"A Single Industrial Theme"
US Steel Railway Yard, c 1920's
Last week we discussed the pros and cons of paired industries, where the product of one industry on the layout is supplied to another. This week let's talk about layouts built around a single-industry. There are a number of industries that we could be talking about here-- an obvious one that springs quickly to mind might be a steel mill, which can be so large they could easily dwarf and moderate-sized layout all by themselves. With their own dedicated tracks, yards, switchers, rolling stock, and even customized types of rolling stock, not to mention the variety of resources they require, steel mills all by themselves can make a very interesting thing to model and never leave the boundaries of the plant.
But it isn't limited to steel mills. Another example might be a logging company who uses the railroad to haul timber from the hills to the mill, and to haul in people, equipment and supplies to support the lumber camps. And to haul lumber and wood chips to factories that manufacture furniture, paper, leather, or other products from the wood or one of its byproducts. Or perhaps a layout could be built around some sort of refining operation. Cars bringing in oil or other distillates to be processed and producing petroleum, propane, or some other chemical product.
I'm sure there are lots of industries that could potentially be large enough to be the focal point of a layout all by themselves.
Railroad Cars at Steel Mill, 1965
My Questions For Today Are:
-- Is your layout built around a single industry? (By which I don't mean there can be *no* other industries on the layout, but rather in the overall, either a single industry or "industrial theme" pervades the layout-- or else dominates the layout to such a degree that anything else modeled is relegated to essentially background status.)
If "Yes", tell us about your layout, its concept and how it revolves around a single industry or industrial theme. Paired (or multiple) industries are okay as long as they are tightly coupled to the industry or theme.
If "No", have you considered building a layout around a central industry? If so, what was your concept and how would it be developed?
And of course, pictures are always nice!
As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments!
John
No, definitely not! My choice is to see train movement not parallel tracks of standing stock in yards...
But I'm posting because my prefered area is Chicago so the big "single industry" for a long time period was meat. Much more interesting than steel...
jwhitten My Questions For Today Are: -- Is your layout built around a single industry? (By which I don't mean there can be *no* other industries on the layout, but rather in the overall, either a single industry or "industrial theme" pervades the layout-- or else dominates the layout to such a degree that anything else modeled is relegated to essentially background status.) If "Yes", tell us about your layout, its concept and how it revolves around a single industry or industrial theme. Paired (or multiple) industries are okay as long as they are tightly coupled to the industry or theme. If "No", have you considered building a layout around a central industry? If so, what was your concept and how would it be developed?
No, I would find it very boring. I am very interested in both freight and passenger operations of all types.
My industrial areas are much like a stand alone "Industrial Switching Layout", but if that was the whole layout, I would not be in the hobby.
Sheldon
My layout is about cement. I have two cement plants, and just one warehouse. The train I use to follow when I was younger was all cement, and I always wanted a cement layout. I have a main plant (Medusa, well renamed Zeus). The other smaller plant is "Blue Star".
The hoppers kinda go back and forth to each other, while the boxcars can carry some to the warehouse. Of course I still have a yard/town/etc.....but its mainly cement.
Blue Star (the smaller plant):
The bigger plant. It was called....Zeus "strong like the gods":
A small shipping company "Lakeville"
"Rust, whats not to love?"
jwhitten -- Is your layout built around a single industry? (By which I don't mean there can be *no* other industries on the layout, but rather in the overall, either a single industry or "industrial theme" pervades the layout-- or else dominates the layout to such a degree that anything else modeled is relegated to essentially background status.) If "Yes", tell us about your layout, its concept and how it revolves around a single industry or industrial theme. Paired (or multiple) industries are okay as long as they are tightly coupled to the industry or theme. If "No", have you considered building a layout around a central industry? If so, what was your concept and how would it be developed? John
There was an interesting side bar to an MR article into the 1960s about a mining layout design for a bedroom. The essence of the sidebar was that while building a single industry layout can be very interesting and a lot of fun, operating a single industry layout tends to be boring for many. The inherent boredom is evident by the way single industry advocates and article authors are very quick to point out that the operations are more diverse that what we would ordinarily expect - methinks too quick.
A real railroad wants as much "dull" repetition as they can get. Repetition of trains, loads, empty movements, etc., means costs are easily determined and relatively constant. Variation to the standard operations represent a lot of uncertainty, which is difficult to price. That's why variable operations are often (perhaps usually) performed as an overlay on top of a standard, non-variable process rather than mixing the two together.
If we are accurately modeling the prototype in operations as well as physical plant, repetitive operation should play a major role. Serving a single industry will force even more repetitive operations. This is very similar in principle to your posts on modeling the mundane vs the unusual.
As hobbyists, we're not interested in controlling our operating costs. We are in it for the fun. For some the fun is in modeling (building) a very accurate model. Their interest may even extend to accurately modeling prototype operations. Others of us prefer to build and operate a fantasy world. Some prefer switching puzzles; others find puzzles unprototypical and shun them.
Me - I don't have enough operational experience to know for sure what I would prefer. In building layouts, I've tended towards trying to make a plausible fantasy world, if there is such a thing. In my current design, I have a couple of switching puzzles built into the track arrangement in case that becomes my interest. At the same time, I have implemented ways to avoid the puzzle if I don't feel like doing the puzzle on a given night.
Another example is my HOn3 line. It is primarily a logging line, and the majority of the operation is moving logs to the sawmill, and lumber to the dock, and empties back to be reloaded. But I also set up an interchange with a standard gauge line so that the narrow gauge line can serve as bridge between the port and the standard gauge. This justifies both more, and more varied traffic over the line - on top of the base logging operations.
I have been corresponding with Chuck Yungkurth about the switchback operations on his famous Gum Stump & Snowshoe, and the daily routine operations he used on the later Bellefonte & Snowshoe (his 3rd layout described in Sept 1963 MR). He found the switching puzzle nature of the switchbacks quite boring after a short time, but found the routine daily ops on the larger layout quite satisfying. He also said that when he added a loop and staging siding to the orginal GS&S that he almost never used the switchbacks anymore. I suspect I am more the opposite, but time will tell for sure.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900....
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There are 2 different industry roads I would consider modeling-a logging railroad based on the switching of the saw,plaining,plywood and veneer mills as well as the loading area and interchange..Power would be a 2 truck Shay and maybe a Climax.
The second would be a narrow gauge coal hauling railroad that would haul coal from the mine to the transloading track yard.The transload dock and standard gauge railroad would not be modeled.The scale would be On30 and power would be a Bachmann 2-8-0 or 2-6-0.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
A "single industry" layout? My layout currently under construction is almost a single industry layout, if the wide umbrella of a SEAPORT can be considered an industry. The largest freight traffic to the layout consists of export goods being sent TO the port, and imported goods rail-shipped OUT from the port. The different facilities of the port may seem like separate "industries" though.
Solid trainloads of grain in boxcars going to the export elevator--
(unfinished scene)
About hyalf as much traffic in cotton to compresses for export.
(background scene drawn after cotton sheds at Galveston.)
The prototype ran trainloads of sulphur for export, but since the distinctive cars require a scratchbuild, I will probably have to settle for cuts of 6 to 8 cars...
Inbound, a banana ship came once a week with more than a trainload of bananas to ship north in reefers...
There was also a "bulk material unloading dock" which brought in occasional shiploads of ore several times a year...an excuse to concentrate empties for the shipment.
"My" port also imported shipments of raw coffee, and sugar.
I model Santa Fe and nearly all the sugar went to Imperial whose "Sugarland Railroad" was owned by MoPac. I just represent Imperial with a drawing of its import facility on the background.
Besides the port in and out, a couple of waterfront operations generated traffic which was NOT coming from somewhere overseas... an oystershell dredging operation which brought in oystershell for portland cement manufacture (shipped to a cement plant inland), and a fishery, locally called "The Mosquito Fleet", which shipped fish and shrimp....
mockup of unfinished shrimpboat harbor
I imagine 10% or less of traffic will be goods to service the port city I model. It is on an island, and thus NOT a distribution point for surrounding towns.
I have a small layout that IS a single-industry layout, only the "industry" is not an industry. The entire 2 x 3 foot layout consists of the trackage aboard base on a Naval Air Station for BLIMPS.
Yes and no! The emphasis on my Santa Fe, as I have stated many times now, was Oklahoma in 1989, in particular, Enid Oklahoma and the massive terminal grain elevators and flour mills. The Santa Fe served Enid via a branch from Guthrie OK northeast through Enid to Kiowa Ks on the transcon main. The SLSF and CRIP also served Enid and between them, and the railroads that took them over and the Santa Fe, from June through the end of July was a madhouse.
