jwb Wrote:Reinhard, I'd be very interested if you could take us through an opeating cycle with photos.

I am thinking about a useful answer since two days... but I find no way how an incoming, outgoing CSX/UP train will look different than a Corman/LAJ switch cut. They all have only four cars. It is all in my imagination what an engine with four cars is.

May be a summary with photos is helpful



There is a four track staging yard hidden behind my desks and the computer screen. I have no physical access and no switching (coupling/uncoupling) takes place.
(Please ignore the old ground cover. It is the residual of the former harbor and contains lots of plaster. The remove it will be a mess, damage all tracks but has no operational benefit. May be that is a topic of freelance 2013)

A. In todays scenario it is filled with four Corman trains. I assume one couple in on Corman line A, exchanges somewhere with CSX and runs a daily local in both direction. The other couple is Corman line B and has somewhere exchange with NS. It runs a daily local in each direction too.

B. It might also be filled with two CSX/UP and two Corman/LAJ trains. The operation would not really change but I have more different "colors" in the yard (see next photo).


This is the is "the yard". Left to right: two stub tracks 1 and 2, siding and runaround track 3 and main track 4. All four locals of Corman line A and B run daily through this yard. They arrive at track 4, uncouple cars that should either go to the other Corman line or go to the local industry. the pick the cars from track 3 and depart. It is the job of the local switcher to temporary store cars on track 1 and 2 that should go from line A to B and B to A. The local switcher also collects cars from the local industry and drops cars delivered by the locals at the local industry.


This is the west local industry. It is served with lumber cars (center beam, all door box car), grain (covered hopper) and boxcars.


And finally the east industry. Served with tank cars (left) and box cars (right). The center track is spare and local staging.

Reinhard,I like the way you designed the east industry tracks.

Reinhard, thanks, that's exactly what I'd wanted to know! Very complete explanation.

Not much done. The weather is phantasmic and my wife and I did a lot of outdoor activities during the week.
Added some details, painted the rain water down pipes and sprayed a layer of dull coat.

I wonder if I could utilize my reefers if the H shape footprint of the former grain service is kept but the wings are replaced. I might be an orange packing plant that has been extended multiple times. That would bring the industry closer to the Gensets of SoCal



ps. Don't worry. I did only replace buildings. Can be reversed within a minute (until I do adjust the ground cover)

Here is a cheese factory in Lemoore, CA on the San Joaquin Valley Railway:[attachment=11386]There's very little citrus left in Southern California, and in fact there's inbound reefer traffic for orange juice from Florida.

jwb Wrote:There's very little citrus left in Southern California

That is a surprise. I did google and Florida, Arizona and California are listed as the main source of orange. However, they call Mentone as a very prominent orange town (even not incorporated). I did look at that little spot but the orange trees around could not supply breakfast orange juice for one single day consumed in LA.

jwb Wrote:Here is a cheese factory in Lemoore, CA

How do they do cheese???? Do they raise milk cows underground??? It looks very brown and dry (except watered fields) around that city. Seriously, did i miss green meadows with cows like in Germany or at the great lakes?

Thank you very much for the valuable information! I appreciate you take the time so often to teach me essentials.

There's citrus in Central California, but very little now in Southern. The real estate is too expensive now for orange groves. There's a lot of cattle raised in Central and Northern California, but it's in covered sheds in the San Joaquin Valley, not much in the open there, but at higher altitudes and farther north, it's done. Cattle feed is major rail traffic in California.

faraway Wrote:



ps. Don't worry. I did only replace buildings. Can be reversed within a minute (until I do adjust the ground cover)

Holy cow, Reinhard - every time I blink, something changes - and the new building looks just as great as the old one. Bravo!

Smile,
Stein

jwb Wrote:There's citrus in Central California, but very little now in Southern. The real estate is too expensive now for orange groves. There's a lot of cattle raised in Central and Northern California, but it's in covered sheds in the San Joaquin Valley, not much in the open there, but at higher altitudes and farther north, it's done. Cattle feed is major rail traffic in California.

JWB, I slept a night over the new learned lesson. I will continue with a citrus facility well knowing that I may cross the border from freelance to fiction this time. Technically speaking only the two wing buildings will be replaced this time.
This is a great link http://coastdaylight.com/ljames1/scph.html for historic packing houses. As you explained 2012 is a bad timeframe to look for still operating facilities but the more modern buildings can be used very well after 1980. This one in Edison, CA (about 150 miles north of LA) http://coastdaylight.com/cnc/edison_shed_9-08_01_jl.jpg was demolished in 2008. Proportions and roof look similar to mine.
However, I did also have a closer look at the cheese plant in Lemoore, CA. It is a great facility with thousands of details and very well accessible with street view. Two sets of the pan bakery kit (lots of $$$.....) might be a good starting point (need for lots of slim, tall tanks). I will keep the cheese plant in my mind for a possible future main revision.

steinjr Wrote:... every time I blink, something changes...

There is a German word: Nothing is as constant as the change

Edison is central California, and 1980 is the very bitter end for citrus in Southern California.

Some more progress.



ps. Paramount Citrus is north of Bakersfield in central California

Citrus is still a big agricultural product in So Cal. The groves that used to be in areas convenient to Los Angeles have been replaced by housing tracts. The new groves have been moved up into the foothills. There are large citrus and avocado groves in the hills on either side of I-15 in Southern Riverside County and Northern San Diego County. Farther north around Oxnard, Ventura, and in the valley west of Santa Clarita, they grow almost every type of produce known to man including citrus, lettuce, cabbage, as well as various types of "rock fruit". People don't realize that even with manufacturing that has been started in California, the state is still largely an agricultural state. Riverside still has a few packing houses in use, but most packing houses in So Cal are no longer rail served. 90% of the refrigerated containers going to the far east from Los Angeles/Long Beach harbors is citrus. The citrus going to the East Coast by train is usually loaded into trailers or containers and carried on tofc or cofc. What citrus is loaded into refrigerated rail cars is trans loaded from trucks near the rail yard, but I don't think there is much being loaded into refrigerated rail cars South of Bakersfield unless they are loaded in Ventura County. I don't think they can grow citrus trees much farther north than the area East of Bakersfield because of the cold and frost. Florida primarily produces juice oranges while California produces most table fruit. The juice content of the Florida Oranges is much higher due Florida getting to more rain than California receives. Going North to the NMRA convention in Sacramento in 2010, I saw long cuts of ARMN reefers on the U.P. tracks adjacent to hwy 99. I haven't been into the Imperial Valley in years to know how the produce is shipped out of there, but most going out of Los Angeles, Orange, or San Diego Counties, goes out in trailers or containers.

Reinhard,

Away for 2 weeks and everythings changed again, do you even allow the paint to fully cure.
I do enjoy your modeling and envy the speed at which you can get your scenes accomplished and your endless supply of styrene.

Bruce