Good thought provoking questions..
Here we go with my thoughts.
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1.Then, I am curious how many people actually implement paired industries-- or else industries that *could* be paired if they wanted to, but instead choose to direct the traffic off the layout.
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I avoid such pairing of industries since most industries would be hundreds of miles apart and those that was close together would use trucks since trucks are suited for short hauls.Besides that we are modeling a small part of a large transportation system.
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2.And finally, what is your opinion of paired-industries in-general? Do you think it enhances a layout's operation? Detracts from it somehow? (Such as makes it seem smaller or less expansive) Do you think its better to send all or most traffic "off the layout"-- would that make it seem "bigger" or "better connected". Or something else?
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In short I perfer to route traffic through interchange and on to a distant destination since industries close together would use trucks or a truck shuttle service.
Sending cars to a distant destination removes the car from the layout for a set number of car rotations.On my past ISLs I had enough cars that a car would show up once or twice a month on my twice weekly operations.I had ten 15 car rotations..That way there was none of that-Oh gee there's that B&H boxcar again..Of course cars like black tank cars or gray covered hoppers doesn't draw attention like colorful IPD boxcars or boxcars with large colorful graffiti.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
markpierce In general, pairing of industries is ridiculous except on extremely large layouts. Railroading for the last 80 years or so is generally long distance especially while the distances (real and reasonably imagined) on model railroads is definitely short-haul. Load a trainload of coal cars on one side of the layout and then unload them at the power plant on the other side of a turnback curve as typically done in loads-in/empties-out (LIEO) scenarios is, I'll say it, ludicrous. So as far as LIEO is concerned, it is difficult to accommodate a reasonable distance between the paired industries. Also, the modeling of the two ends is difficult to pull off. Since when are industries and track tails butted up against a hill?
In general, pairing of industries is ridiculous except on extremely large layouts. Railroading for the last 80 years or so is generally long distance especially while the distances (real and reasonably imagined) on model railroads is definitely short-haul. Load a trainload of coal cars on one side of the layout and then unload them at the power plant on the other side of a turnback curve as typically done in loads-in/empties-out (LIEO) scenarios is, I'll say it, ludicrous.
So as far as LIEO is concerned, it is difficult to accommodate a reasonable distance between the paired industries. Also, the modeling of the two ends is difficult to pull off. Since when are industries and track tails butted up against a hill?
Mark, in many cases I agree...................
BUT, why do you assume that the "on sage" portion of the layout must represent only one contiguous section of the modeled railroad? Why can't a layout be broken into, and represent several different scenes that might be 30 miles, 50 miles or even 100 miles apart?
Many layouts today are double decked, trains spent great amounts of time in a helex, surely the upper deck could be a section 50 miles fro mthe lower deck?
Even without that time lag, scenes seperated completely with view blocks can represent places many miles away, even if the layout only has a scale mile or two of actual track.
Mine will have over eight scale miles when complete, but will have scenes representing most of a 100 mile division.
A coal mine at one end and a power plant at the other - seems plausable to me.
Sheldon
krupaFor me, model railroading isn't about achieving "railroad reality" but finding my own contentment in a hobby that I've loved since I was kid.
And that's why this beloved hobby of ours is so great; there's room at the table for everyone to enjoy it in their own way.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
krupaMany of the replies effectively said "baseball fields don't generate any railroad traffic, don't waste the space." As a baseball fan, I totally plan to "waste the space" by putting in a ball field.
I've taken the Green Line to Fenway Park in Boston to watch the Sox. Believe me, that is one ball field that generates plenty of railroad traffic.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I can only speak hypothetically since I'm working on my first layout in 20-ish years and this first one is a relatively simple loop on a door.
However, as look at my available space and think about the large layout that will someday fill that space, I think that I will have a balance between realism and things I just like. For instance, it makes sense to me to have some industries produce what others consume and have rails connecting them.
At the same time, when I think of your questions, I think of a different thread here where someone wanted to model a baseball field. Many of the replies effectively said "baseball fields don't generate any railroad traffic, don't waste the space." As a baseball fan, I totally plan to "waste the space" by putting in a ball field. I'm even thinking of trying to model old Connie Mack park! I'll put in a street car to the park, even though I don't know if there was one back then and I don't care either way.
For me, model railroading isn't about achieving "railroad reality" but finding my own contentment in a hobby that I've loved since I was kid.
So I guess to answer your specific question, putting too much effort into modeling the real world detracts from my overall enjoyment of the hobby.
