Industries -A Open Discussion.
#46
Although it is specific to the Reaing Railroad this freight shippers guide gives a good idea of different facilities and may be useful when thinking about what to include

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It also confirms Ed's point about team tracks

Ken
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#47
Londoner Wrote:Although it is specific to the Reading Railroad this freight shippers guide gives a good idea of different facilities and may be useful when thinking about what to include ...
That's a good find Ken! Have seen a few other sites with similar information, but not nearly as detailed as this. Just picking a few locations and viewing the customers and the tracks that served them is really eye-opening. Although the time period is 1954 it really gives you a good idea of how things were and in some cases still is, especially at small towns.

I know that after 30 years, I often have trouble remembering the specific name of a customer at a specific location on the L&N, even though I can clearly see the structure and track arrangement in my mind and recall what they shipped/received. Guess my age is showing...
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
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#48
Sites like that one is priceless as for as gathering modeling information to include shipping/receiving items to or from those manufacturers from or to our modeled industries.

Thanks for sharing that link.
Larry
Engineman

Summerset Ry

Make Safety your first thought, Not your last!  Safety First!
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#49
FCIN Wrote:A team or trans-load track is always a great industry to include on a layout of any size. Just about anything might show up to be loaded or unloaded there. As you can no doubt tell, I consider it an essential industry. You can justify just about anything being received at a team or trans-load track. Seems like that hasn't changed much at all over the years. Many modern day short lines depend heavily on getting offline customers to ship/receive cars on a convenient, nearby track.

...and it doesn't even have to be an actual "trans-load" facility or team track. I like Lance Mindheim's idea of just spotting a car on the line to feed an off-line customer. He talks about it in one of the current "special" issues put out by MR. Apparently, there are actual customers in Miami that do this sort of thing and these are companies that are nowhere near the tracks.
Mike
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#50
conrailmike Wrote:...and it doesn't even have to be an actual "trans-load" facility or team track. I like Lance Mindheim's idea of just spotting a car on the line to feed an off-line customer
Mike;
That sort of thing that Lance talks about in his article may be more common then folks realize. About a year ago, a local lumber company received a centerbeam load of lumber. A very rare event around here these days. This company used to have its own rail spur, but it was removed when all the downtown yard tracks were removed some years ago.

Since you must have clear access to both sides of a centerbeam, R J Corman had their crew actually spot this car in the middle of a very busy street downtown on a Saturday morning and the lumber company unloaded it right there. Friend and I watched this little event and they would take a row of lumber off each side of the car, then the crew would move the car a few feet to allow traffic to get by, then repeat the procedure. All told, it took them about an hour and a half to unload the car.

Haven't seen or heard of this being repeated, but would sure make for an interesting, now and then, operation on a model railroad.
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
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#51
Come to think of it I recall seeing a boxcar being unloaded in the Benson yard here in Bucyrus.

A 4 man crew unloaded this car by hand directly onto a GM flatbed truck.It look like bag fertilizer..The NS crew spotted the car on the West end yard lead.

Benson yard is used for storing cars heading for Transco for repairs.
Larry
Engineman

Summerset Ry

Make Safety your first thought, Not your last!  Safety First!
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#52
I bought October's Model Railroad Craftsman today. It contains a detailed article by Richard Wehr on modeling the sugar beet industry, focussing on operations around Mason City Iowa.

It underlines some of the themes on this thread; by modeling one industry you can use many different tpes of cars yet the whole remains plausible. Excellent pictures and details of the process. You can see how secions of the plant could be incorporated depending on what space you have.

Ken
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#53
Londoner Wrote:.... You can see how sections of the plant could be incorporated depending on what space you have.

Ken

You're right, Ken. I'm planning on modelling a beet loader (it was once an important crop in southwestern Ontario), but not the fields or the processing plant. It should provide an interesting scene in a small space, and generate a little extra traffic whenever I decide that it's "harvest time". Wink Goldth

Wayne
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#54
MRC just ran an article on sugar beats. It might be of some use to you Wayne
 My other car is a locomotive, ARHS restoration crew  
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#55
Yeah, my issue arrived a couple of weeks ago, but I've had time to only just glance at it. It looks to be complementary to an earlier article which dealt with the beet loading facilities.
RMC has been running a good series on industries, both prototypes and their modelled versions.

Wayne
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