Combining industries question?

[Mike Kieran]

I've posted these answers on other threads, so please be patient:

I love the Kendallville Terminal Railroad because it is a one industry railroad operation. It serves a marshmallow factory for Kraft Foods on 1.1 miles of track and takes no more than a dozen cars per day. What would be your ideas for a one industry layout that takes less than a dozen cars per day.

I figured that for a marshmallow plant, the following traffic pattern would occur every day:

Inbound 3-4 corn syrup tank cars, 1-2 covered hoppers of granulated sugar, 1-2 boxcars of packaging, and even hoppers to bring in coal to supply heat for the marshmallow manufacturing (and maybe to toast them later).

Outbound - 1-2 boxcars of marshmallows

-OR-

I have 4 industries that come to mind if I were to build a bigger layout. I would have a food processing plant, a manufacturing company, a building supply, and an LPG distributor. This would handle traffic of 3-6 cars a day. A team track could also be used as an everything goes there industry.

The food processor would have the following traffic:
Inbound:
tank cars (vegetable oil, corn syrup, preservatives)
refrigerated cars (produce, meat)
covered hoppers (sugar, salt, preservatives)
box cars (packaging)
Outbound:
RBL box cars (food)

The manufacturing company would have the following traffic:
Inbound:
coil cars (sheet metal)
box cars (hardware, tools, parts)
flat cars (machinery, wire spools, piping)
gondolas (wire spools, piping)
tank cars (lubricant, glue, sealant, paint)
plastic pellet covered hoppers (plastic pellets)
Outbound:
box cars (manufactured products)
gondolas (scrap)

The building supply would have the following traffic:
Inbound:
covered hoppers (sand, cement)
hoppers (gravel, wood chips, oyster & clam shells)
flat cars & box cars (various building products)

The LPG distributor would have the following traffic:
Inbound:
LPG tank cars