Just wondering if I'm the only one.
I am working on a small layout. it has undertaken careful planning and consideration from the start. There's only room to model so much.
I would imagine even on a larger layout than mine, you can only fit so many businesses and industries that your railroad services. Realistically spacing things out and not overcrowding is kind of a no-brainer.
On my 4x8 layout I concentrate on my two favorite things. Iron ore and lumber. These are the industries that surrounded me nearby where I grew up.
The thing is, I love the center flow grain hopper cars. Especially the two bay ones. I probably have a fetish for these because I like the 40 ton ore cars as well. I just like the way they look.
I have already bought a bunch of these grain cars. I'm going to try to fit in a small Co-op Grain Mill if I can. I am not going to overcrowd my layout unrealistically though.
I figured out a way to put in staging that goes under a portion of my layout. Maybe these grain cars will be just passing through. They may have no purpose on my layout.
Track Fiddler
I don't run any cars that don't have a purpose, but my shortline has a lot of purposes - several diverse industries and interchanges on both ends so I also have run-throughs. So I have a fair variety of car types in use.
But in response to your question, maybe you could add a customer that handles many kinds of cars, such as a transload terminal or a rail car repair service. Or your road could use unused trackage to store cars for other railroads. You could also add a customer that uses multiple car types, such as a manufacturer who takes in materials in, say, a hopper car, and ships goods in box cars. I also have a rail museum (on a separate table) that displays many different car types.
Genesee Terminal, freelanced HO in Upstate NY ...hosting Loon Bay Transit Authority, run through Amtrak and CSX Intermodal
CP/D&H, N scale, somewhere on the Canadian Shield
Track fiddlerMaybe these grain cars will be just passing through. They may have no purpose on my layout.
With few and rare exceptions (an industrial railroad, non-common carriers such as logging or mining railroads, or certain very isolated NY harbor lines) a layout of normal size cannot represent an entire contained system of shippers and receivers. As a practical matter it is difficult to model in a realistic way a situation where it is practical and economical to ship and receive the same carload on the same layout.
Even if there is no room for staging yards or interchanges the fact remains that the usual common carrier sort of railroad serves its customers to be sure but the shipments come from elsewhere, go to elsewhere, and the railroad serves as the means for similar shipments that are coming to or coming from places that may or may not be on that same railroad, but are not modeled on the layout per se.
On my layout for example I have a pretty clear notion of what industries were to the north and the south of the precise area I model. So cars related to those industries have a place on my through freights, and even the local switcher, without having to devote space to modeling those industries.
So imagine there is a grain elevator or ethanol plant or food industry just over the hill and beyond where your layout's real estate ends. There is no need to find room to model each and every industry that is related to the cars on your trains.
Dave Nelson
I run a lot of trains that have cars that will not be stopping at any industry on my layout.
They are run-throughs, going from one fictiticious city to another, passing trains. It would get boring just running trains that only contained cars that would be switched at the industries on the layout, and they never left, never went to the off-layout industries that would use the products produced on your layout.
The loads, and empties from your industries need to go to other places, and then come back as a load, or empty, whatever the case may be.
Thats what your staging yard would be. That distination, far away.
Mike.
My You Tube
dknelson Track fiddler Maybe these grain cars will be just passing through. They may have no purpose on my layout. With few and rare exceptions (an industrial railroad, non-common carriers such as logging or mining railroads, or certain very isolated NY harbor lines) a layout of normal size cannot represent an entire contained system of shippers and receivers. As a practical matter it is difficult to model in a realistic way a situation where it is practical and economical to ship and receive the same carload on the same layout. Even if there is no room for staging yards or interchanges the fact remains that the usual common carrier sort of railroad serves its customers to be sure but the shipments come from elsewhere, go to elsewhere, and the railroad serves as the means for similar shipments that are coming to or coming from places that may or may not be on that same railroad, but are not modeled on the layout per se. On my layout for example I have a pretty clear notion of what industries were to the north and the south of the precise area I model. So cars related to those industries have a place on my through freights, and even the local switcher, without having to devote space to modeling those industries. So imagine there is a grain elevator or ethanol plant or food industry just over the hill and beyond where your layout's real estate ends. There is no need to find room to model each and every industry that is related to the cars on your trains. Dave Nelson
Track fiddler Maybe these grain cars will be just passing through. They may have no purpose on my layout.
Dave covered this very nicely, I just want to add the concept of bridge traffic.
If your layout depicts mainline operations of ANY sort, there may well be traffic that does not originate or terminate on your layout, but simply passes thru from one end to the other.
Even those of us with large layouts, or maybe especially those of us with large layouts, often model a significant portion of our traffic as bridge traffic.
