Suggestions for industries for our club layout (updated)

[mbinsewi]

That's all good stuff, Larry!

There was a small operator in my town that shipped glass in open hoppers.  He only lasted a couple of years.

But I think all of your ideas are great, got me thinking about maybe an off-layout customer.

Mike.

[BRAKIE]

Steven Otte

Paper mills usually have multiple sidings to receive and ship multiple kinds of freight. Pulpwood, wood chips, and/or sawdust (to make the pulp), rolls or bales of pulp in boxcars (if it's a pulp-only mill), tanks of chemicals (to turn wood into pulp and to bleach the paper), kaolin (clay slurry, in tank cars) to make the paper glossy, coal to fuel the on-site power plant, occasional boxcars of replacement machine parts, and captive-service boxcars to ship the finished product. And the paper-making process takes a lot of water, so mills are always situated along rivers, lakes, or canals, making for interesting scenic opportunities. Take a look at Jeff Wilson's book Industries Along the Tracks 2.

 

Steven,If I may? IMHO its time we start looking outside of the normal layout industry box for our industries.

Here's a short list that will work on any size layout.

1.Pipe Distributor In bound loads of pipe in flats, gons and bulkhead flats. Out empties.

2.Steel distributor in loads of steel beams,sheet steel, angle steel and steel rebar.

3.Crushed glass recycling company..They ship crushed in three bay covered hoppers. This is a new one to me but,I've seen the photos.

4.Polymer companies in plastic pellets and plasticsizer  Out empties.

5.Timkin Automotive. In axle tubing for truck trailer axles. Out empty gons.

[rrebell]

If you go with more generic looking buildings as a base, you can add changable signage and add on building details. That way ABC wharehouse can become another warehouse or small factory or. I was working on sign changing ideas and methods before my layout had to come down. One examole was the port carfloat ramp. by glueing super magnets inside the building part, a very thin metal sign could be changed out easily on the outside.

[ROBERT PETRICK]

Hey Dave-

On my layout there is an industry I call Western Grain and Sugar. It is based (more or less) on a combination of the Coors barley operation in Ralston, Wyoming and the Western Sugar Alliance sugar beet plant in Lovell, Wyoming. Here are a couple of fairly low-res photos. Santa did not bring me that hi-res aerial photography drone for Christmas 

Typical operations incude hoppers delivering/receiving all kinds of grains, and tank cars delivering/receiving all kinds of liquids produced from those grains (soybean oil, high-fructose corn syrup, ethanol, bio-diesel, etc). Plus the occasional flat car or gondola loaded with pipes, spare parts, heavy machinery, and whatnot as any large-scale industry might require. Sugar beets are delivered in re-purposed relict coal cars and the tailings (pulp used for cattle feed) are sent out the same way.

Should be fairly easy to find plenty of kits to be bashed.

Robert

 

 

[xboxtravis7992]

Some ideas that come to mind:

Lead or Copper Smelter/Refinery network: Somewhat similar in appeal to a steelmill; the mine, mill, smelter, and refinery process can all be modeled with each step being its own seperate industry on line. You can also choose one individual segment itself to model with the rest of the operation "off layout." For example the supply chain of the International Smelting Co's lead process back in the 1900's involved lead mines in the western USA (Utah, Nevada, Idaho etc.) which shipped to the International Smelter in Tooele Utah; then the smelted product was shipped via long distance to East Chicago Indiana were the final process was completed. Good excuse to have cars from western roads in the smelter area such as the UP, SP, WP and DRGW on a train mingling with cars from eastern roads from the refinery area such as the PRR and NYC. Raritan Copper Works in New Jersey was another east coast operation that recieved product from smelters in the western states. In comparison the Kennecott Copper process in Utah is entirely self contained, with the mine, mill, smelter, and refinery all on the same stretch of track along one mountain range. 

Slaughter House: It might seem a bit strange of a subject to model; but the massive amount of stock cars, stock yards, and reefers involved in a massive industrial slaughter house of the early 1900's would be a distinct industrial setting. You can have lots of animals on the layout from pigs and cattle in the stock pens, and switching moves can be done to simulate the work of cleaning out a stock car after it arrives and icing the reefers carrying outbound meat. 

Lumber yard. Can be a small one spur industry, unloading off wood for use in the local construction industry. Fuel Depots can serve a similar function but with coal and oil. 

Oil refinery. Speaking of oil, a large refinery can again be a big multi step industry with different processes for the cars to deliver to. 

[MisterBeasley]

I've got a small slaughterhouse and a tannery.  Both are small representations of what a real facility would look like, but we "selectively compress" many things on our layouts.  Another way to do them would be to use the walls of the room or backdrops to "model" the large buildings while keeping the tracks on the layout itself.  The slaughterhouse takes in animals and ships meat and hides.  The tannery takes in hides (in specially designated box cars) but also needs salt and acid.

One thing you might consider is an icing platform.  This is another one that can be modeled against the backdrop, with the large building as a background building and the thin, long platform being physically modeled.  An icing platform can serve local industries like a slaughterhouse, a fishery, cannery, produce warehouse or brewery.  It's also a service that is needed for through freights in the summer where ice-bunker reefers need to be refreshed every few hundred miles as they make their way across the country.  They can be on run-through sidings, too.

Billboard reefers came to an end in the mid 1930s, but you can stretch the era a bit to allow the wide variety of colorful cars that are still available as models.

[rrinker]

 Reminds me of the Dixie Cup plant that was around when I was growing up. Rail served off the Lehigh Valley's E&N branch. Physically still there but empty now. The big draw was the fact that the water town on top was decorated like a giant Dixie cup. I know they also had truck docks, but I'm pretty sure they both received materials like paper and wax by rail as well as shipped by rail. 

Modern, one of the big customers for the R&N is a Proctor & Gamble plant in Mehoopany PA where they make Charmin toilet paper.

                                   --Randy

[dknelson]

Steven Otte

Take a look at Jeff Wilson's book Industries Along the Tracks 2.

In fact take a look at all of Jeff Wilson's industries Along the Tracks books.  Many great ideas.

I would suggest modeling a series of industries that in one way or another are related to animals/meat.  Even into the 1970s this was an incredibly inter-related group of rail served industries, and best of all the rail shipments were often considerably shorter than the usual minimum to make rail ship economical.

Take a slaughter house.  There are so many by products quite apart from the meat itself in varying grades shipped by reefer.  Waste meats, including tails, to pet food plants or sausage or other lower level food producers.  The intestines were used for tennis and musical instrument strings and other uses.  The hides to tanneries, which in turn would scrape off the "fleshings" for fertilizer or chicken feed, which together with the offal was sometimes shipped in open gondolas ("gut cars").  Whether it was the slaughter house or the tanneries, the shaved off animal hair had a ready market in the felt and even insulation industry.

Hooves, horns, and bones to glue factories, again sometimes in open gondolas.  Gelatin from hooves to food processors.  Even the blood had a market - liquid and dried.  Tallows were separated into edible and inedible and each had their markets, shipped in dedicated tank cars.  I am sure there was also manure to dispose of.    

And those industries in turn needed chemicals in tank cars or other additives.  And themselves were shippers back in the day, sometimes needing loads of packaging materials such as tin stock, etc.

In places like Chicago and to a certain extent my own Milwaukee area, there was an incredible inter-relationship all beginning with the slaughter houses, and it was laregely rail served even into the 1960s.  The saying is that everything of a cow was used except the Moo.

Another example: the brewing industry.  Many and varied inbound loads of raw materials as well as packaging.  Outbound beer, but also broken glass, spent grain.  I can remember seeing gondolas filled with busted glass from the brewing industry being taken to a recycle center -- the roadbed glistened with fine bits of glass. 