In my case, I am trying to simulate a transportation company. It's fictioanl dvision of the Burlington Route and the date is roughly 1960. This is beofre the deregulation of railroads (1980 Staggers Act), and so there is plenty of "retail" railroading instead of today's "Wholesale railroading.". 40' box cars were very common in this era.
Industrial shipping patterns on my layout include.
Grain elevator > Flour Mill > Bakery
Grain elevator > Brewery > Beer Distributor or grocery warehouse
Cattle stock yard > Meat packer > Grocery warehouse
cattle stock yard > Meat packer > tannery > Boot factory
Vegatable cannery > grocery warehouse
Coal Mine > Electric company, coke oven, and plants with boilers.
The steel mill receives coal, iron ore, stone, scrap metal. The coal is converted to coke and shipped to the blast furnace which aske receives ore and stone. Teh balst furnace ships hot metal and slag. The hot metal goes to the electric furnace which also receives scrap metal. The rolling mill ships steel. .
Most of these industries are complete, but some are not yet built and installed on the layout.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
fwrightJust a comment - loads in, empties out and paired industries are not the same thing. One can exist quite happily without the other. Occasionally, they may be used for the same set of industries.
Agreed, I just used that for the title.
I do model a paired industry, after a fashion. I have a coal mine and a small coal and oil distributer. Since I have my old "toy" stuff from the 1960s, I was able to resurrect this operating coal loader:
The hoppers are old Mantua "clamshell" models. They get their name from the non-prototypical doors at the bottom, which open sideways when spread by a special actuator track. The coal drops through the pile in the bin, which is actually hollow like a volcano, and into a waiting box below the layout.
Yes, they are fully operational, but yes, they are just a gimmick. I don't remember the last time I actually loaded and dumped coal. Still, I enjoyed the projects and I do have them for when I want to use them again. One of these days, there will be another video.
Mark beat me to it, talking about icing reefers. While not strictly a "paired" industry, and certainly not Loads In, Empties Out, because you don't see the contents of the cars, it's still a great way to generate "local" traffic in a way that is prototypical. The reefers can be used with produce warehouses, packing plants or breweries, and can even be coupled to your passenger service by adding express reefers to your head-end equipment.
Down in my workroom there are car float and apron kits waiting to be built. The trackwork is designed and partially in place, the tank engine is waiting at the LHS right now, and one day I will have a car float terminal. Like an "interchange track," it's a generic link to "off layout" that you can pair with any industry. Because of the "switching puzzle" that is part of car float operations, it provides more operational interest than simple staging. If a weighing station is part of the scene, that too becomes "paired" with the car float.
fwrightloads in, empties out and paired industries are not the same thing. One can exist quite happily without the other.
Certainly.
Another thing to consider is that paired industries can look funny if you model both the original source and the final destination, when the original source and the final destination normally would be hundreds of miles apart.
Like modeling picking up coal cars at a mine and spotting single coal cars at a coal dealer in a town.
However, one thing that can be done fairly believable is to model e.g. picking up empty cars from an interchange track or marshalling yard or mainline siding, taking the empties to a mine, pulling the loaded cars from the mine, spotting the empties, and then taking the loads back to the interchange track or siding.
Or modeling picking up loaded cars from a siding or yard track ("having been left there last night by the night train"), taking them to an industry, picking up unloaded cars from the industry, spotting the loads, taking the unloaded cars back to the siding or yard track.
That first (or last) step of a long journey by rail does not need to be a long one to be believable. And the cars does not actually have to come from hidden staging to simulate a longer journey, as long as you prestage loads and empties on the layout between operating sessions.
Smile, Stein
I had a rock crusher/quarry pair on my old On30 4x8:
See:
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/4x8/operation/lilo/
It worked really well and was fun to operate. The same could be done on a small layout with the underpass siding to the forest and a sawmill flat on the other side.
It adds a whole operating scheme on a small layout.
Thank you if you visit
Harold
John,
I think industries give purpose and functionality to a layout. For me, it makes the layout more "believeable" and, therefore, more interesting. It also helps me understand why things were the way they were on the prototype. I look at it as a snapshot of what railroad life was - both on, in, and around the railroad.
I model an early-40s steam-diesel servicing terminal on my layout so the "industry" is coal, sand, ash, and diesel fuel. Coal and sand loads come in and leave empty, after being dumped in their respective grates. Same with the diesel fuel: It's delivered via tank cars and leaves empty. Ash is the exception, as it comes in with the steamers, is dumped, and eventually leaves in full gondolas for places elsewhere. There is also the things being delivered and picked up at the freight station.
