Does anyone have info on industry raw materials and shipping practices

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know of a source for information/lists of raw materials generally suppied to factories via rail lines. I have a furniture factory and a pulp and paper mill on my 1950's layout and I'm not sure what raw materials I should be suppling to these industries- what type of freight cars would be used to ship the raw and finsihed goods. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Furnature?

Boxcars. Drums of stain, Rolls of textiles for upholsery, wood for fabrication of furnature. Occasionally nails, fasteners, springs etc etc...

These go in. Furnature goes out. Maybe pallets also to support the local industry.

I dont know enough about pulp to say anything.

Paper mills need pulpwood, chemicals, cardboard sheeting (For boxes) pallets.

and they ship news print in giant rolls and boxes of paper.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the help HighIron sounds like a job for some boxcars. Maybe even some tankers too.

[Anonymous]

Check out this web site for the NMRA OpSig database-

http://www.opsig.org/industrydb/

Doug

[Anonymous]

Doug thats a great web site. Thanks very much. Lots for me to learn. Thats just one of the reason I love this hobby.

[Anonymous]

Halwizer, there is a paper mill modelers yahoo group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PaperMillModelers/?yguid=188235280

It's not overly-active but there is a lot of valuable info there.

Wayne

[Anonymous]

I went over and checked out the web site for the NMRA OpSig database at http://www.opsig.org/industrydb/ as someone suggested.

Despite their reticence to use Excel (I'm pretty good with it) I brought the files up in a spreadsheet and the "gozintas & gozouttas" in the list are not very useful. They are basic and pretty crude.

For example the materials used in a foundry mostly state "sand." A few mention steel. But if one were making cast iron stoves scrap metal might be more appropriate in a contemporary setting because of recycling while for the 1890s it might be a different raw material.

And as someone else pointed out there's packing and shipping material (today it would be skids and early in the 20th century probably wood to make crates. There might even be a whole woodworking shop.

It would be nice to have a better database. But I suppose one would have to pay for that.

I'm hoping someone comes up with a better answer cause it would be a great resource.