Industrial Railroading

[Jetrock]

I can relate to enjoying the research as much as the modeling! Even in a relatively small area (three miles by three miles) I've had to do quite a bit of selective compression to get my layout to fit my dinky garage. Fortunately I drive the streets of the Belt Line all the time and there are quite a few of the old buildings left--heck, my gym is located in what used to be the Libby, McNeil & Libby plant!

Before *too* long I hope to have some of the layout "ready for prime time" and will post links to photos of it online..as you can see I'm not shy about blathering about it!! Just be sure to do the same for your Flint project...

[Anonymous]

Jetrock,sounds like you did your homework. I've found that I enjoy the research almost as much as modeling. I plan on making a couple trips North to Flint's main library to get some more info and pictures. It's amazing the amount of compression you have to do. The Buick plant in Flint would pretty much take up my whole basement. I've been thinking about doing just that. There's 15 mi. of railroad track just within the Buick plant itself. It would make one heck of a switching layout. It's just to bad it was all razed a couple of years ago. Thanks for the info on your pike, I wish you were close, I'd love to see your pike. Take care.

[Jetrock]

Strider1: It is based on a prototype belt line that was operated by the Sacramento Northern Railroad, originally the Northern Electric Railroad, and jointly operated by Central California Traction.

Downtown Sacramento is literally square--it was laid out during the Gold Rush era as a grid of square blocks, with north-south streets given numbers and east-west streets letters, from A to X and "Front" (for 1st) to 31st. When Northern Electric came to run an electric interurban line through Sacramento, they were given permission to run passenger trains into the heart of downtown Sacramento at 8th and K, but the city fathers didn't want freight engines charging through downtown and forced them to go around the long way.

The line entered Sacramento from the north at 18th and B Street (note: the old Central Pacific line, later SP, runs on an elevated levee along what would be B Street.) under the SP mainline, turned east on C Street, south on 31st Street, west on X Street, and north on Front Street. At Front and M Street, the track turned west again and crossed the Sacramento River on the M Street Bridge. Freights took this route, referred to as "going around Cape Horn", when passing through Sacramento on the way from Chico (the northernmost point of the NE) to Oakland (the southernmost point of the Oakland, Antioch & Eastern, which later merged with the NE to form the Sacramento Northern.) It literally circled three-quarters of downtown, and the passenger line (mentioned below) completed the rest of the belt--a true loop!

A second interurban line, Central California Traction, which ran from Stockon to Sacramento, shared trackage rights over the southern half of the belt line. They also served the California State Fairgrounds and other industries just south of Sacramento.

Passenger trains went due east off the M Street Bridge up M Street, turned north on 8th Street to the passenger station on 8th and J, then turned again onto I Street, 15th Street, D Street, past the small yard and engine service terminal at 17th and D, and north again to the line under the SP mainline where the passenger trains met up with the freights in a yard just north of downtown Sacramento. CCT's passenger trains went up X Street and north up 8th Street to the passenger depot. In 1925 a union passenger station was opened at 12th and H Street, which operated until the end of SN's passenger service in 1941.

There were several large industrial complexes served directly by the Belt Line: Blue Diamond Almond Growers, California Packing Corporation (who had several plants throughout Sacramento), Libby McNeil & Libby Canning, and a number of smaller canning, milling, wood planing, and other operations. Sacramento is at the hub of a large agricultural area, and so most of its industry was centered around agricultural products.

There were many interchanges with other railroads. Southern Pacific ran north on B Street and also had an industrial line that ran all the way down R Street (tracks are still visible there today) as well as a branch line that ran south from Front Street. SP connected with the Belt Line at Front and X Streets as well as an interchange north of Sacramento at Haggin Yard. Western Pacific's line ran through Sacramento in the other direction, on private right-of-way between 19th and 20th Street (freights still use it, and the old WP station is now an Italian restaurant) and interchanged with the Belt Line at Haggin Yard and also at 19th and X, and also at Front and R Street--the WP had a smaller industrial line that ran down an alley between Q and R Street and joined up with their north-south line.

Industries and businesses not served by spurs directly could ship and receive from several team tracks, located at Front and M Street (where there was a freight station/warehouse and small yard), Front and X Street, and 17th and D Street. Southern Pacific had an enormous team track area (taking up several city blocks) along Seventh Street, near the eastern end of the SP Shops and Yard.

The CCT and SN both operated trolley lines that operated around the Belt Line area and through downtown, which were separate from Sacramento's PG&E trolley system. All were taken over by National City Lines during World War II and all were shut down in 1946.

After WWII, the Belt Line switched over to diesel engines--the CCT in 1946, the SN by 1953. After 1953 the track north of P Street on Alhambra was abandoned, and SN engines used the WP's 19th Street line to go north-south. The remainder of the track on Alhambra, Front and X Streets was abandoned in 1966, and SN/CCT trains operated over SP and WP's trackage. The industrial tracks over R Street were abandoned in the 1980's, but much of the right-of-way is now part of Sacramento's "Light Rail" system.

okay, so much for history...My own little interpretation of the SN is currently 6 feet by 18 inches, and represents the X Street portion of the Belt Line. The final plan I have in mind will expand to 6 feet by 8 feet, as a shelf layout no more than 2 feet thick at any point, with an operator position in the center, that can be broken down into 4 pieces no larger than 2x6 feet. The plan is HO, using curves as sharp as 12" radius (four-axle diesels and 50' boxcars can manage these at slow speeds just fine, thank you.) The timeframe is currently 1953-1966, as all my rolling stock is diesel, but I have plans to raise electric poles and scratchbuild electric freight motors Real Soon Now, which will allow me to backdate the layout to the 1940's.

52x22 feet sounds like room for a heck of a lot of layout in HO or N scale, and pretty respectable in O!! Done strictly as a belt line, such a space would be a mind-blower, although you'd need a whole lot of buildings!

Sanborn maps are great--that is what I have used for my own layout planning, as well as some original documents from the California State Railroad Museum library, and assorted online research.

[Anonymous]

It's good to know I'm not the only switch freak out here. Hey Jetrock, tell me more about your pike if you will. It sounds just like what I want to do. Is your belt line based on a prototype in Sacramento or a freelance that just uses Sacramento as a base. What size is your pike? What scale and time frame are you doing. After I finish my Basement I'll have a 52X22 ft. L shaped area I plan on using. I'm hoping to do a beltline that the Pere Marquette had at Flint MI. somewhere around 1939. Anyone else out there doing a switching pike? Hey Bigboy where did you get the schematics for your track plan? I got sanborn maps for Flint MI. and plan a track plan based on those. How far along are you?

[Jetrock]

My layout is an industrial belt line, it is all located in one city for now (Sacramento CA) and will eventually include a "loop" of sorts. The real belt line looped around three-quarters of Sacramento's perfectly square city limits until the early 1950's, serving a variety of industries as well as interchanging cars with WP, SP and local short lines.

Industrial modeling is nice for small layouts, as the curves are tight, the lines are straight and it is completely prototypical to have a lot of industries in a very small space. Switching is featured heavily, but there will also be "mainline running" as local switching jobs clear the line for through freights.

[Big_Boy_4005]

I have the space to do a lot, and have always liked mainline running as well as switching puzzles. As a result, I get the best of all worlds.

I will be representing the local "milling district" with all of its elevators in a 40' long O scale adaptation. The prototype for this is 15 city blocks long, and about a block wide. I have a track schematic for the the entire thing, but even with 40' it will take a lot of compression, since a mile and a half in O scale would be 180'. In the compression process, I'll save the best parts, add a little complexity, and voila, it should provide hours of fun.

There will also be 3 or 4 smaller industrial areas for road style switching. Each of those areas will be smaller puzzles too.

[BRAKIE]

Sure there are modelers who prefer switching layouts over running endless loops..I prefer a branch line,industrial branch or a work a day short line over any other type of layout.
Now know and understand a true industrial switching layout is not a switching puzzle or a time saver but a well thought out and design layout just like any other type of layout.

[Anonymous]

My first railroad that I built was entirly a switching layout. It measured 11' X 1' 6" since that was the only space that I had. I got the track plan out of either a Kalambach or atlas book. Basically it was more of a puzzle than a pike based on any prototype. It had a walkaround throttle and only manual turnouts on it. I would invite a friend to more a car from one point to another and watch as they tried to figure the thing out. Lots of fun!

[Anonymous]

I'll will have I VERY small one called the Scranton Industrial Railway as a part of my AS&N.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone model, or plan to model a railroad based on nothing but an industrial switching railroad, or have your whole railroad dedicated to just one city. One big switching pike?