Needless to say - given the time of day, day of the week, or even season - there may be either a little or a lot of activity going on in a servicing area at any one given time.
Just a comment - loads in, empties out and paired industries are not the same thing. One can exist quite happily without the other. Occasionally, they may be used for the same set of industries.
Loads in, empties out has to do with how to better simulate the loading and unloading of open top cars, where the presence or lack of a load is easily visible. One way to simulate the loads in, empties out is the use of paired industries with hidden trackage linking them. Other ways might be 0-5-0 loading and unloading, and remote animated loading and unloading - which goes back to the ideas behind many Lionel operating cars and accessories.
A method I am planning to use at my sawmill is hidden staging through a transfer table. Full log cars will be spotted for unloading and then pushed behind the mill, and a cut of unloaded log cars pulled out of the staging. A similar exchange takes place with flat cars loaded with rough cut lumber and unloaded flat cars. I only have staging room for one such exchange per operating session. Restaging would have to be done between sessions.
The sawmill is linked to the dock where lumber is transferred to ships, and the log landing where logs are loaded on log cars. Although a common carrier linking a standard gauge line to Port Orford, the primary industry of the narrow gauge line is logging. The next most important industry is the support of a large logging operation - food, machinery, etc. Third would be the interchange traffic to/from the trans-loading facility at Lebanon (standard gauge interchange) to/from the dock at Port Orford. This would be mostly boxcar and reefer (ice) loads in 1900, with perhaps a few gondolas of coal.
Whether paired industries are a great idea or not depends on one's layout goals. I'm not a big fan of staging to represent off-layout stuff - there's enough toy train operations in me that wants the layout to be somewhat self-suffcient and evident. That factor probably influenced my choice of free-lance "prototype". Narrow gauge lines (except in Colorado) where almost always captive operations.
My standard gauge line - if I ever get the space - will interchange with the Oregon & California at Roseburg. That may drive me more deeply into staging. But in reality, complementary industries traffic was just as common as interchange traffic in the less built-up regions of the country in 1900. Virtually every town of any self-worth had its own blacksmith, livery or drayage, sawmill, ice storage and distribution, coal and/or firewood distribution, cooperage, feed mill and/or grain storage, etc. These were basic infrastructure industries that would be rail served (at least at the team track level) in 1900, unless they were really small in scale. Then add in any specialty industries (fish cannery and marine supply in my fishing port) that were located in the town - these would also need rail service. The infrastructure industries would invariably supply some of the needs of the specialty industries - hence you already have complementary industries if you model a town.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900....
My prototype KCS carries a lot of coal off of the BN in Kansas City to power plants on the KCS system. I am representing a lot of unit coal trains on the layout; coal mine to prower plant; however the coal mines and the power plants are not modeled on the layout.
My layout is point-to-point (Kansas City to the Ozarks) loaded coal trains run southbound and MYTs run northbound. At the end of the run the unit trains re-stange VIA a short return track which connects the two staging yards for the next run.
Jim, Modeling the Kansas City Southern Lines in HO scale.
Forty Niner Personally my hobby is a "hobby", just that and nothing more. It is to give me enjoyment and relaxation. When it has to have a "purpose" it's no longer a hobby to me as it verges on the border of "work". There are a lot of things in this world that escape me, "prototypical operation" is one of them. I once operated at a large club layout as a guest one evening, when I didn't "clear the main" in time for the express or whatever I got my butt chewed!! My response was that these "boys" were taking their "toys" way to seriously. My thinking is that "Model Railroading is fun as long as you control it, not the other way around". I enjoy lots of facets of Model Railroading, prototypical operation is one I avoid so that I can enjoy my trains. I also know there are people who enjoy this aspect of the hobby, more power to them, but it's not for me. If I wanted any sort of strees in my hobby I would never have retired several years ago. Just my opinion, doesn't mean it's right or wrong, it's just my opinion. Mark
Personally my hobby is a "hobby", just that and nothing more. It is to give me enjoyment and relaxation. When it has to have a "purpose" it's no longer a hobby to me as it verges on the border of "work".
There are a lot of things in this world that escape me, "prototypical operation" is one of them. I once operated at a large club layout as a guest one evening, when I didn't "clear the main" in time for the express or whatever I got my butt chewed!! My response was that these "boys" were taking their "toys" way to seriously.
