Not far from where I work, there are two industrial parks which are served by rail. The area which I call "Mykawa West" has around 20 large insustries ranging from chemical distributors to plastics to textiles to scrap metal. The second industrial park, which I call "Hobby Industrial Park" because it is right across from Hobby Airport, has a dozen or so industries which range from plastics to warehouses to chemicals to potato processing.

I occasionally drive the roads through the areas and take photos for my later use on my layout. Here are some pics of Consolidated Containers which makes all manner of plastic bottles and containers. They receive plastic pellets by rail and ship products out by truck.

If anyone wants pics of the other structures and spurs, I'll be happy to oblige.

Nice pictures

Great photos Gary!! This looks like a nice modeling project

Gary, when I saw the first photo, I thought "What the heck is he driving?"

I like that track bumper.

Wayne

Good one, Wayne. I was driving the google satelite for that one.

doctorwayne Wrote:I like that track bumper.

I hadnt noticed that the first time, Now thats the lazy way to make one, just back a dump truck up to the end of the track and bam! lol. Ill have to do one of those, adds some detail

There is another one like that over at the Mountain King potato processing plant.

A fine example of "dirt" track in that one photo, crooked, no ties and no ballast either, and I REALLY like the "bumper" on the end of the line - complete with naturally grown grass landscaping!

Yes, love the dirt track. Also the straight-railed turnout in pic 5.

Nice industry! Do they make all sorts of containers or just plastic bottles? I'm presuming they make plastic because those look like the sort of covered hoppers that plastic pellets are hauled in. Do they make any cardboard containers?

Russ, they basically make plastic bottles. Here is a link to their website: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.cccllc.com/pages/02_01_prods_stock.html">http://www.cccllc.com/pages/02_01_prods_stock.html</a><!-- m -->

Plastic pellets arrive by rail, then they "blowmold" whatever containers their customers need.

There is some really "nice" industrial trackage in the industrial park. I'll post more photos.

good stuff.

Well, sad to report, but another rail-served industry is kaput. Photos from 9-30-10 show that Consolidated Containers is moving out. One more company laying off workers. Now, Consolidated Containers is actually a huge nationwide company with factories all over the United States, so maybe they are just moving the Houston plant into a better facility somewhere in Houston. I hope a new company moves into this location and continues using rail.

Compare photos to above. All the silos and tanks and exchangers gone, and dumpsters full of mechanical equipment and piping and such - building gutted.

[attachment=22074]

[attachment=22073]

[attachment=22072]

[attachment=22071]

[attachment=22070]

Interesting that it looks like they're taking everything. Taking down the lightpoles a new one to me!

Just for fun ...

When I first started hand laying track for the "fill-the-basement-walk-around-following-your-train" LS&W that I intended to fill my basement with back in the late '80's, I had seen in one of my reference books a low-tech "Bump stop" and decided to include at least one on the railroad. Here is the first one, recently "un-bubble-wrapped" after twenty years.



As I recall, that Scultamold took a couple of weeks to dry totally through!

Edit: It's not as easy to draw an arrow with a mouse as might be expected! :oops: