It seems to be the trend today to model large basic industries. I have no problem with that, it would provide many hours servicing these industries. I am thinking of Pittsburgh and how the PRR, B&E brought in coke, iron ore and other supplies. How the URR took them to the mills and the mills like USS (now USX), had their own railroad.
What I think is missing is what was along the Allegheny River. Smaller manufacturing plants that used the railroad. Example the company I worked for. National Alloy Division Blaw-Knox Co. We made alloy products to serve industry. It was not basic steel and wasn't very large. There were many other smaller companies that used the railroad. Since we as modlers have limited space, we are missing a chance to have various small companies that would use the railroad that wouldn't take a massive area of our layouts and give us variety and if you like switching then there would plenty of it.
Good point..It would depend on era as well..
Let's look at the PikeStuff's Tri-Star Industries
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/541-20
Folks,A 53' trailer would overwhelm the receiving dock.
How so?
First,we need room for a office area,lunch room,rest rooms and of course production area.Doesn't leave much room for shipping and receiving does it?
Ah what to do?
Enter storage tanks.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/570-1018
Add one of these or both and the company can receive plasticizer in tank cars.
Add a silo and it can receive plastic pellets in covered hoppers..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Rusty NailThere were many other smaller companies that used the railroad. Since we as modlers have limited space, we are missing a chance to have various small companies that would use the railroad that wouldn't take a massive area of our layouts and give us variety and if you like switching then there would plenty of it.
But if you look at most layouts, you'll already find multiple industries far too small to need rail service in the first place. I suspect this happens because modelers don't want to tie up their layout space (that could be used for track) with realistically-large structures for industries.
So we end up with spurs that go to industries so small, a single truck could serve them well enough.
Rusty,
Very good point. Most structure kits for industries just are not large enough to justify enough output for rail service. Even the big Walthers industrial kits are rather small versions of a lot of these industrial structures.
That said; the smaller grain elevators, feed mills, canning plants, etc... are all good industries. The problem for most 'modern' era layouts is that very little of these industries still exist(at least in a rail served enviroment). Here in the Midwest, we see large 'shuttle elevators', corn syrup & ethanol plants. There are still small operations like local farm service 'fertz' dealers that get covered hoppers of potash for mixing fertilizer. I saw a small rail served industry in Huron, SD a couple of years ago. They made galvanized culvert and water tanks. They received rolls of sheet steel via rail. The structure could be made out of Pike Stuff kits/parts.
I have a 'Swift' plant on my layout(Walthers Champion Packing) and it produces 3 car loads of meat each day. It takes up 3 tracks and occupies about 3-4 sq feet of layout space(packing house/boiler house/stock pens/ice dock). This is a large complex and fills up a area where the main line is a turnback loop. It fills that area very well.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Era is also important in deciding which industries would be served by rail. The great Interstate Highway System project of the 50s and 60s changed the road vs. rail dynamic dramatically. This huge investment in highway infrastructure gave trucking a big advantage, since it basically got its modern right-of-way for free. Better highways and improvements in truck design allowed for larger trucks, and suddenly there was competition for transportation of large amounts of goods. For the first time, manufacturing was no longer tied to the train lines, and could conveniently locate itself anywhere close to a major highway.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Rusty Nail It seems to be the trend today to model large basic industries.
It seems to be the trend today to model large basic industries.
I believe that is a good trend.
If you're talking about model availability, 99 percent of available industry structures are very tiny and most would hardly have seen railroad service since before the mid-twentieth century. Even the "large" model industries are small, but then, we don't have a 40' by 60' room to model a single industry, do we?
Placing the industries at the layout edges modeling primarily the railroad loading/receiving portions, or just their fronts, is probably the best way to convincingly represent larger industries, or even having the track go behind some trees or hills to a hidden, unmodeled industry.
This all makes interchanges and team tracks more attractive as they are essentially "structureless."
My trouble is I enjoy making structures.
Mark
I have several smaller industries for a future town when combined can easily require a 12 car or more train to local switch em all. A car load here or a carload there isnt a big deal to me.
