I intend to incorporate the 12 car union ice dock to my Oxnard yard, also Union Ice operated a substanial express complex that handled delicate citrus shipments that were transloaded into express refrigerator cars. Other then that, no industries belong in a yard, just my opinion, your's may vary.
Dave.
The car repair track: the universal "industry" because every piece of rolling stock may need minor repairs. Also, a clean-out track is also very useful. In the right setting/era, an icing facility is handy too. Usually, there was a freight house and team tracks nearby. Some would include a weight scale and a track or tracks for maintenance-of-way equipment (ballast cars, snow plows, cranes, crew/tool cars, etc.) Locomotive-service facilities were already mentioned.
Mark
doctorwayne Other than staging, I deliberately included no freight or coach yards on my layout. They use up too much room and aren't really necessary for my operating scheme.
Other than staging, I deliberately included no freight or coach yards on my layout. They use up too much room and aren't really necessary for my operating scheme.
That's my plan too.
I do not have a "real"yard on my layout yet, only an open staging yard, stuck against the background. I also don't have any "real" industries, just what I have drawn or assembled from photos in Photoshop, printed out and glued to my painted sky board. The industries are two dockside general cargo sheds, and an Imperial Pure Cane Sugar raw sugar import terminal, drawn from a 2 inch square b&w photo of the real building. The freight cars seen in end view between the 2 cargo sheds and at the right side of the sugar facility are digital photos of N scale cars. This entire "yard" is 9 inches deep.
In this case, the industries are not located along the railroad. Rather the railroad has been located along the "industry." At least, that is how it works on a port prototype and what I am trying to model.
Wayne
Engine facilities and car shops are not industries, it's part of the railroad's own infrastructure maintenance, although in terms of a model railroad waybilling a company service car of sand or fuel to a track at the engine facility is no different in practice than one of our modelled industries since we don't deal with clients or billing.
Really the answer is ANY industry that the railroad might provide service to could be located near the yard, either coincidentally or most likely because the railway was there first and they located there specifically to have easy access to rail service. It's not easy nor cost effective for a railroad to build a hundred different spurs spreading all over town to access scattered industries. Industries will locate near the yard or an existing spur.
Railway operated freight/express sheds would be typically located near the yards in urban centers. In rural locations grain elevators and/or cattle pens would be common. In medium sized cities around me I'm aware of scrap metal yards, steel coil transloading, and warehouses located beside yards, plus old factories and mills that once had rails in years past.
In Sudbury, which my club is modelling, there were a few different lumber dealers, a fuel dealer, a cement transloader, a small cold storage/distributer, a pig ramp (back when the railway was still trying to compete with small volume local business), a large express freight shed, a beer distributor and even a small brewery. Not to mention the railway's engine and car shops, and oil-fired boiler house for steam heating or other actual industries located two miles away down the line (bakery, propane dealer, fuel oil/gasoline dealer, produce distributor, bakery, lumber yard). There were also connections to major mining and smelting operations in the area, although those weren't located near the main yard in town.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
This is the view looking into my 6-track yard. To the right, there's a Swift meat-packing plant. On the left you can see the ice house and the elevated platform for putting ice into reefers. There's a small freight house beyond the icing platforms, too.
These industries are all on the "outside" of the yard. There's nothing actually between the tracks.
If it fits your era, incidentally, an icing platform is an interesting "industry." Not only can you add a stop before taking the reefers to the packing plant or brewery for loading, you can also re-ice reefers as through freights pull through town. With express reefers, this can apply to passenger trains, too. And then, of course, you have an excuse to add more ice-bunker reefers to your fleet.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
i take it you are referring to businesses rather than rail served industries near but not on railroad property. if that is the case then you would certainly need a tavern. unless you are modeling the big four and then you would need 2 taverns.
i am just now starting to plan structures for my model railroad and they include a small hospital, "Our Lady of Affliction" or maybe "Heathen Memorial" i am thinking about a mutant animal petting zoo next to the Apocalypse Chemical plant.
grizlump
I've been making some progress on my Lakehurst yard and was wondering other then the obvious railroad related industries machine shop, rebuilding shops etc.What types of industries if any would populate a freight yard. Not necessarily in the yard area it self but lets say bordering it.. I know from way back when when I drove a truck picking up freight at the port you would have a diner of course maybe a truck repair shop or truck wash motels etc. So what do you guys have in or around your freight yards