The old Schlitz brewery here in Milwaukee owned huge duck farms south of Milwaukee.  The ducks ate the waste grain, similar to the byproducts that ethanol creates.  Then the ducks were sold by Schlitz as food of course but the duck manure was mixed with wastes from another Schlitz property, that being cranberry bogs.  The duck manure and cranberry wastes were combined into a potent fertilizer that Schlitz sold.  At one time I am sure all of this was rail served.  And again, the hauls were short meaning that slaughter houses and brewing industries allow for the shipping and receiving industries to both be located on the same layout with a fair amount of prototype justification (which is usually lacking).

Dave Nelson

[jcopilot]

Dave,

How about a paper cup company?  Years ago, in Owings Mills, MD, there was the Maryland Cup Company.  It received 50' boxcars with paper (and other things too, I imagine), 100-ton covered hoppers with plastic pellets for making plastic cups and utensils and tank cars with wax.  The tank cars were double-hulled to allow steam to be injected around the inner tank to melt the wax which made it easier to pump out.  There were storage tanks nearby for the wax.

Some of the boxcars were spotted inside the building, the covered hoppers and tank cars were outside.  The plastic pellets were sucked into the building by hoses.

I imagine they brought in dyes to color the paper cups, small boxes for the store displays and large cartons to ship quantities of the small boxes to stores.

Loads in, loads out, boxcars, covered hoppers, tank cars, inside and outside spots, pretty interesting mix. 

Jeff

[Eastrail11]

Since I'm about as far south as you can get from Canada while staying in the U.S., I don't know how accurate this is, but how about a power plant with a coal tipper, so loaded coal trains from the coal mines in Pennsylvania, drop the loaded cars off in your yard, take empties back to Penn. Even if you don't use real coal loads, If not a coal power plant could still be cool, or how ever Barrie gets its power in real life.

[BRAKIE]

Dave,If I may? Avoid interlocking industries unless its  a mine/power plant,mine/river terminal,mine /coke plant or mine/steel mill.

A saw mill to lumber company just looks to uninformed modeling even back in the 30s that lumber would have been trucked from any nearby mill.

As far as industries one should think out of the normal layout industry box and  look to the prototype for guidance.

As a example on my ISL Scotland Paper receives rolled paper  for printing weekly store ads and newspaper inserts.

[nealknows]

What about a lumber yard? This could work well with Steve's suggestion about a paper mill. Add to that a transload area. Depending on your era, you can have some piggyback trains and run small intermodal freight cars. In the 70's there was a lot of piggyback service. Also, a storage warehouse for freight to be stored and picked up at a later date.

Just some thoughts. Good luck and keep us posted!

Neal

[Steven Otte]

Paper mills usually have multiple sidings to receive and ship multiple kinds of freight. Pulpwood, wood chips, and/or sawdust (to make the pulp), rolls or bales of pulp in boxcars (if it's a pulp-only mill), tanks of chemicals (to turn wood into pulp and to bleach the paper), kaolin (clay slurry, in tank cars) to make the paper glossy, coal to fuel the on-site power plant, occasional boxcars of replacement machine parts, and captive-service boxcars to ship the finished product. And the paper-making process takes a lot of water, so mills are always situated along rivers, lakes, or canals, making for interesting scenic opportunities. Take a look at Jeff Wilson's book Industries Along the Tracks 2.

[gmpullman]

hon30critter

That is another great idea that I hadn't considered

Well, you did... but maybe forgot.

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/263292.aspx

In fact, it was recalling the neat track and building arrangement of the Lemp Brewery  that made me think of it.

Perhaps some of the Walthers brewery buildings could be employed?

https://tinyurl.com/y8ofxscc

Have a cool one and think it over  Ed

[hon30critter]

gmpullman

A brewery would certainly get my attention!

Hi Ed:

That is another great idea that I hadn't considered. We certainly have no shortage of breweries in Ontario. Molson used to have a huge operation in Barrie, Ontario. I don't know why they shut it down but after they closed it somebody snuck in and turned several of the huge holding tanks into grow ops! Apparently they operated for several months before the cops caught on. Maybe we could model that too!

