My favorite industry is a steel mill. Coal and coke hoppers, gondols, flat cars, tank cars in and out plus the special cars (slabs and ingots and bottle cars) within the mill. Just a mill can keep a number of people working all day.
I have two disparate ones.
COAL. Appalachian, because I grew up with it. Love the mines, the hollers, the trains. Now that I'm in Colorado I find Powder River coal operations interesting, too.
PRODUCE. I really like long reefer trains and icing facilities, and also the fields, the packing houses, the canneries.
Hard to fit both in one layout, though!
Sean
HO Scale CSX Modeler
-Morgan
My favorite? Definitely a brewery!!!
Oh, you mean for model railroads? Still a brewery, they receive a variety of cars and can ship out via the railroad, too. A close second is a shipyard or port facility, they will have almost every conceivable car type in use and track going everywhere, sometimes on extremely tight curves.
John
If everybody is thinking alike, then nobody is really thinking.
http://photobucket.com/tandarailroad/
My favorite industry? From a model railroading point of view it's harder to narrow down than I thought as so many offer interesting opportunities for modelers. That said, one of the first things I thought of had been the auto industry, I've been thinking much about the auto industry lately. The variety of rolling stock that could come in and go out such as boxcars, gondolas and more.
Alvie
I love those books, if not for modeling just simply for an interesting read. i have 2, 3, and 4 and do plan on getting 1. For instance, from the first one, Jeff Wilsons idea for an oil distriutor is very close to what looks like stood in the small town (lets say 1000) that my wife grew up in. The concrete 'walls' the tanks sat on and a small steel building still stand.
There are also a number of other 'layout ideas' published in the books that are nice, such as in 4 for a brick plant.
For a fav I would pick grain elevators for the as mentioned reason. Wood towers with steel bins and concrete silos, tall-as-heck concrete silos. They are like box cars. They all look the same, but they are all so very different. They deal with multiple type of grains, older elevators could also deal in more than just grain. Feed, seed, fertilizer, salt, I have even seen some marked as selling farm supplies.
Particularly I enjoy cooperatives. The one I grew up bu (sorta) was modern, but very interesting. A farmer could fill up his truck with gas, get a load of fertilizer, order some LP for his houses fuel tank, pick up some milk, eggs, butter, and bread for dinner, get the dog food or car food, forget the bird seed, and mail out a letter to his kid living in the big city. What a co-op ey?
Any Industry that loads Rail Cars.
Russell
Steel mills. They handle the inflow/outflow of materials thru boxcars, gondolas, open-top hoppers, covered hoppers, tank cars, and 'coil' flatcars. And they have interesting intra-plant specialty equipment: hot metal "bottle" cars and slag pots. Add grotesque architecture and heavy machinery into the mix, and you can create quite an interesting layout.
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
My favorite industry in a scrapyard. This one place specializes in scrapping old freight cars. Usually cars get spotted and don't come back out... Good riddance to those old cars with the high brake wheels.
Mike WSOR engineer | HO scale since 1988 | Visit our club www.WCGandyDancers.com
Got to be large grain elevators. My Santa Fe in Oklahoma 1989, models an area where wheat, grain and elevators are everywhere. On my layout is a town, Enid OK, where I grew up, and I have modeled 11 of the grain elevators of Enid, plus several in other towns. Unit grain trains are king. The other major industry is the old Champlin refinery at Enid. It has been gone several years, but I have it modeled and on the railroad. Then there is the Farmland Ammonia plant and on and on.....
Bob
Probably a tie between a Corn Syrup Plant and a Port Terminal. Both can be very interesting supporting it's own switchers. Like Steel Mills and Paper Mills both Corn Syrup Plants and Port Terminals could also be layouts in themselves. A Port Terminal can not only have large warehouses and overhead cranes but also contain large concrete silos for solid bulk commodities and steel fuel tanks for liquid bulk commodities.
Tim G
President and CEO
Seaboard Central Railroad
[quote user="gabeusmc"]
[quote user="Goodness181]
I was looking at some of the books that kalmbach sells and probably will invest in two or three of these very soon when finance allows.
[/quote]
Get these books. I have all of the Industries along the Tracks( i think thats what you are talking about) and they are great and fun to read.
Yup those are the ones that i was talking about. I think their are 4 of them, but yea I am deffinatlly looking at getting all of them. Once finance are released from my financy manager (ie Wife). Right now im in planning stage were i dont have room for any sort of layout I'm making alot of track plans on paper right now and have some good starts to some but i think if i can tie in what types of industries i want on my plan i can plan better. I'm planning on going to the show in Concord New Hampshire thats coming right up and hope to get alot of ideas their. I'll be sure to take alot of pictures.
"Mess with the best, die like the rest" -U.S. Marine Corp
MINRail (Minessota Rail Transportaion Corp.) - "If they got rid of the weeds what would hold the rails down?"
And yes I am 17.
Not quite a Top 10 list, but after listing my favorite [hard rock mining & smelting], I saw a lot to like in what others here have listed. In fact, all these industries have some sort of traffic pattern/presence in operations on my layout. All serve to support mining, but also have interlocking relationships with each other, in case that's useful for someone wanting a big picture idea of how this works on one layout.
grain elevator/ag supply
oil refinery
food wholesale
coal mining and power production
logging, milling, and lumber distribution
stockyards and packing plant
cement plant
Then there's the one I can't mention because it's secret : uranium refining and fabrication
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Am cheating here, listing all my favorite UNUSUAL l/o industries. Wish all could be fitted on my tiny pike.... just not enough room!. Early New England Brickyard/ Firetruck Restoration Facility/ Sand & Gravel Pit on Switchback/ Diamond Match Matchbook Plant/ Diesel Locomotive Recycler/ '50 era Coal-Oil dealer on two levels. If anyone wished more info on any, they were all posted months ago in Prototype Info for the Modeler section of Forum or ask me and will try to find out how to send you a pdf format individual article. TTFN.....Old Tom aka papasmurf in NH
Automotive assembly.