On my new layout, many trains will appear on "stage" from the staging yards, stop at the yard, be broken down, and individual cars delivered to industries. Other trains will be made up in that yard from cars gathered from the industries. Those trains will then travel the layout and return to staging yards.
BUT, some trains will just run the lenght of the mainline without stopping at the yard, or only stopping for a power change, and will return to staging at the other end of the mainline.
They came from somewhere else, and are going somewhere else, they just needed our tracks to get there.
Sheldon
Track fiddlerI have already bought a bunch of these grain cars. I'm going to try to fit in a small Co-op Grain Mill if I can. I am not going to overcrowd my layout unrealistically though.
You don't have to actually model the mill, just a spur track into the woods (or to the edge of the layout) with the mill "out of sight" of the mainline.
Paul
yes ..
i run boxcars, that have absolutely no purpose on my small layout ..
they do however, have a purpose 'further out' on the interchange
My layout is a point-to-multiple-points type, and while there is some shipping between modelled industries, much traffic either originates "elsewhere" or is going "elsewhere", or both - simply passing through. I have five staging areas representing those "elsewheres". Three of them are only a couple of tracks: one set represents unmodelled industries on my layout, while the other two represent direct interchanges with two real railroads.The two staging yards (only five tracks each) represent both the continuation of my main line, and interchanges with unspecified other roads. My railroad is part of the North American system of railroads, where any common carrier road can interchange with any other.
If you have room to add a turnout and a section of dead-end track, preferably on the outside edge of your 4'x8', it can represent your connection to the rest of the rail system. You may have to physically remove or add cars to that track in order to keep it useful, but as a connection to "elsewhere", it will allow you to run whatever car types or roadnames you wish. Most of my rolling stock cycles on and off the layout, and that's why four of the five staging areas are right about the shelves where the rolling stock is stored...
Wayne
No.. A Industrial Switching Layout (ISL) requires cars that fills the needs of the modeled industries and this will include the transload track.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Right Larry, your ISL is one the end points, or very beginning points for the run through and bridge taffic that the rest us model. Your that far away destination, that's off my layout.
No wonder your so busy!
Non of my freight cars have any purpose, other than to amuse me as I watch them go by.
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
JumijoNone of my freight cars have any purpose, other than to amuse me as I watch them go by.
.
I run all kinds of cars that have no purpose. They are my toys and I enjoy them.
I have covered hoppers and TOFC cars, and no where to put them. Sometimes I will take them out of one train, then put them into another train just so they can sit in the yard.
If all this really bothers you... I have a nice work-around... the car float!
Anything can go onto the car float, so it can be a destination for all of your amusing and enjoyable freight cars.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
SeeYou190I run all kinds of cars that have no purpose. They are my toys and I enjoy them.
Sir, you contradict yourself. Isn't enjoyment a purpose?
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
mbinsewi Right Larry, your ISL is one the end points, or very beginning points for the run through and bridge taffic that the rest us model. Your that far away destination, that's off my layout. No wonder your so busy! Mike.
And my new layout will have three, ISL's "within" the bigger layout.
Nearly all of my industries are served by two belt lines, which can be worked without that crew ever taking their train out on the mainline and which connect directly to the main yard.
The third belt line will be a seperate waterfront layout that may be connected to the staging of the main layout for interchange.
I expect to only have one or two industries served along the mainline, and they will be served at places where a siding is available, so the local can get off the main to do most of its work.
It's a busy mainline, like the Northeast corridor once was. Here were I live, back in 1947, there was a regularly scheduled train on the PRR every 8 minutes.....
Jumijo Non of my freight cars have any purpose, other than to amuse me as I watch them go by.
Visit the Chicago Valley Railroad for Chicago Trainspotting and Budget Model Railroading.
Sheldon, I can't for you to get started on your layout, as I'm going to be paying close attention, well at least as close as your progress reports permit. Sounds like it's going to be quite a project.
For control, you have your own home spun DC, cab control like set up, right?
Whale look. LION builds SUBWAY LAYOUT. There are hopper cars, flat cars, tank cars, both diesel and elsectic locomotives. There is no 'big hook' but we also have revenue cars (for money collection), trash trains, signal repair trains (called the signal dolly) there are all sorts of inspection machines, a pump train to evacuate water from tunnels, and finally THE SUPER SUCKER or vacuum train. We have snow removal equipment that consists of a real jet engine monted on a fuel tank!
talk about ROARING
EWE on da otter hand can move your grain cars across the railroad from an elevator that is off layout.