Thanks Ed,

Dave

[gmpullman]

 

A brewery would certainly get my attention!

They can be such large complexes that an entire switching and terminal railroad could be devoted to the operation.

http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?railroad=Manufacturers%20Railway%20Company

You folks up there seem to know a thing or two about brewing 

As an added bonus, you could have one of these parked out front.

1948 White Streamliner by MOSpeed Images, on Flickr

Cheers! Ed

[hon30critter]

Eastrail11

Maybe a scrap yard of sorts?

Hi Eastrail:

Thanks for your interest in the thread.

We haven't actually chosen a specific era. In fact we want our club members to be able to run whatever they want.

The issue with a scrap yard again relates to available space. We are trying to avoid industries which would only be served by one or two cars at a time. Unfortunately that is kind of like having your cake and eating it too. Most of our industrial areas won't be large enough to spot more than four or five cars at a time. None the less, scrap yards do look cool IMHO so it is definitely worth considering tucking one in somewhere.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Dave

[hon30critter]

dragonriversteel

Steel mill . You can spin many other industries off that one. 

Hi Patrick:

I hadn't thought about a steel mill. Duh! It would certainly generate a lot of other industries as you say, and it would fit very nicely into the Ontario landscape since Hamilton was a true 'steel town'. The challenge will be fitting it into the relatively small industrial spaces that we have. Maybe we could model it 'off site' and just recreate the feeder tracks.

Great idea! Thanks.

Dave

[Eastrail11]

Hey, 

I have been following your Club layout thread for a while now, I just haven't had anything to add to it 

If I remember correctly your layout was gonna be based in the 1930's, but which interchangeable stuff to run more modern trains, but I'm not here to talk about time, more about rollingstock. What type of rollingstock do club members predomiantly have. I'm gonna guess a king of Box Car. In that case, you will maybe want more industries to suit boxcars instead of lets say lumber cars. Basing your industry desisions off of this might make opperating easier for people who have a smaller train colection. Just a thought though. 

Maybe a scrap yard of sorts? 

-Eastrail

[dragonriversteel]

Steel mill . You can spin many other industries off that one. 

Patrick

 

 

 

 

[hon30critter]

snjroy

How about reproducing the local prototype?

Hi Simon:

Thank you for your suggestion. We have agonized over this very issue. Initially we wanted to model the industries that were on the waterfront in Barrie, Ontario, as well as the incredibly beautiful Allandale passenger station. Alas, after playing with the track plan for several months, the layout room just doesn't have the space necessary to model the tanneries and freight houses that would represent the Barrie waterfront. We will do the Allandale Station, but otherwise we have chosen to model a more generic layout that will allow us to have more operating options including a large yard, a large service area with all the essential elements, and several 'industrial' areas which may become industries and/or towns with passenger stations etc. What I am looking for is suggestions for what industries we might use to populate the industrial areas.

Thanks for your input.

Dave 

[snjroy]

How about reproducing the local prototype? It certainly impresses visitors when they can recognize buildings and industries.

Simon

[hon30critter]

Hi everybody!

Most of you are aware that I am involved in designing and building our club's new layout. Currently I am searching for suitable industrial structures that we can use to populate our 'industrial' areas. I want to have industries that will accommodate several cars, not just one or two. Ideally the industries will allow for cars to pass through as opposed to there being stub ended tracks, but having stub ended tracks is not a killer. We also want to have the industries related to each other. For example, we are considering having a sawmill which will feed a lumber company and possibly a pulp mill. Another example would be a coal mine that feeds a power station.

We can't afford to spend a fortune on high priced craftsman kits, and in fact I haven't found a lot of craftsman kits that will accommodate more than a couple of freight cars anyhow.

Scratch building and kit bashing are definitely options.

Please share both your suggestions and examples of what you have done (doctorwayne, I eagerly await your input!).

Thanks guys,

Dave