I have chosen to model the grain elevators to represent the many elevator companies of that era. I also have Oklahoma City modeled with its elevators and all the towns on the Enid branch with their elevators, plus grain trains coming from Kiowa on the Santa Fe to Enid. The grain arrived for many elevators to be stored, while old grain was moved out for export in the gulf coast region. The Enid branch had only one town with a siding long enough to pass trains, so the grain trains at Guthrie and the trains at Enid were "fleeted" over the 45 miles of track, which makes a great scene on the layout. Enid also saw grain coming in from big elevators in Kansas, plus Oklahoma and west Texas.
Enid did have a refinery, the Champlin (home owned originally) which is now gone, but I kept it alive so I had traffic tank cars, etc. There also a large chemical plant on the ATSF and BN east of Enid which I also model. Those three industries, grain, petroleum, chemical are the major players on my Santa Fe. Grain leads, with a total of 30 grain elevators on the three decks of the railroad.
This means large fleets of grain cars, and Intermountain, Atlas, ExactRail and Tangent cars make up the buld of the300 plus grain cars.
Bob
Do people count as an "industry?" If so, then yes. Much of my layout is devoted to serving the people of Moose Bay. There are trolleys, subways and bigger inter-city passenger trains. I've got 4 stations underground, 2 stops for the trolleys above, and I'm building the station for the "big trains" right now. There are buses and cabs on the roads, too, for those who just can't get enough of that public transit.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
While the layout I'm building is principally focused on the South Pennsylvania Railroad, a bridge route between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh PA, it will also incorporate a second railroad, the Montour RR, that actually operated in a belt around Pittsburgh. The Montour is interesting because it served the coal industry almost exclusively. At its height it had about 48 miles of track and 27 coal mines.
Montour SW9 83,76, & 74 Jan 1981
When the Montour dieselized, it standardized on small EMD switchers.
Moon Run Coal Tipple
Montour Mine #10
The Montour made its living almost exclusively servicing the mines along its route.
My layout is built around a single industry, the movement of citrus specifically lemons and oranges from packer to consumer, obviously packing houses dominate this theme, but packers also produced byproduct that was shipped for use as fuel for power plants and livestock feed. I do things big, my packers are all based on a specific prototype, Cornona Packing has a capacity for 28 cars and has an in house lumber mill and cull processor.
Sunkist Ojai was a much smaller operator with a 12 car capacity on three spurs, but had extensive shook manfacturing facalities to support affliates. Red Vine Rasin Association (despit the name it never processed a solitary grape or rasin) was served by two operators and had spurs along 3 sides of the building each serving a specific product line, obviously the prototype found it useful as a interchange point as well and when times were lean the adjacent dairy operations provided some much needed revenue, they also shipped cans of milk and butter by LCL and sold excess power to the communtity from the in house steam plant!
If I were truly ambitious, the Tropacana Juice plant would be next on my to do list, it would require around 30 square feet to convey the magnitude of the operations. Who knows, i've done the research, but what the heck did they use avacados for? I suspect as a fuel source as an major avacado processor was located across from the plant and spoilage was typcially seperated for anminal feed with the pits used as fuel, whatever its eventual prurpose, demand was so great a conveyor belt feed avacados to the site and was a known consumer of avacado pits from as far away Texas. How many times have you seen gondolas filled with rotting advacados modeled?
To keep this fluid requires a fleet of over 200 reefers per operating session with a secondary need for boxcars intended for lumber and LCL and the occasional stock car retrofitted with temporary bins to contain non sensitive produce during reefer shortages, I don't find it limiting in the least.
Dave
A single industry layout doesn't appeal to me. Part of the appeal of model railroading is the moving of trains from one place to another. I also like the wider variety of a common carrier line. Switching cars around a steel mill (or other plant) as the whole layout just doesn't appeal to me.
If I were doing a small layout, I would do a single station layout before a single industry one.
I've never seen a plan for one, but a Railroad Car Builder would probably be the best. You could have a whole variety of cars and they could be brand new with fresh paint jobs for a variety of roads.
