Non-Agricultural Rural Industry Suggestions?

[steinjr]

Uranium processing - Bruce River on the north shore of Lake Huron seemingly has a population of about 3000, and a Uranium processing plant. I saw somewhere that the processed Uranium trioxide gel is shipped to Port Hope (to the East of Toronto, about 400 miles away), for processing into uranium dioxide or uranium hexaflouride, so it does not seem totally outlandish to postulate shipment by rail.

Ship in yellowcake, ship out uranium trioxide. Since most of us never have seen uranium being shipped, you can go the way of Doc Wayne's GERN plants - use quite a few types of of cars - the most obvious ones being covered hoppers, boxcars loaded with drums on pallets, tanks or caskets on flatcars, and even tank cars with chemicals.

Smile,
Stein

[Mr Fixit]

In the Uranium theme, how about modelling the interchange for a spent nuclear fuel and other associated nuclear materials as detailed in a TRAINS article, [last year I think] whereby the US Government was going to build a rail line to a as yet to be built underground storage facility.

Specialised flat cars carrying the spent material in impact proof containers, hoppers of aggregate and sand and covered hoppers of cement for making concrete on site, with bulkhead flat cars or gondolas loaded with reinforcing bar and mesh to reinforce the concrete, vehicles and equipment for use at the facility both on the surface and underground.

All the action would occur at the towns interchange track, with the Class 1 or Regional line delivering cuts of cars and picking up cuts of empty cars or cars carrying equipment being sent out for overhaul. The specialised shortline loco [govt. or contract] arrives to swap its cars.

Mark

[MountainMan]

The Cotter Uranium processing plant is located right outside of Canon City, Colorado.

[Russ Bellinis]

Alaska is kind of a special case. The Alaska Railroad has virtually no truck competition because it is so remote. Most freight shipped into Anchorage comes in on rail cars on a ship to a small harbor 100 miles from Anchorage if I remember correctly. The rail cars are then assembled into a train the delivered to Anchorage where trucks are used for local delivery.

For your area, you mentioned no large agricultural facilities other than livestock which are shipped almost entirely by truck now days. Is there either heavy logging or large mining operations in the area? If you have heavy logging or mining operations requiring heavy equipment, you might have a Caterpillar Tractor Dealer along the railroad. Most of Cat's heavy equipment is too large to ship by truck except with special "oversize load" permits that entail a lot of extra cost including the need for a pilot car in front and behind the rig hauling the tractor. They have to deal with special routes to avoid low overhead or narrow passages, and may also have to deal with restricted hours when the load can be moved. The result is the Cat dealers receive their new tractors from the factory via rail. Typically the tractors have components such as blades removed and lashed to the flat car between two tractors, large earth moving dump trucks will have their beds removed from the chassis and lashed to the flat car to reduce the height of the load. In other words the Cat dealer will receive new machines broken down into component parts with a large crate of hardware, and as many machines as will fit to fill a flat car. The dealer mechanics do the final assembly of the machine before either putting it on display for sale in the yard or delivery to the local customer. The Cat dealer will also have a 2 or 3 large "low boy" tractor trailer rigs to use to pick up for service or deliver heavy equipment to customers.

[Canadian Shortliner]

Thanks for more good suggestions!

@steinjr- I think you're mixing up Blind River and Bruce Mines . I never knew that there was still a uranium refinery there. I thought most uranium mining had stopped in the area after the 60s, but there must still be a few mines left. I've heard that mining could restart sometime in the future too, so that could be an idea.

@Mr Fixit- I remember reading something on that, but my plan was to have the industries located near the town, so I don't think the residents would be too happy .

@Russ Bellinis- That would make a good load to ship to my team track.

[steinjr]

@steinjr- I think you're mixing up Blind River and Bruce Mines . I never knew that there was still a uranium refinery there. I thought most uranium mining had stopped in the area after the 60s, but there must still be a few mines left. I've heard that mining could restart sometime in the future too, so that could be an idea.

Sorry - I meant to write Blind River. The uranium is not mined on site - Concentrated Uranium ore is received in drums from a lot of places, and processed before being shipped out to further processing at Port Hope in SE Ontario (and some onwards to the UK for further processing)

http://www.cameco.com/fuel_and_power/ref...ind_river/

Smile,
Stein

[MountainMan]

Thanks for more good suggestions!

@steinjr- I think you're mixing up Blind River and Bruce Mines . I never knew that there was still a uranium refinery there. I thought most uranium mining had stopped in the area after the 60s, but there must still be a few mines left. I've heard that mining could restart sometime in the future too, so that could be an idea.

@Mr Fixit- I remember reading something on that, but my plan was to have the industries located near the town, so I don't think the residents would be too happy .

@Russ Bellinis- That would make a good load to ship to my team track.

There are two refineries and one mine starting up in Colorado.