Lots of boxcars & autoracks!
Brought to you by the letters C.P.R. as well as D&H!
K1a - all the way
My favorite industry to model is an operating gravel loading plant and also dumping the hoppers at another location on my layout. It is modeled after a sand and gravel pit that was once located in the Los Angeles area. The Southern Pacific ballast cars seen being loaded are detailed and painted Tyco operating hoppers. I really like live loaded freight cars, makes for other things to do on the layout.
You people are crazy! Steel mills are waaaayyyyy better than any grain elevator or refinery.
I like steel mills so much, it is the only industry I model!
sfb
thanks tomikawa. I was looking at some of the books that kalmbach sells and probably will invest in two or three of these very soon when finance allows.
Thanks
Goodness181 Anyone has more suggestions please let me know of some industries that work together i guess you could call it. Thanks, Jeff
Anyone has more suggestions please let me know of some industries that work together i guess you could call it.
Thanks,
Jeff
There's one `industry' that works with anything, from alcohol distilling (whether ethanol or Jack Daniels) to Z-bracket fabricating. It's called either an interchange track or hidden staging, and frequently consists of a hybrid of both.
While `paired' industries have been touted as a good idea by the model press, realistically they don't meet the suspension of disbelief test. If the power plant was really that close to the coal mine the two would be connected with a conveyor belt, not a unit train. (That Walthers `coal mine' was connected to the open pit that actually fed the separator by a mile-long covered conveyor - 60 actual feet in HO.) Most things loaded into or onto railcars travel hundreds of miles between origin and destination. The only practical way to simulate that on a layout smaller than a gymnasium is by running almost everything to or from staging.
Someone asked about a cement plant. If you mean a cement production facility, they range in size from huge to humongous, receive coal in 25-car cuts (or unit trains) and ship in unit trains of covered hoppers. OTOH, a local cement batch plant won't be too big - but its product output will leave on rubber wheels in ready-mix. If it receives sand and aggregate from local pits in trucks the only rail traffic will be cement hoppers - a few a week. Now throw in a block plant and ornamental stonework, and suddenly there's a lot more cement inbound, plus gondola loads of pretty-colored boulders...
Of course, the most interesting way to handle the situation is to do some prototype research and find out what was being moved by rail. If you model the present, use the features of your favorite map program to take a look at commercial and industrial areas, or invest a little time and motor fuel and go look. For the recent and more distant past, check with the local historical society of the place you are modeling. My own informtion comes out of photos and field notes I took on-site almost half a century ago.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
The Ferroequinologist I photographed one in Kent, Michigan that had no less than 5 different types of silos all painted in different colors!
I photographed one in Kent, Michigan that had no less than 5 different types of silos all painted in different colors!
Where can I see a photo?
Since I model steam and early diesel, I'd have to say the fueling facilities for the servicing terminals. That would include incoming coal, diesel fuel, and sand and outgoing ash. I also like freight depots. Lotsa action - both from train and truck pick ups and drop offs.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Hey all. Its been interesting reading what peope like. I myself have not started my layout yet but still in the planning phase and still considering what i'm going to have on my layout for Industry's but i deffinattly want industries that work with each other like a log yard that i can pick up logs at and bring to the mill. I think i would like a concrete plant but not sure what that would go with. so I'm still in the process of thinking and planning
My favorite industry is - the railroad itself!
I model a rural area which is, by Japanese standards, very sparsely populated. Other than freight houses and the collieries served by my short line, all of the action is purely railroad related. Most freight is simply passing through from staging to staging. Most of what would be local switching involves routing cars to interchange or transloads (with narrow-er gauge connections.)
While I own, and run, a variety of car types, they are all one basic color -- black - and not all that visually interesting. Add in that my favorite operating hat is dispatcher...
I do like the idea that will finally shape my collieries - I `minefanned' the prototypes a half-century ago. Still, they will simply provide traffic, not be an end unto themselves.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - 24/30)
I've got to say that I'm a little torn between grain elevators and power plants. With elevators you've got the silos, the rail traffic, the truck traffic, lots of action, with power plants you've got the high-wide loads and special moves, and for coal-fired plants, the unit trains of coal inbound with empties outbound, can get pretty hectic moving around.
gabeusmc What's Your favorite industry and why?
What's Your favorite industry and why?
River barge terminal - functions like a team track (i.e.a general destination and/or source of tank cars, boxcars, hoppers, gondolas, flat cars etc), but also allows the modeling of barges, docks, cranes, pipes, tanks etc.
Smile, Stein
LOGGING!!!!! [See website link below; no further explanation required]
~G4
19 Years old, modeling the Cowlitz, Chehalis, and Cascade Railroad of Western Washington in 1927 in 6X6 feet.
gabeusmc: I think mine are grain elevators also. I photographed one in Kent, Michigan that had no less than 5 different types of silos all painted in different colors! I have scratch built a number of grain elevators in N and HO for sale on ebay. They sell well.
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