Enjoy
Paul
Things in my version of Central Japan in September, 1964 tend to come in threes. Thus I have three private railways that each serve a single industry. One will be fully modeled as part of first-phase construction. The other two will start as (almost) static displays, to be extended out to second-level operations when, as and if...
As an aside, there won't be a millimeter of dual-gauge track at either Tomikawa or Haruyama.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
jwhitten Montour Mine #10
This photograph elegantly shows the need for tracks on either side of a tipple. Makes butting up a tipple and tracks against a hillside look silly.
For small/medium layouts, I favor a major, high-volume industry with a mixture of lesser industries.
Mark
tomikawaTT As an aside, there won't be a millimeter of dual-gauge track at either Tomikawa or Haruyama.
Aaahhh, what a loss. Dual guage is neat/cool/interesting/intriguing/etc. And costs so little for a master turnout builder like you, Chuck.
jwhitten-- Is your layout built around a single industry? (.... in the overall, either a single industry or "industrial theme" pervades the layout-- or else dominates the layout to such a degree that anything else modeled is relegated to essentially background status.) If "Yes", tell us about your layout, its concept and how it revolves around a single industry or industrial theme.
-- Is your layout built around a single industry? (.... in the overall, either a single industry or "industrial theme" pervades the layout-- or else dominates the layout to such a degree that anything else modeled is relegated to essentially background status.)
If "Yes", tell us about your layout, its concept and how it revolves around a single industry or industrial theme.
Yup, I do steel!
But that's not everything, maybe just 70% of the local traffic. Being a SW Michigan native, I saw a lot of steel mills and was always fascinated by their architecture, machinery and broad assortment of rail car types, so I always dreamed of modeling one. My HO mill occupies its own peninsula between two larger ones in the center of the trainroom.
However, I also have at least 7 other "industries" (incl. team track and an interchange) that are completely unrelated to the steel mill. Plus, the main line is a bridge route that supports a fair amount of pass-thru traffic [to spice things up a bit for the operators of the Local]. I've also positioned view blocks to keep some areas of the layout visually isolated from the mill.
I'm quite satisfied with the overall theme. Plenty of variety in traffic, and my regular operators all seem to have fun with it!
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
markpierceThis photograph elegantly shows the need for tracks on either side of a tipple. Makes butting up a tipple and tracks against a hillside look silly. For small/medium layouts, I favor a major, high-volume industry with a mixture of lesser industries. Mark
I agree that probably people need to consider what they're building, but there are just as many examples of the mine against the hillside as well:
John, you missed my drift. I's talkin' 'bout the backside. Tracks shouldn't dead-end at the tipple. They should go beyond so a cut of cars can be accommodated, as illustrated.
markpierceJohn, you missed my drift. I's talkin' 'bout the backside. Tracks shouldn't dead-end at the tipple. They should go beyond so a cut of cars can be accommodated, as illustrated. Mark
Oh yeah, absolutely. Complete agreement.
I think a single "large" industry would be fine on a small or medium sized layout. On my small 6x9 layout there are a couple industrial tracks but the primary and most important customer is the cement plant. It is based very loosely on the cement works in Redwood City, CA on the former SP line. A single big industry would be perfectly fine with me as long as I could still run some through trains (manifest, intermodal, etc) that did not require any online handling but merely passed through for some visual variation.
Cahrn
On the layout I'm building a steel mill is the main industry while a couple smaller ones such as a furniture factory and a freight car rebuilding shop are online customers and run through traffic will be present most of the operation will be to support the mill. I also chose the freight car rebuilding shop as a smaller industry since then the steel mill can send equipment such as bottle cars and slag cars that need to cleaned out and lined with new refractory tiles.
It seems my layout evolves everytime I go to the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. There have been many small railroads that served a variety of industries such as logging and mining as well as supporting some passenger travel. There were some towns and 'camps' that were only served by a local railroad such as the Manistique and Lake Superior in decades past because there were no roads and some areas were inaccessible during the winter. It also had interchanges with the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic near a crossroads called Doty. The MLS ceased operations in 1960 and the DSS&A evenutally became parts of the SOO and is now under the control of the CN.
All of this is to say that I have been modeling the early logging and passenger traffic but I am now thinking of including the Doty interchange so I can begin to include a small mining operation. This will add some additional interest on my version of Upper Penninsula railroading.
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989