Does the industry have to be a "factory?" There are plenty of other rail-served customers.
These two customers are a printing plant, and a grocery distributor.
This is a future drilling fluids plant, that ships well drilling mud in drums. Note the boxcars in the prototype photo.
This one, from an unfinished part of the layout, is another grocery distributor. They're common in my area.
Here's an additional unfinished industry, a salt plant that ships (among other things) bagged water softener salt in boxcars.
I photographed this industry in Gering, NE a few years ago. It's receiving something in boxcars, maybe feed or fertilizer.
Rob Spangler
davidmurrayGeneral Electric makes many consumer products such as stoves and fridges in more than one place. Many boxcars in and out.
Make that "made." GE recently sold its home appliance business. No more GE toasters, etc...
http://online.wsj.com/articles/appliances-sale-shifts-ge-further-away-from-consumers-1410197984
Fortunately, time stands still where you want it on the layout.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I have a bottle and jar manufacture plant, making glass bottles.
Such a plant requires several sources of sand, as not all sands are identical,and trace elements are importasnt.
So two places to unload sand, and a dock to ship finiched product, in cardboard boxes(incoming) on skids(incoming).
A transfer facility for unloading cars to transport trucks can take any car. Likewise a teamtrack in another town.
General Electric makes many consumer products such as stoves and fridges in more than one place. Many boxcars in and out.
Have fun.
Dave
The nice thing about boxcars is that they can be hauling anything, and aren't tied to a particular industry. I've got a tannery and a company called "Moose Mills" that take box cars, and another generic factory with a loading dock I've never added a name or product to. In a back corner I have a building with a series of loading dock doors. One is "Acme" and another is "Mom's Robot Oil."
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Twot hings spring to mind
1.) Paper products, they use a lot of hi-cube boxcars for shipments the the outside world. You could have a large spur or two full of them waiting to be loaded.
2.) Auto Part Plants. While the American Auto industry is sagging a bit, the European and Asia auto companies are building plants in the US like wildfire. Where I live in East Tennessee, Denso and AISIN both have plants nearbye and both are manufacturers of parts for Toyota. This could be another big industry for your layout.
Hi,
Well, my layouts always were set in the 1950s (when the USA was THE manufacturer of the world), so I never had the challenge you have. But make no mistake, an awful lot of manufacturing or other activities still take place on American soil. In example.......... petroleum & edible oil refining and distribution, lumber and related product production, auto parts, food (fresh & canned), furniture, non bulk chemicals, animal hides (yuck!), etc., etc., etc.
Of course you need to keep in mind that its your RR, and you can do what you want, and frankly it could be said "there is a prototype for anything and everything"!
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
I live in a area with very low rail traffic so I'm looking for Ideas for some types of factorys that would have modern factorys that would be recieving and shipping box cars 1980-present. With everything being made over seas these days I was looking for some Ideas for a HO scale I'm planing