I see the industries as needing to be large enough or larger than the boxcar sitting next to them.
However, Ive taken flats loaded with rounds and billets into a place just large enough to produce extruded aluminum steps for desiel truck fuel tanks for Mack and others in the area. It wasnt much bigger than my small house. In fact there was a Box trailer at the dock on the other end of the dock that served as a outbound warehouse but with wheels.
I remember another industry where there were three rooms. One of those was a boxcar inside the building. I was walking onto and through it before I realized that the steel walls and metal plate under my feet indicated that this was not a ordinary room. If that boxcar was NOT present, well... I guess workers get exercise climbing down ladders and then climbing up the other ladder.
Ive been into places where the truck dock was a raildock with the rails, ties and switches buried under the ground. Maybe just enough room for one boxcar along side the dock, but now can back 4 semi trailers to that same dock.
You can also model small industries without building the structure. Build the track and platform next to the edge of the benchwork. It gives you a switch location without consuming much real estate.
MisterBeasleyEra is also important in deciding which industries would be served by rail. The great Interstate Highway System project of the 50s and 60s changed the road vs. rail dynamic dramatically.
Modeling the 1900's solves most of these problems. Rail served more industries, smaller industries, with smaller cars, smaller engines, smaller facilities. I can put a 15 car train in an 8-9 ft siding and have a train 1/3 the size of a real one. In 1980's era a 15 car train would be 12-13 ft long and about 1/5th the size of a real one.
Now if the manufacuters would only cooperate and support those eras.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I came across references were the RR's were actually discouraging shippers and trying to close down non profitable branches in the late 50's.
Oh well---back to protolancing I guess---
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
I'm a fan of industries large enough to look like they actually need rail service. However, we don't always have the room available to model these monsters. I have some big industries on my layout, but, for the most part, they're at the backdrop, and not fully modelled. The interface with the railroad is generally the part that interests us, so that's usually what's modelled, as in the structure below:
While the structure is long, it's only about 6" deep, so it doesn't take up a lot of real estate to generate carloads. Its size also helps to hide the rest of the city behind it, which, of course, is implied rather than modelled.
While my city scene supports nine modelled industries, I have two stub sidings under my staging yard which represent other on-line industries. One of them, the Evell Casket Company, is "suggested" at the point on the backdrop where the track enters the normally unseen area. The prototype occupied an entire city block, while mine, made from leftovers from the first building shown, takes up only an otherwise unuseable wedge of property. The loading docks, manufacturing area, etc. are all on those hidden tracks, along with a bridge and crane manufacturer, glassworks, brewery, and any other industries which I might want to add. Here's an aerial view, showing the track through the backdrop:
And another showing how little (just part of the general offices, actually) was modelled. You can see the sidings, too, with three reefers parked on the middle level:
A good industry to model in a small space, and one suitable for cities or small towns, is a team track. Most of my layout is small towns, but even the city gets a team track. Seen here in the left foreground, it can handle boxcars, reefers, hoppers, flats, and gondolas, and could be modified to handle tank cars, too. This allows you, like the prototype, to service smaller (and unmodelled) industries which wouldn't normally have their own siding:
Boxcars:
Reefers:
Hoppers:
Gondolas and flats:
A small town would have a less-elaborate set-up, perhaps with just a ramp, or a shed for holding lcl shipments:
A lot depends on the era which you're modelling, too. Nowadays, a lot of stuff that moves in trucks moved by rail in the '50s and earlier. Cities and small towns had coal yards and icehouses, which can be modelled with only a small amount of real estate. My city one doesn't take up too much room, but looks, I think, suitable imposing:
The same in a small town, if it had its own siding, was simpler and sized to suit its market. I built mine to a common plan, and there's one in every town, along with an accompanying icehouse (I'm modelling the late '30s):
Of course, if you have the room, it's also nice to have a more fully-modelled large industry. Mine has the main line cutting through its centre, and generates many carloads per day. The modelled area represents about one third of the total size of the complex, and measures about 6'6"x21".
