Worst Industries to Model

[FJ and G]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (thankfully for people who are ugly). With that caveat in mind, I will hazard a pick: a recycling warehouse on the NS in Springfield, VA. One of the doors looks as though a forklift inside has hit it and it protrudes outward with recycling trash oozing onto the spur. It actually might be fun to model for those who like junk yards, but it tends to be more an eyesore. Junk yards are a bit more fascinating to me and obviously to many others (hence the popular TV show titled: Junkyard Wars).
The other element is that on smaller layouts, warehouses take up a lot of real estate unless they are selectively compressed.

Real railroads, of course, take an entirely different view. They could generally care less about aesthetics (often even their train aesthetics). They instead are more concerned with industries that generate steady streams of revenue, preferrably in large quantities and in key locations of density that don't require long-distance switching.

Dave Vergun

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by FJ and G

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (thankfully for people who are ugly). With that caveat in mind, I will hazard a pick: a recycling warehouse on the NS in Springfield, VA. One of the doors looks as though a forklift inside has hit it and it protrudes outward with recycling trash oozing onto the spur. It actually might be fun to model for those who like junk yards, but it tends to be more an eyesore. Junk yards are a bit more fascinating to me and obviously to many others (hence the popular TV show titled: Junkyard Wars).
The other element is that on smaller layouts, warehouses take up a lot of real estate unless they are selectively compressed.

Real railroads, of course, take an entirely different view. They could generally care less about aesthetics (often even their train aesthetics). They instead are more concerned with industries that generate steady streams of revenue, preferrably in large quantities and in key locations of density that don't require long-distance switching.

Dave Vergun

I had a Junkyard on my layout but then i gorrid of it fora museum and then got rid of the museum and put in Engine terminal, I have put the Junkyard back, the museum No longer is anywere on my layout but they do have a line that runs next to my rivers and goes under my 2 bridges its Jointly owned by the mesum and and CaNW Systems(fictional line i help create) And it will eventually depending on the weather have reversing loops on it to run trains on the line. O and this is off topic But I like Junkyard Wars. The Junkyard on my layout is servied by a old weather beaten UP gon[}:)]

[Anonymous]

I am surprised no one said fertilizer. I got some stock pens going up on one end and a Fertilizer complex nearby. I wonder what cars would be suitable for this stuff.

[MAbruce]

How about stockyards?

[ndbprr]

Steel Industry hands down. One process - you pick it - is bigger than most peoples railroads. Walthers excuse for a steel mill is a travesty. You just can't compress it and maintain the effect. Only way you can model it is have te yard for switching cars and the steel mill on the bacdrop a mile away.

[Anonymous]

Stock yards and Packing plants, you have all the cow flop, guts and other ooz which is getting ripe, drawing flies and maggots. It stinks so bad you have to have the windows of the layout room open all the time!

Then you have to hand paint all them cows. I had to go on a research mission to determine what color cows are! Man, I found out some of them are black, some are brown, some are white and some are combinations of all of them. Then, you have to determine how to make little miniture cow flops for the stock yards! It's tough, no getting around it. Mines not done yet, but I've spent a lot of time on it and it's starting to look and smell just right.

[FJ and G]

The Kaiser plant near LA might be one as well. Too big to model and was cited by EPA for polluting the city, forced to close in early 80s.

[Don Gibson]

QUOTE: Originally posted by FJ and G

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ...It actually might be fun to model for those who like junk yards ... Real railroads, of course, ...generally care less about aesthetics . They instead are more concerned with industries that generate steady streams of revenue ....

True! When was the last time any of us saw flower gardens and shiny new buildings outside the window when riding a train? The most scenic trackside industry still around might be a Grain Elevator.

Anybody?

[CBQ_Guy]

The worst industry to model would be the one that doesn't have rail access!

[csxns]

Carolina By-Products they load animal blood.

[Anonymous]

anything that has to do with septic tanks... ugh!

[rf16a]

I remember reading an article somewhere (I don't remember where) about trains transporting horse manure. I think it was transported out of race tracks to farms for fertilizer. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.)
I would have hated to be the conductor or brakeman on that job, especially during the summer.

[Anonymous]

Scrapyards :(
Dead trains!!!!!

[cacole]

What about the laoding dock where New York City's trash is loaded into seagoing barges for dumping at sea? Are railroads involved in getting that tra***o the dock, or is it all trucked there? If you don't live near that facility and know any difference, you could take some modeler's license and transport the trash by rail.

