Small Industries with Many Cars

[ericsp]

This Allen Company paper recycling center in San Diego has a large quantity of boxcars for its size.

Bird's Eye View, Web page

[Hoomi]

Greenbrier Rail Services took over Arizona Freight Car Repair here in Tucson. The facility has its own switcher, though cars are spotted by UP yard engines as well. A wide variety of rolling stock is delivered to the facility for repair, and large parts are often scattered about the grounds.

http://www.gbrx.com/files/files/NAR/Repair_Maintenance/GRSOverview.pdf

Having a facility of this type on a layout would offer logical, believable reasons for moving all manner of rolling stock about. While the real facility is pretty decent sized (see satellite image, which doesn't quite show all of it), a model facility could be easily compressed to fit a layout. The building about middle of the photo is a covered work area. The offices are a pair of modulars, and there are a few old concrete intermodal loading ramps on the south perimeter of the grounds. Under the word "map" in the image are frames from disassembled intermodal cars, though currently there are a number of wheeless trucks sitting in that space.

When I build a layout, I hope to add a facility such as this.

[jkeaton]

What about a frozen food plant?  Carloads in include tankcars of vegetable oil and starch, covered hoppers of sugar and flour, reefers of frozen fruit and/or meat, and boxcar loads of packaging, plus tankcars or hoppers of inbound fuel.  Outbound are reefers of frozen product. 

[E-L man tom]

The focal industry on my layout is the Mud Hen Brewery. Although I cannot have very long tracks because of the limited space, this industry is served by three tracks. The shortest one is the "dry goods in" track, where bags of yeast, hops and and other dry ingredients come in, that's the shortest track, served with boxcars. I can spot about trhree cars max there. The next longest track is the spent grains and grain-in (barley and other grains) facility. This can have a capacity of about five to six covered hopper cars. Then there's the product out track, this has the capacity for about six, maybe seven reefer cars. There is also an area for car storage for those cars that can wait to be loaded. So, this facility can keep the local switcher fairly busy in that area of the layout alone, which is only about 1' X 3' on the layout. The brewery can take an occasional open hopper, gondola or tank car as well. BTW, there are six other industries on this layout as well. plus an engine house, all on 14 feet long by one to two feet wide.  

[ericsp]

Here are a couple of underground LPG facilities in Bumstead, AZ and Adamana, AZ. If you scroll to the west of the Adamana facility, you will see a fairly large yard filled with tank cars.

[rdgk1se3019]

ericsp

If you are like me and like industries and trains, you like industries that you can fit on your layout without removing most of the industry yet has a large quantity of cars. Below are some industries with good potential to model. 

Carmeuse Lime & Stone (formerly Oglebay Norton) Industrial Sands - Shafter, CA 
Satellite View, Street View, Web Page

CTS Cement Transload Terminal - Santa Fe Springs, CA
Bird's Eye View, Satellite View, Street View 

Plains LPG Natural Gas Liquids Plant - Shafter, CA
Although this is a relatively large plant, you can model a smaller version and still have several cars at the plant. Some ways to save space would be to have less tanks (smaller plant), eliminate much of the empty land, and replace the bullet tanks with spherical storage tanks.
Satellite View 1, Satellite View 2, Satellite View 3, Satellite View 4 
Street View 1, Street View 2, Street View 3, Street View 4, Street View 5
Web Page 

Inergy Propane NGL Loading Racks - Bakersfield, CA
The plant is 7 miles from the loading racks.
Satellite View, Street View, Web Page

ConocoPhillps NGL Plant - Zuni, NM
Satellite View, Bird's Eye View, Web Page 

US Cold Storage - Tulare, CA
This would make a good shallow relief industry
Bird's Eye View, Web Page 

Former ADM Corn Syrup Transload Terminal (Closed) - Empire, CA
They moved the operations to the Port of Stockton. It looks like it is being used for dry, bulk commodities now. It was similar to the asphalt terminal in the February 1994 issue of Model Railroader and in HO Lineside Industries You Can Build (Kalmbach Publishing)
Bird's Eye View, Satellite View, Street View 

Diversified CPC Aerosol Propellant Plant - Anaheim, CA
Satellite View, Bird's Eye View, Street View, Web Page 

Links to older threads:
CTS
Oglebay Norton
ConocoPhillips

 

Does Kimberly-Clark still have their plant in Fullerton California?

I lived in Fullerton for a year and remember going to see the crew switch cars there just about everyday.

It used to have 2 sidings going into the building back in the mid to late 1980`s......one was parallel to the street and 7 track yard.......the other was 90 Degrees to the street and had a platform that worked like a drawbridge that would sit across the one end of the track near the entrance of the building.

The siding near the street could hold about 18-40' boxcars and the other could hold about 5 to 6 cars.

[ericsp]

It is still there, although I would not consider it small.

Website

Satellite Photograph

Street View