My thinking is that "Model Railroading is fun as long as you control it, not the other way around".
I enjoy lots of facets of Model Railroading, prototypical operation is one I avoid so that I can enjoy my trains.
I also know there are people who enjoy this aspect of the hobby, more power to them, but it's not for me. If I wanted any sort of strees in my hobby I would never have retired several years ago.
Just my opinion, doesn't mean it's right or wrong, it's just my opinion.
Mark
Mark, I understand - As per W C Fields observation "I would not belong to any club that would have me as a memeber".
Clubs in my experiance are not the best invornment for prototype operations. I belong to a round robin group (not a club, no dues, no building, no layout, no politics). Many of the members are into one form or another of prototype operation. Group members who are interested run trains in the manner prescribed by each layout owner, and of course those interested help each other design those operational systems so that they are fun and interesting, not rigid and stressfull.
Most are simple train order or timetable operations, none use fast clocks at this time, some do have dispatchers and radios - actually great fun if you just keep it light hearted - which we all do.
And, I will say, while I do find prototypical operation fun, I am also a big fan of simple "rail fan" or display running and have gone to great lengths to design my layout to do both.
Under construction - not yet in operation!
The pairs:
The operation:
Loaded coal unit trains (short, not PRB size) are dispatched from the colliery to the port and power plant at the rate of four per day. Which originating unit goes to which destination is determined by the bean counters in the head office. As far as the Tomikawa Valley Railway is concerned, they run downhill to Tomikawa where they are interchanged with the Japan National Railway. Where they go from there is the JNRs problem. The mine also originated loose cars, 100% of which go to Tomikawa and 90+% of which end up in interchange. Empty unit trains (same reporting marks, unloaded) are turned over to the TTT by the JNR for the upgrade slog to the colliery. Empty drop-side gons and hopper cars destined for live coal loads get to the colliery in different, mixed trains.
The joker(s) in the deck:
Both Minamijima and Takada are named station/locations-in the Netherworld. The loaded units disappear into the New Nichigeki Tunnel behind catenary motors and wend their way back to the hidden interchange where the motors exchange them for empty trains. The empties, having been pushed out of sight under the tipple and storage bins by the colliery switcher, are exchanged for the loads (careful scheduling keeps the reporting marks matched up.)
As for the live loads, they eventually get switched into a train terminating at Mikasa, also in the Netherworld. There they are loaded into a special cassette specifically designed to facilitate emptying loaded open-top cars (crated and skid-loaded machinery, barrels, logs... as well as coal.) Only the hoppers are in dedicated coal service, the gons could just as easily be reloaded at Mikasa with bottles of industrial gasses or somebody's new Datsun, or dispatched empty to the log yard at Tomikawa for a load of cedar with the bark still on.
So, do any coal loads ever go from the colliery to a modeled destination in the visible part of Central Japan? A few are sent to the JNR coal dock at Tomikawa, a few more to the fuel dock at the Kashimoto Forest Railway's Tomikawa engine shop and a carload or so a week to some unidentified user who takes delivery at the Haruyama freight station. Those loads are magically converted to empties some time in the small hours of the morning when the nozzle of a mini-shop-vac descends from the sky and sucks the loose coal into oblivion (aka return to the tipple for the next round of loads.)
As for trying to model both the shipper and receiver of a loads/empties exchange - the layout (double garage filler) is too small for that.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
One concept I use is a large grocery wharehouse that takes car loads six or seven industries.
Nevertheless, there are some realistic scenarios of paired industries on a layout. For example, a tram carrying carrying ore from mine to mill such as the narrow-gauge industrial railroad between the Cowell Cement plant formerly in Concord connecting the plant to its lime source a mile or so away. And while cement plants are typically located near the lime source, there is the example on the Yosemite Valley Railroad where lime was hauled to the plant a few miles along the shortline's main track. Also, the aggregate retailer in Walnut Creek on SP's San Ramon Branch undoubtedly received a miniscule part of Kaiser's Pleasanton output from its quarries located 20 miles away. But one needs to "choose wisely."
An ideal example of "rationally" paired industries is between icing and produce plants. Ice the refrigerator car, take the car to be loaded at the produce source, and perhaps return the car to be re-iced before shipping it "beyond." Putting on one's "thinking cap" can come up with other easily and realistically modeled scenarios. For instance, when hauling away a loaded car from an industry, the car is found in need of minor repairs, so the car is taken to a nearby repair-in-place facility. A railroad's engine service facility obtains its coal from a nearby source. Etc.
I'd bet this aggregate-rock facility once located in Walnut Creek, partially shown on the right side of the photo, received material from quarries only 20 miles away.
jwhitten My Questions For Today: So, okay-- we know about paired industries, "Loads-In, Empties Out" and that sort of thing. Let's see if we can come up with a really good list of paired industries. Then, I am curious how many people actually implement paired industries-- or else industries that *could* be paired if they wanted to, but instead choose to direct the traffic off the layout. And finally, what is your opinion of paired-industries in-general? Do you think it enhances a layout's operation? Detracts from it somehow? (Such as makes it seem smaller or less expansive) Do you think its better to send all or most traffic "off the layout"-- would that make it seem "bigger" or "better connected". Or something else?
My Questions For Today:
So, okay-- we know about paired industries, "Loads-In, Empties Out" and that sort of thing. Let's see if we can come up with a really good list of paired industries.
Then, I am curious how many people actually implement paired industries-- or else industries that *could* be paired if they wanted to, but instead choose to direct the traffic off the layout.
And finally, what is your opinion of paired-industries in-general? Do you think it enhances a layout's operation? Detracts from it somehow? (Such as makes it seem smaller or less expansive) Do you think its better to send all or most traffic "off the layout"-- would that make it seem "bigger" or "better connected". Or something else?
I like both the "paired industry" and the "off stage" solutions, and I do both. But I do send most traffic "off stage" if it originated "on stage", and vica versa.
As an overall layout concept, I am a big fan of "Thru Staging", thus allowing "empties" to alway flow one way and "loads" to flow the other.
Point to point requires too much "setup time" and does not allow trains to be reused in a given operating session. I know some people don't like to do that, but my goal is to simulate big time operations, not get all caught up in each and every freight car.
For me one big item is early piggyback, I have only one fairly large piggyback terminal. Some traffic leaves and goes west, some leaves and goes east, same for arriving traffic. So in the staging there are seperate east and west bound trains that drop off and pick up blocks of piggybacks as they traverse the layout.
Even in the early days of piggyback it was considered high priority traffic and if not a unit train, piggyback traffic was generally at the head end and switched out quickly upon arrival in the yard.
"Loads-In, Empties Out"
In the early days of Model Railroading it was often the case that the modeler would simply build a bench or table, lay some track, hook-up the wires and run some trains-- quite probably going "Woo woo" a lot
Sometimes large layouts were built with lots of tracks going in all different directions, perhaps encircling the modeler, or else operated from afar via an operator's console. The old "spaghetti bowl" right-of-way theory, where the trains were operated more for amusement rather than a "sense of purpose". Buildings and structures, when included, were often just "railroady" type structures added to add character to the trains, or for a simplistic operating purpose, such as "stopping at the station" or "loading freight" or some other generic element.
Spaghetti bowls gave way to more purpose-driven designs in which more thought and consideration was given to the manner and nature of the operation of trains, and the modeling of train operations within the scope of the layout. The notion of model railroading became more about the trains doing things that made some sort of sense, within the world boundaries of the layout. Rail-served industries were added to the layout to provide the railroad an element of purposeful motion. Carrying goods and cargo, people and freight from one rail-served industry to another.
More advanced concepts included interdependent industries, or passenger terminals and such, so that in addition to modeling the motion of the trains, the railroader was also modeling the flow of the goods and cargo they carried between the industries they served.
Then another new concept was introduced-- the idea of interacting with other, unseen, unmodeled locations "out there" beyond the layout room. The idea that trains came from "over yonder" wherever it was they supposedly came from, traversed the modeler's layout, and left again to some destination "that-a-way". And that the layout was just the modeled, visible portion of a larger overall network of trains, services, goods, passengers, schedules, connections, etc., in other words, a way to connect the layout to "the world".
Once the layout is hooked-up to the world, all manner of connections and cargo are possible, and industries need no longer to be explicitly "paired" on the layout, even if they are sometimes paired either for demonstrative purposes, or just (modeled) "serendipity" in action. Meaning that the modeler just happened to *like* coal mines and power stations, so modeled one of each without necessarily implying that one must be interconnected to the other. So while the modeler "may" connect traffic from one to the other, the modeler may instead connect the traffic to "somewhere else", beyond the layout.
As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments, pictures if you got 'em!
John