03-13-2009, 10:18 AM
Loren, I like the new plan. You don't really need to increase the size of your yard, if you are still making a branch line or short line with short trains and small steam power. What you might consider is to remove some of the tracks in the yard and add another industry in that area.
Before I retired 3 years ago, I use to maintain truck refrigeration equipment for a small meat packing house in the town of Pico Rivera near Whittier in So Cal. The entire facility was on probably no more than 3 acres or so of land. A couple of Model Power freight buildings would be easily kitbashed into the combination slaughter house/cold storage facility. The cattle pens were in the back of the building. The cattle were unloaded from trucks into the pens. They had capacity to hold two or three truck loads of cattle. The entire building was built on top of a foundation that was about loading dock height. There was a ramp from the pens up to a roll up door in the side where the cattle would be driven up one at a time to be killed just inside the door. The overhead crane would then pick up the carcass and drain the blood. There was a pipe running out the back of the building draining into a tank trailer that appeared to be about 500 to 1000 gallons capacity where the blood was drained off and when full it was hauled off to a rendering plant. In the front of the building was a loading dock for about 5 or 6 trucks to load out boxed and swinging beef. In between the slaughter house and the loading dock inside the building were walk in refrigerated boxes. I think the beef went from the slaughter house to the walk in boxes from the back and then would be loaded out to the trucks from the opposite side. There was a small office section off to one side of the main plant. I will be going past there on April 4, I'll leave a little early and stop by and shoot a few pics of the place to send to you. I will try to post them here, but I have never posted pictures to a web site before.
Before I retired 3 years ago, I use to maintain truck refrigeration equipment for a small meat packing house in the town of Pico Rivera near Whittier in So Cal. The entire facility was on probably no more than 3 acres or so of land. A couple of Model Power freight buildings would be easily kitbashed into the combination slaughter house/cold storage facility. The cattle pens were in the back of the building. The cattle were unloaded from trucks into the pens. They had capacity to hold two or three truck loads of cattle. The entire building was built on top of a foundation that was about loading dock height. There was a ramp from the pens up to a roll up door in the side where the cattle would be driven up one at a time to be killed just inside the door. The overhead crane would then pick up the carcass and drain the blood. There was a pipe running out the back of the building draining into a tank trailer that appeared to be about 500 to 1000 gallons capacity where the blood was drained off and when full it was hauled off to a rendering plant. In the front of the building was a loading dock for about 5 or 6 trucks to load out boxed and swinging beef. In between the slaughter house and the loading dock inside the building were walk in refrigerated boxes. I think the beef went from the slaughter house to the walk in boxes from the back and then would be loaded out to the trucks from the opposite side. There was a small office section off to one side of the main plant. I will be going past there on April 4, I'll leave a little early and stop by and shoot a few pics of the place to send to you. I will try to post them here, but I have never posted pictures to a web site before.