My brother-in-law was an engineer for the Terminal Rail Road Association (TRRA) in Saint Louis and environs in the 1950's. He said the worst he was ever involved in was moving some open gondolas full of blood, manure, intestines, and other refuse from a slaughterhouse in East Saint Louis, Illinois, across Eads Bridge to a rendering plant on the other side of the Mississippi, in the summertime. He said the gons had been sitting for over a week at the slaughterhouse as they were being filled up, and they were already full of maggots. Imagine the smell...

[Anonymous]

Ugh. And I am eating dinner too. lol. I choose to allow steel traffic via a Barge in a future HO harbor. In the City of Baltimore, the Bethlehem Steel takes up miles and miles of Sparrows Point. So why not tow a walthers barge over to it with materials in and finished product out.

As far as the st. louis open gondolas I wonder how many train crews quit rather than move those gons across the river?

One of the things I never liked to do was sit at a chicken processing plant waiting on fresh frozen chicken food products to be shipped. The dust in the air is simply unbreatheable at times and the morale in the summer time is zero among the mexican immigrants who choose to work there.

This has been a great thread.

[Allen Jenkins]

One warehouse, with one boxcar, for some may be a thrill for some people, I guess it depends on the inbound freight, and the boxcar modeled. As for fertilizer, that's what CSX Bone Valley Subdivision is all about. The Florida Fertilizer Business Unit is a world of opportunity for the modeler. I suggest a visit to Lakeland, Florida, http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage . The heart of the biz is Mullberry, and Athearn has an SD70AC dedicated to the "Spirit of Mulberry." Fertilizer? All fertilizer has phosphate, and the area is rich, only Morroco competes. The process of fert. production is there, from begining/electric dragline, water slurry, extraction, dry rock shippment "CSX-Bone Valley" a Herron Rails Production. Importation of molten sulfur (S) crude form (Walthers 100t tank cars), mixed with PH forms sufuric acid, outbound, export of diamonium phosphate fert. ingredient DAP, and the fertilizer production plants, such as IMC/Agrico, right by the railroad terminal in Mulberry. And then to add the necessary element of competition, add trucking transportation. As for a stand alone fertilizer production facility, inbound DAP in 100t. covered hopper, ditio potash, from Canada, (or the southwest, in Santa Fe red hoppers). Oh yea, they also crush limestone (called "limerock" in Florida) And mixed with Ph to produce animal feed ingredient(AFI). This product for example, is shipped to North Carolina, and is inbound to poultry, and livestock feed mills (Purina Mainstay Dog Chow has dicalcium phosphate, made with this). (What happens is, you eat turkey and chicken, and that's how Ph is added to your DNA. Phosphate is an element, which sustains life). Your choice of outbound is rail, or truck, depending on the market, which is VERY competitive! So, the operation you choose is best to be modeled off either, one longtimer, or one long gone. Enjoy Your Gift to the World's Hungry Population!ACJ.

[leighant]

One exception to the point about warehouses taking up a lot of space. They take up a lot of space if they are modern low-rise sprawling warehouse that seem most at home in fairly open space. But old-time warehouses jammed up next to tracks, multi-stories tall, modeled as flats up against the background needn't take up much more than a couple of inches of depth in addition to their spur. Plus often have several on same track, need to move some cars to place or pick up others. Just a thought.

[coal drag]

QUOTE: Originally posted by adrianiu

Scrapyards :(
Dead trains!!!!!

So I take it that you don't model UP.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cacole

He said the worst he was ever involved in was moving some open gondolas full of blood, manure, intestines, and other refuse from a slaughterhouse ....

how's that for an interesting gondola load?

[cacole]

I thought that the Sparrow's Point steel mill complex in Baltimore had been closed down? Back in 1960 and 1961, and again from 1969 to 1971, I was in the Army at Fort Holabird attending intelligence classes and then as an instructor. I remember touring Sparrow's Point when the steel mill was still active, but have heard that it is now closed down.

[Anonymous]

The last time I saw the place was during Trucking School back in the late 80's We had like a 8 mile road network in it without any traffic and could run wild.

I will contact my family in Baltimore for info about the mill's status, If it has been closed down then it is a great economic and national loss.

[krump]

QUOTE: Originally posted by HighIron2003ar

I am surprised no one said fertilizer. I got some stock pens going up on one end and a Fertilizer complex nearby. I wonder what cars would be suitable for this stuff.

my Guess ? - a GAS tank car

the best of the worst would have to be slaughter house, rendering plant and septic treatment facility.
I'm gonna add a glue factory (too sticky) , and my favourite - pickle plant

[BRAKIE]

To my mind it would be a stone quarry..Everything is coated in a light white dust. [xx(] Makes the whole area look ugly I think...A coal mine isn't much better seeing everything is coated in coal dust..[xx(]
Now,I suppose a tanning company would rank right up there as well. You know there has to be a smell with all those hides.[xx(]