Wayne
I think era dictates the size of industries we model. Modern railroading is mostly about serving big industries with lots of traffic going to and from a single plant. I model the 1950s and most of my industries served have sidings for on one or two cars. I have a paper mill along the backdrop which has two input and one output track but even that is very compressed version of the real thing. I have a brewery which has several service tracks as well. I would rather have lots of smaller industries than to model just a few large ones.
Some of the industries planned into my new layout will be a steel mill, an auto plant, ADM export grain elevator dock side at the harbor and Red Wing Milling. Other industries I wiould like to model are the Heljan Cold storage plant as a shipper of produce (ala Railex), the DPM track side transfer, the Heljan Factroy (becsue it is only 2.5" deep and would make a good indstry for a small space. The Model Tech Studios buildings are interesting since they are designed as background industries.
Even at the midpoint of the 20th century, not all industires were served my long sidings and had large physical plants to model. I am looking at a 1950s era IC track chart for one of the locations I'm modeling, Centralia, IL. North of the passenger depot, there were several small industries that were serviced. Roxana Petroleum Company was on a 332 foot siding. North of them was Standard Oil Company with a 545 foot siding, a little farther North was Central City Lumber Company with a 346 foot siding. A lttle compression and you can make a good representation of those industries in a small space.
blownout cylinder I came across references were the RR's were actually discouraging shippers and trying to close down non profitable branches in the late 50's. Oh well---back to protolancing I guess---
Some of the major railroads still don't want the 1 or 2 car a week customer while other major railroads and short lines go after those customers.
I used to dream of having a layout with several large industries. Then after reading articles by Frank Ellison, among others, I started having doubts that such a thing was possible. I started thinking about the local steel mill with it's blast furnaces, Open Hearths, rolling mills, Coke Plant, Engine House, miles of yard tracks, Bridge cranes, piles of coal, ore, gravel and other supplies, three Hullet unloaders, found out the mill was 1.5 X 2.5 miles, and an HO mile is about 60'. Even as a teen ager, I realized that its about impossible to really build a true scale model of a large industry. Heck, even a Great Lakes ore boat of the time would have been over 11' long and a foot wide.
Then I tried building a track plan from MR, a branch terminal around Columbia, Mo. However, instead of building the area to the plan scale, I took a pair of calipers and measured the area against the pictured 40' box. I ended up with a passing siding, about 5 buildings, and maybe 5 spur tracks in the area. Came out about 6' X 14'.
Most industries are too large to be modeled on most of our layouts. Selective compression and misdirection are almost mandatory. Now, locally, I drive past a trucking company that has a spur serving almost a hundred rigs. Could be represented by a 1' X 3' area with a small garage, warehouse, office building, no loading dock, or a track end ramp, a front end loader, heavy duty fork lift, maybe a conveyor or two, several Walther's expandable container chassis, an assortment of straight trucks, dump trailers, box trailers, open trailers, regular and heavy duty flat bed trailers. Maybe a couple taners. Stretch a point, have a couple parallel spurs, one shorter than the other. One spur has the end loading ramp, maybe a side ramp. Maybe add a small gantry crane. A short distance from the ramp, maybe some kind of tank car unloading facility. The other spur could have a conveyor pit for almost anything that could come in by hopper, as well as allowing a front end loader to take things offf a flat. Maybe you can find one of the Kalimar container unloaders for the yard. Now, instead of a single large inductry taking up a large area and needing only a couple different car types, you have a large industry serving as many other industries as your imagination can come up with, with as many different car types as you can think of.
In fact, if you include a fueling area for the facility's tractors, with this much business, you could even justify a tank car of diesel fuel weekly.
We also had a locally owned builder's supply that serviced both retail, commercial, and industrial. The enclosed facility recieved box cars of lumber, tubing, other supplies, gondolas of cast iron and concrete tubing, flat cars of preassembled housing walls and roof trusses. Several cars a week. Cars could go into an enclosed industrial type building with a retail store front easily in a small space. Maybe just model the back of the building along an edge of the layout.