Here in Richardton ND, we sea coal trains going east and unit hoppers going west, we have grain trains going in both directions, some east to Minniapolis for domestic use and some west to Seattle for shipment to China. We have sand trains for the Frack-Sand transfer plant here in town, and our ethanol plant has empty tanks in and ethanol tanks out, they have corn hoppers in and Yeast hoppers out (not the same cars of course, unless they have been cleaned in between. The Ethanol plant used to be fired by coal, but they switched to gas which is far cheaper at the moment. They also have a long set of sidings, they switch back on themselves in a wide loop, because they could not buy the land further east, Here the store mostly empty ethanol tanks, but also some grain cars.
Yesterday I saw one of their locomotives out at the end of the loop. Looks like it is going bye bye. The DMVR railroad does locomotive inspections for many private owners up and down the BNSF line. Maybe this locomotive will go to their shops for a major repair.
Speaking of the DMVR, the have the only trains of COVERED COAL hoppers. They carry lignite from North Dakota to elsewhere, and that stuff is so dusty that wayside people complain. The tops of the cars lift on and off, and the cars can be dumpped in a rotary dumper or from the bottom.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Thanks for your comments on freight cars with no purpose. It appears I'm not alone. There are many indirect purposes I hadn't thought of. For amusement only, I like that one. Some very good points in the replies here.
This is my favorite two bay center flow hopper. I only have one, I'd like about six. They're very hard to find. I lost one to another bidder in an eBay auction last month.
Maybe the next train show if I'm lucky.
Thanks TF
Hey that's what manifest frieghts are for.
Just an N scale guy in an HO scale world.
Reading Railroad in a small space.
Your hopper car could be carrying plastic pellets to a plastics factory, or they could be carrying flour or sugar to a local bakery. Barley might be going to a local brewer.
Of course an interchange track could have ANYTHING on it.
Track fiddlerThis is my favorite two bay center flow hopper.
I'm building a fleet of those too, HO scale, only I want plain, generic cars, in white or light tan. I'll strip, paint and decal if nesseccary.
I want to use them for a unit train of refined frac sand, just to run through the layout.
Good luck with your fleet.
riogrande5761Sir, you contradict yourself. Isn't enjoyment a purpose?
Yes, the very-most-important puirpose of them all!
mbinsewi Sheldon, I can't for you to get started on your layout, as I'm going to be paying close attention, well at least as close as your progress reports permit. Sounds like it's going to be quite a project. For control, you have your own home spun DC, cab control like set up, right? Mike.
Thanks for the interest. The track plan is coming along nicely and will be published in my thread on the subject as soon as it is ready. Work and family do keep me busy at times, but it should not be too much longer.
Yes, I run DC, with my own version of what is known as Advanced Cab Control.
It provides very versatile operation that is actually very much like DCC to the average operator running a train.
I use wireless radio throttles previously made by Aristo Craft.
Just to give you a little taste of what it is like, imagine someone hands you a throttle with only 5 buttons, they are FAST, SLOW, EAST, WEST, EMERGENCY STOP. Then they say "this is your train - just obey the yardmasters orders leaving the yard, and then obey the signals and the dispatcher on the mainline".
The yard master tells you that you are clear to leave the yard and enter the main.
Once on the mainline, you will see signals along the track, you will have to learn what they mean, but we don't use as many different aspects as the prototype, so it's not that hard.
You just control the speed and direction of your train, the dispatcher sets all the turnouts, you don't have to worry about track power, or "block" toggles, you just operate the loco.
The dispatcher and a bunch of relays do the rest, most of it in a truely "semi automatic" way.
If you run a red signal, no worries, we have Automatic Train Control, your train will go into emergency stop, and you will just be a little embarrassed. It will not move until the dispatcher clears the route......
mbinsewi I'm building a fleet of those too, HO scale Good luck with your fleet. Mike.
I'm building a fleet of those too, HO scale
I'm glad you're doing HO scale and not N Mike. It would be a conflict of interest, you buying them out from under me on eBay
TF
Having freight cars passing through provides opportunities for interchanges and making the layout part of something larger. I like the rationale of having "bridge traffic." Those with yards can create various consists of such cars. All of my cars have a purpose on the layout.
I have lots of cars that are just passing through. Bulkhead flats and log cars come to mind immediately.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Track fiddler grain hopper cars. Especially the two bay ones.
Russell
Is the concept of "bridge traffic" really that esoteric? Most layouts I've operated on have a big chunk of it.
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
Bayfield Transfer RailwayIs the concept of "bridge traffic" really that esoteric? Most layouts I've operated on have a big chunk of it.
Unless you model a whole division, isn't everything "bridge traffic"?
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog