power plant nearly falling apart for only $5. It supplied a great deal of parts at once. Old DPM kits, or poorly built structures is one of the items I regularly look for at shows. It amazing how many people try to put them together with yellow wood glue. I love those. They snap right apart.
Doughless It amazing how many people try to put them together with yellow wood glue. I love those. They snap right apart.
.
So true... I love finding plastic kits in the 1-4 dollar bargain bins assembled with wood glue.
Pop them apart and harvest the raw building materials.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I'm coming to this thread late, but I haven't seen anything about bombs.
Outside my hometown, there was a set of buildings called the Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant. It was a major supplier of bombs during WWII and the Vietnam War.
The plant was torn down years ago, but the bunkers and the railroad tracks are still there.
The tracks could make an interesting layout if I had a huge model railroad room. Union Pacific still owns some tracks to the old plant, and some newer factories have moved in that have rail connections.
It's difficult to see the rail lines in this image:
Underground bunkers:
York1 John
Cymrych79 Dont forget Deka Battery not far away either. That is a good low profile, edge of layout type industry. Shane rrinker That's a good one too. Palmerton, PA was home to a NJ Zinc plant, served by its own railroad but also right by a fatastic LNE bridge which no longer exists that crossed the Lehigh River, as well as CNJ and LV tracks. You can still see evidence of it being there in the surroundign hills, but I remember as a kid the hills were all completely bare of vegetation, the fumes fromt he smelting process killed everything. Years of cleanup has resulted in most of it coming back, but you can still tell when driving through the area. --Randy Glad you chimed in Randy. My grandfather retired from Dixie Cup. And I lived a few years in Palmerton after college. It's amazing how green the mountain is now, compared to when I was a youngster in the 80s. It looked like Mordor for 50+ years. The zinc plant's rails were ultimate owned by CNJ. They had a subsidiary railroad, the Chestnut Ridge RR, which ran 10 miles east to Kunkletown. Mostly general goods for Kunkletown, but the Chestnut Ridge started its life in the early 1900s with financing from Rockefeller and JJ Astor as both a line to a resort destination, as well as a line serving a unique white clay mining operation. Never quite panned out, though. I model the western end of the CRRR at its junction with the CNJ at Hazard, just west of Palmerton. Sadly, the CRRR only runs about 3 ft from the interchange track into a tunnel as hidden staging as I just didn't have space to model anything of the shortline or the zinc plant in Palmerton. Jason
Dont forget Deka Battery not far away either. That is a good low profile, edge of layout type industry.
Shane
[/quote]
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
York1 I'm coming to this thread late, but I haven't seen anything about bombs. Outside my hometown, there was a set of buildings called the Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant. It was a major supplier of bombs during WWII and the Vietnam War. The plant was torn down years ago, but the bunkers and the railroad tracks are still there. The tracks could make an interesting layout if I had a huge model railroad room. Union Pacific still owns some tracks to the old plant, and some newer factories have moved in that have rail connections.
Hey, I've been there! I grew up in GI.
DoughlessHey, I've been there! I grew up in GI.
I left GI in 1970 and moved to Louisiana. We moved back to NE about 20 years ago, but not to GI. GI has changed a lot since 1970!