Really, few of us have the room to model any kind of large industrial area. We have to create the illusion of size. We have to develop and use our imaginations.
By the way, that medium size truck terminal I referred to is serviced by a spur off a large N&S yard, that interchanges with the aformentioned steel plant, and also a local Ford Assembly plant. They even get new tractors and trailers delivered by rail.
Newsprint, other paper products (on rolls), fabrics, etc.are transported by rail, often to separate warehouses that then service the appropriate industry via truck. Sometimes, I have seen these warehouses as relatively small (slightly longer than the length of a boxcar, and roughly twice the width), in an area of similar warehouses and industries along a spur.
In this image, the upper left building was a produce warehouse, the lower right (at angle) was a newsprint warehouse. [Google helps me recall what I've seen before]
Thank you for the kind words, Dan. The layout is in a very odd-shaped room, and is an around the room type, with a liftout at the door. I don't have a track plan (never really did, either - I built it to fit the room). It will eventually be partially double-decked, and is intended to be operated as a point-to-point-to-point, with the mainline in the shape, roughly, of a "Y". The two "arms" of the "Y" will be the double-decked area, with one above the other. There will be staging at all three ends of the line, with a modelled interchange on the upper level. There is provision for continuous running, although that's mainly for when the grandkids want to run trains. Room size is about 560 sq. ft., with minimum mainline radius at 30", although most are 34" or greater. There are lots of grades, too, with the maximum of 2.8% on the climb to the second level.
Here's a link to a Layout (room) tour...with lots of photos
Well for the smaller sized industries, The load could be less than a full carloads. I work for a retail furniture store that has received LCLs several times.
Mike Dickinson
I went for a protolanced 'regional/shortline' that services an agricultural area---chains of elevators/feedmills/seed and seed cleaning establishments/and a few greenhouse-based places----this coupled with the usual team tracks for off site/bench factories----an ex; we had a few years ago some people who were brave enough to come up with a high end tube based amplifier and speaker factory in a village north of Woodstock---shipped via CN-----and even a quarry is being tossed into the mix----inspired by Lance Mindheim and Beachville ON and three Limestone quarries cheek by jowl along Ingersoll Rd there------so if one wants to they can pick their way through ideas----
EM-1 I used to dream of having a layout with several large industries. Then after reading articles by Frank Ellison, among others, I started having doubts that such a thing was possible. I started thinking about the local steel mill with it's blast furnaces, Open Hearths, rolling mills, Coke Plant, Engine House, miles of yard tracks, Bridge cranes, piles of coal, ore, gravel and other supplies, three Hullet unloaders, found out the mill was 1.5 X 2.5 miles, and an HO mile is about 60'. Even as a teen ager, I realized that its about impossible to really build a true scale model of a large industry. Heck, even a Great Lakes ore boat of the time would have been over 11' long and a foot wide. Then I tried building a track plan from MR, a branch terminal around Columbia, Mo. However, instead of building the area to the plan scale, I took a pair of calipers and measured the area against the pictured 40' box. I ended up with a passing siding, about 5 buildings, and maybe 5 spur tracks in the area. Came out about 6' X 14'. Most industries are too large to be modeled on most of our layouts. Selective compression and misdirection are almost mandatory. Now, locally, I drive past a trucking company that has a spur serving almost a hundred rigs. Could be represented by a 1' X 3' area with a small garage, warehouse, office building, no loading dock, or a track end ramp, a front end loader, heavy duty fork lift, maybe a conveyor or two, several Walther's expandable container chassis, an assortment of straight trucks, dump trailers, box trailers, open trailers, regular and heavy duty flat bed trailers. Maybe a couple taners. Stretch a point, have a couple parallel spurs, one shorter than the other. One spur has the end loading ramp, maybe a side ramp. Maybe add a small gantry crane. A short distance from the ramp, maybe some kind of tank car unloading facility. The other spur could have a conveyor pit for almost anything that could come in by hopper, as well as allowing a front end loader to take things offf a flat. Maybe you can find one of the Kalimar container unloaders for the yard. Now, instead of a single large inductry taking up a large area and needing only a couple different car types, you have a large industry serving as many other industries as your imagination can come up with, with as many different car types as you can think of. In fact, if you include a fueling area for the facility's tractors, with this much business, you could even justify a tank car of diesel fuel weekly. We also had a locally owned builder's supply that serviced both retail, commercial, and industrial. The enclosed facility recieved box cars of lumber, tubing, other supplies, gondolas of cast iron and concrete tubing, flat cars of preassembled housing walls and roof trusses. Several cars a week. Cars could go into an enclosed industrial type building with a retail store front easily in a small space. Maybe just model the back of the building along an edge of the layout. Really, few of us have the room to model any kind of large industrial area. We have to create the illusion of size. We have to develop and use our imaginations. By the way, that medium size truck terminal I referred to is serviced by a spur off a large N&S yard, that interchanges with the aformentioned steel plant, and also a local Ford Assembly plant. They even get new tractors and trailers delivered by rail.
