Busy Lineside Industry

[Anonymous]

I'm very new to the hobby, so any help is appreciated. I'm planning a very small shelf layout, which will realisticly have room for one industry. As this will be a switching only layout, and i have so little space to work with, I'd like to do as much with as little as possible. Any suggestions on industries which provide alot of switching of alot of different rolling stock? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[tomikawaTT]

The one thing that can justify a lot of switching and the appearance of almost any kind of rolling stock isn't really an industry. It's an interchange track, a connection with another railroad, and can simply be a single track that vanishes behind a hill or a building. Put one at each end of your railroad, and you can even justify running a Schnaebel car - one of those centipedal monsters that gets bolted to the two ends of a really heavy load, and bolted together to run empty.

John Armstrong had a trick that can add considerable industrial capacity to a shelf layout. The industry is modeled at the aisle edge of the layout - just a vertical wall, with the aisle side decorated as a cutaway of the factory, warehouse or whatever (floor joists, electrical boxes, calendar on the office wall, water cooler, time clock...) If fully modeled, the building would be where the operator has to stand. The wall also protects rolling stock from plunging into the abyss.

Happy building

Chuck

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the response. I'm not sure an interchange track is the way I want to go. What abiut a single industry which typically sees more than one type of car, and maybe has a couple different sidings-not necessarily as much switching as could be found on an interchange track, but more than a single car type. Thanks.

[marknewton]

I like Chuck's suggestion of an interchange track, as he says you can spot any sort of car on it. But if that doesn't appeal, what about a freight house with an additional team track? Again, that would allow some variety of car types to be shunted, although it would mainly be boxcars and open cars such as gons and flats. Depending on the era you model, a meat packing plant, paper mill, or an automobile plant could also work for you. Depending on the type of plant, they would require boxcars, reefers, gons, hoppers and tank cars.

Me and the "missus" are working on a small US-prototype shelf layout, which will feature a produce terminal, packing plant, and an interchange for maximium operating potential. I'd be happy to exchange thoughts and ideas with you, if you like.

Cheers,

Mark.

[Anonymous]

Any sort of industry that converts raw materials into finished goods, or raw materials into bulk material would see several types of cars. For instance, a concrete production facility (like Valley Cement from Walthers) might see covered hoppers filled with sand, gravel hoppers, and a different type of covered hopper with the finished powdered concrete. Another example might be a tool manufacturer, which could see coil cars of metal, one type of boxcar for other parts (maybe pre-formed plastic handles for screwdrivers, for instance) or if the plant made the handles on site, perhaps covered hoppers full of plastic pellets, and boxcars to ship out the finished product.

The great thing about industries, anything that could be delivered by truck, in reality usually is, but on our layouts, we can make the industry as rail-dependent as we want.

Let your mind wander, and I'm sure you could think of many different types of cars that could show up at a local industry.

[jeffhergert]

One industry that would see almost every type of freight car and require a lot of switching would be a large meat packing plant.

In the modern era, rail traffic isn't like it was. If your era is up to the 1950s, or like me, you have your industries more rail dependent, there was a lot of traffic in and out. A gentleman I know did a two part article on a large packer in the Oct and Nov 2004 (Kalmbach people please forgive the following heresy) Railroad Model Craftsman.

He has also given presentations at model rr shows. He just presented one to our local railfan groups. Although meat packing is more thought of as a Midwestern industry, He had a map from the 1920s that showed plants in most US regions.

Jeff

[Train1725]

How about a brewery :
Barley (hopper?), Malt (taker car), hops (?) and botles (boxcar) in
Beer (boxcar or taker to a bottling plant))out
Also, spent hops were sometimes shipped out to farms or as fertilizer and an occasional hopper of broken glass would be a nice car to model
Plus, there are a lot of beer cars out there so you could model a generic brewery that produces many different kinds of beer.
Old style breweries were fairly impressive complexes so you could have multiple buildings connected by walkways and piping. And plenty of details to add : barrels and kegs, cases of beer, water tanks as well as malt tanks Also, you can have a beer while operating and really feel a part of the action !
It could realy be part of a nice layout :
Grains from farm to brewery - Spent grains from brewery to farm
Tankers to bottling plant and back
Boxcars from Bottling plant to wharehouse and moved into trucks or wagons.
Good luck

[MACKINACMAC]

What about a small auto assembly factory. You'd have everything from boxcars of parts, engines, to flatcars with frames. Tank cars for solvents & oils, auto racks for the finished vehicles, Gondolas for scrap, and if a plastic injection molding plant was part of the complex, hoppers of plastic pellets. And with the auto plant running 3 shifts, there's alot of switching. MR had a great two part article about the automotive industry that explained not only waht supplies & parts was needed but also had ideas to calulate traffic flow. Look it up on the index. This industry is easily a stand alone layout with a lot of switching.

[Anonymous]

Much depends on the era you choose.
Don't forget that cars have to stand both where they can be unloaded and for long enough.
Knowing your layout size would be useful. It would be tiny to not give opportunity for two roads to load/unload cars.

[pcarrell]

You want an "industry" that gives you lots of flexability? How about a port (harbor) scene? All different kinds of cars come and go all the time and they all belong there. Lots of variety! It doesn't have to be big either. Some of the "scene" could actually just be suggested on the backdrop to make the layout look bigger then it is.

[Train1725]

maybe its just me, but I am not excited about the ideas of an interchangs track or a port. Yes, these account for a lot of traffic, but aren't really industries. Dare I say that they would be boring, IF they were they ONLY linside "industry" on the layout. Thers no idea of whats in the cars, they could be anything and theres no narrative. As part of an overall layout with a few industries, they are great and very exciting areas to model. Even a purely switching layout should have some industries to give the plan some flavor, no?>
Just my 2 cents!

[pcarrell]

OK, how about a paper mill? Kind of big, but some of it could be on the backdrop. You get pulpwood coming in, various chemicals, maintinance parts for the machinery, large heavy plastic tubes to roll the finished product onto, and I don't know what else. You ship carboard, white paper, colored paper, brown packaging paper, and all kinds of other products

Here's a link to the St. Regis paper mill in Bucksport, Maine. It's got all kinds of links on the site to describe what they do and how they do it.

http://www.internationalpaper.com/Paper/Paper%20Products/C_and_SC%20Stand%20Alone%20Pages/C_and_SC_Bucksport_Mill.html

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mack79

I'm very new to the hobby, [br] [#welcome]
so any help is appreciated. I'm planning a very small shelf layout, [br] As I said, it would be useful to know just how small. Assuming that you are working in H0 a layout which is absolutely no more than 6'x12" would be possible but you would probably be best to go with modelling a loco facility or a car repair shop.

A loco facility gives you lots of locos and all their moves plus hoppers for coal (if steam era) or tanks for diesel. You also get gons for coal ash out. There would be a number of box cars for stores in both cases. You also get departmental stock... cranes and such.

A repair shop will get any cars that need maintenance... so it is ideal if your interest is in variety of cars.


which will realisticly have room for one industry. [br] The yards and harbour suggested will give you far more scope than a single factory... you just imagine all the factoies nearby that they are serving.
As this will be a switching only layout, and i have so little space to work with, I'd like to do as much with as little as possible. Don't make the mistake of trying to put a quart into a pint pot. Look at mags and search picture collections on the net. You will find that you want a good "lead" track to allow cars to be switchedmore than one at a time. With limited space there is an argument for making a through track diagonally across the board and putting the industry in the two triangles each side... whether this is done as two industries or two parts of one is up to you. Another thing to do is split the levels. The upper level can cross the lower if you want.
Any suggestions on industries which provide alot of switching of alot of different rolling stock?
I want you to be very wary... Many modellers go for an all switching layout with lots of spurs and "endless" putting cars in and out. For a start you have to have all your couplers right PLUS all the coupling ramps working well... if not you will drive yourself nuts with cars not uncoupling when you want them to and uncoupling when you don't. Add to that... how long would you maintain interest in loading and unloading a six-shot revolver? that is exactly what switching can be like. Load one track/chamber, turn to the next, unload that then reload it, turn to the next. Okay... you can make it more interesting by loading alternate chambers/tracks and then going to the ones you skipped. [br] Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I'm not trying to put you off but to suggest some ideas and warn you of the shortcomings of a purely switching layout.
As you are new to the hobby it really would be a good thing to do to take plenty of time to look around and do a good chunk of research.

The important thing to do is to have fun[8D]

[rayw46]

Think about a large regional food processing plant or a bakery For inbound traffic it would need boxcars for all sorts of supplies, hoppers for flour, salt, etc., tank cars for corn syrup, vinegar, etc. and reefers and insulated boxcars for fruits, vegeables and/or meats. For outbound traffic it would need boxcars for recylable materials and waste, and reefers and boxcars for finished products. Do a little research and use your imagination. Think about modern industries that are primarily served by trucks. There's no law that says that on your railroad it can't be served by rail.

[marknewton]

QUOTE: Originally posted by David Foster

...For a start you have to have all your couplers right PLUS all the coupling ramps working well... if not you will drive yourself nuts with cars not uncoupling when you want them to and uncoupling when you don't.

There's a simple solution to that problem - cut those awful-looking trip pins off your couplers, and uncouple by hand using a skewer or one of the commercial tools available. Far more realistic, and doesn't require any ramps at all.

Cheers,

Mark.

[orsonroy]

Canning plant. The large ones in central Illinois used to operate year round, and would have two or three lines going at once. They featured their own power plant, label printing plant, can making plant, and food processing plant(s).

Typical car types and loads for a 1920s-1950s large canning plant would include:

BOXCAR: empty cans in (during peak rush), paper rolls in, produce in (it usually didn't travel far enough for reefers), rolled tin in, "other" in, finished product out.
TWIN HOPPERS: coal in, empty out.
Gondolas: scrap tin out, empties in.
Tank cars: oils and inks in, empties out.
REEFERS: not used as often as boxcars, but produce in, finished cans out.
STOCK CARS: produce in, empties out (stock cars were used to haul pumpkins)

The canning plant I plan on modeling on my new layout was a large facility, especially for the middle of nowhere. It had six tracks running into the plant, and a two track yard to handle cars. The track plan also featured a mainline, passing siding, and runaround track, making the area around the plant busy indeed. During the several mini-rushes at the plant, the NKP would dispatch a 2-8-2 daily just to work the plant.

[Anonymous]

April 1975 MR (p52-57) has an article on "Milwaukee Road's Kingsbury Branch in Chicago. The area Larabee astreet to Grand Avenue would be a really interesting prototype to get ideas from.

[MStLfan]

If you are interested in modelling a brewery buy special publication no. 5 Milwaukee Road's beer line, published by Milwaukee Road Historical Association. It has lots of pictures of breweries like Pabst and Schlitz as well as other industries. This line was located just northeast of downtown Milwaukee.

Another industry you should consider is the steel industry.
A lot of different traffic patterns, both internal and interchange with common carriers. Trains can be short if you concentrate on a traffic to and from a blast furnace or one of the other plants associated with the steel industry. Trains of one car ( a bottle or torpedo car taking molten iron from the furnace) or a few cars (slag from the furnace to a disposal site) are common.

A deep shaft coal mine, a producer of household goods (e.g. refrigerators), grain milling (Minneapolis had several small and big ones next to each other).
The possibilities are endless. Good luck.
greetings
Marc Immeker

[BRJN]

How about a team track? This is something where the customer orders a car and has to bring his own wagon / truck over to unload it. You don't need much space (a few car-lengths) and you can keep as long a list on paper as you want of who the customers are. Any customer could need several different types of cars.
Suggestions:
1st, look through the Yellow Pages for ideas, even goofy ones.
Typewriter mfgr - metal coils (gondola), wood panels, machine parts (boxcar)in, boxcar out
Tombstone carver - gondola with big stone block(s) in, empty out
proto-Xerox - clean boxcar (w/ rolls of paper), ink (tank car?) in, empties out
TV cabinet maker - dried lumber (boxcar or flatcar with canvas covering) in, boxcar out
Farmer's Market - vented boxcar or reefer carries fruits and veggies in, empty out
Box maker - cardboard or wood in boxcars in, boxcar out
Wire company - empty gondola in, big spools in gondola out
Piano mfgr - lumber, felt, ivory keys in via boxcar, big spools of wire in via gondola, piano out via GREAT BIG canvas-wrapped crate in gondola or via "Furniture Car" boxcar
Candy maker - corn syrup in tank cars, big sacks of sugar and flour in clean boxcars, milk car, peanuts in (via covered hopper?), candy out via billboard boxcar
1920's gasoline station - tank car w/ logo
City Power and Light - needs a carload of lime for cleaning and emissions control purposes
Yacht sales - 1/yr, a neat sailboat (mast laid flat) on flatcar

Or a distributor's warehouse. You only need to model the front wall if you post this along the back of the layout. Using the Gold Medal Flour warehouse that used to be in my town as an example, you could have 3 boxcars of wheat flour coming in and 3 boxcars of different flours (some wheat, some white, some bakers, some potato, some low-carb) each going to different places - Indianapolis, Louisville, Toledo.

[Anonymous]

One source for inspiration is two pdf you can buy here on trains.com (look under The Information Station) on "Lineside Industries you can Model." I bought both and found useful suggestions in each. Some examples are pre-modern, but there are several that could fit on a modern line.

One I've selected as an inspiration is a Seagram's bottling plant. According to the article they receive all kinds of beverages in different tank cars, which requires precise spotting of each car. In addition, they ship packaged beverages in 20' containers on the rails and on trucks. There is no mention of receiving, for example, packaging materials by rail but I've decide to add that. A bottling plant is a good choice because its something which typically has not been sent off shore in recent years. (I also recently drove by Coors plant in Golden, Colorado and they have a lot of railroad activity.)

The pdfs also had a good discussion of an auto plant, a petroleum facility, and several articles covering forestry-related industries that could apply to modern rail. For modeling earlier eras there were industries such as a steel mill and a plate glass plant.

Another option, for the modern era, is an intermodal yard. Perhaps not quite as exciting to model, but it can justify lots of traffic and an interesting variety of equipment.

Finally, from personal experience I could suggest the Redwood City (California) Port/Building Materials facilty. While this is a large facility the railroad portion can be modeled in a small area with the rest represented on a backdrop. This bay side port receives barge loads of raw material supplies such as rock, some of which are processed there and others of which are simply stored and shipped. The materials are shipped out via truck to local destinations but also extensively via rail. Because the approach rails move over city streets the switchers run only at night, but activity is very busy at those times. There is a runaround track and even a small yard. Cars are exclusively hoppers -- but there is a lot of variety within that type.

[Anonymous]

i'd have to say a paper mill--- there was an article about one in MR a few years back.

[jamnest]

I am gathering materials to model a large urban soft drink bottling and distribution plant. In bound would be Corn Syurp (funnel flow tank); sugar (air slide hopper); phosphoric acid (tank or box car); citric acid (tank of box car); and CO2 gas (tank);

Pepsi web site has infornation concerning major ingridients in their products.

Outbound shipments of soft drinks and soft drink mix is by truck not rail. Next to the plant will be another small company which makes the plastic containers and receives plastic pellets by rail. (covered hopper) In addition, cans are punched from sheets of rolled alumimum. (box car or coil car).

[caboose63]

Mack79 here is an idea for a lineside industry for your self type layout. Walthers' magic pan bakeries commerical bakery would be good industry as it would have more than one kind of freight car. You would have airslide covered hoppers of flour and sugar, 40 foot funnel flow tankcars of corn syrup, 54 foot funnel flow tankcars of vegetable oils (cottonseed, canola, sunflower, corn oils, etc), and boxcars taking out bound boxed baked goods.

[johncolley]

A major brand cannery complex would fill the bill! Especially if it had an attached can plant and maybe a glass plant, too! The old Hunt's cannery in Hayward Ca. was such an industry. The United Can division got boxcars and flats of tinplated steel coils on pallets for it's can and end production lines. It also got boxcars for shipping out cans, ends, and can-making machinery (another on site division) to other plants and customers, and put out gondola loads of scrap tinplate. The cannery got all kinds of cars of various fruit and vegetables, tank cars of corn syrup, and shipped boxcars of cased and palletized can goods to distributors all over, and the glass plant at the other end got hoppers of sand, and shipped out cased palletized loads of bottles and jars, besides the catsup that was pumped overhead pipeline across the street filled and cased over there. It was almost a mile long complex of buildings, having a siding on each side of the main and several spurs off them.