I wanted to make a note of your posting to remind myself that I have to use LOTS of compression to include my planned new steel mill scene.
Thanks for your offering.
Brian
My Layout Plan
Interesting new Plan Consideration
Wow! There should be a prize for finding a thread that is exactly ten years old (minus only a few hours).
Yes, I agree that "selective" compression is needed in nearly every aspect of our little microcosms of real estate.
Cheers, Ed
Yep, Brian likes digging up the old threads.
I think Dr. Waynes pictures are on BBT's. He's shown his layout tour a few times in here.
Mike.
My You Tube
Mike, embarrassingly, you momentarily stumped me with the BBT reference, but when I finally "got it", checked the link in my older post in this thread, and discovered that it went to the old Zealot (formerly "The Gauge") Forum. As one of the original disgruntled members of that revised outfit, I had removed all of my photos there, so while the link still worked, there were no photos to be seen. A few moments ago, I updated the link, so for anyone who wants to take a look, the link is now connected to where the pictures are.
Thanks for alerting me to the situation.
Sorry Wayne, I was hesitant about spelling out, as there seams to be a lot apprehention in here about mentioning other sites, for fear of be taken as a promotion of said site.
Guys,Back in 2009 I noted that Pikestuff Tri Star industries was to small..
Once again all things railroad bites me in the caboose.
Note this 2 track warehouse . Its well worth the time to watch it.
https://youtu.be/WxT6B2tglUA
I remember an earlier thread, somewhat like this one, where industry size was the issue, and it kind of evolved into small switching companies that handle industrial parks, and interchange the traffic with larger railroads.
As the thread continued, it was evident that many small rail served industries excist.
I think it all started out with tanks cars for ink, and evolved as more small industries were brought to light, such as recycling facilities.
Era, layout size, and interests are some of the many factors that drive industry size/complexity. On my 1st layout, I had smaller industries given that it was only 7x13. It worked for me to have a few small rail-served industries with long siding tracks.
The current layout is more than twice the size. It will only have a few more industries but they are larger. I consolidated complementary business to offer more options.
If you do some digging there's plenty of opportunity for rail-serviced small industries. Here on the west side of Chicago, there's alot of rather-small industries served by rails. Here's "Charter Steel" which is not far from my place. On a layout it would likely be compressed quite a bit but as industry goes it's quite a small operation to have it's own spur.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/41.8638041,-87.7264453/1316+S+Komensky+Ave,+Chicago,+IL+60623-1231,+USA/@41.8575284,-87.7377783,362m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m10!4m9!1m1!4e1!1m5!1m1!1s0x880e32f09817503f:0x8d13046bcf621259!2m2!1d-87.7265544!2d41.8637811!3e0
If you go west just a few blocks you can see where a spur services United Scrap Metal. A larger operation for sure, but one that is quite easy to condense onto a layout.
I don't know enough to know if this is common or more specific to areas like the west side of Chicago where you have multiple yards relatively close together. The area linked above is quite close to both the BNSF Cicaro yards and the CN Hawethorne yards.
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