L&N Industrial Rail Spur

[Justinmiller171]

Ed, I would combine the candy producer and the food processor into one big industry like you mentioned earlier. You could still use two tracks, one for tank cars and hoppers and the other for reefers and boxcars. This might help make the layout seem less crowded since there is "technically" only 3 industries.

Oh, and by the way

[Brakie]

Hi Ed,Happy Birthday!

I'm not sure if a combine industry would help operations on a ISL.

I always like several industries or perhaps one large industry that has a plant switcher.

[Southern Tuxedo]

Ed,

Thanks for the additional information. Now that you have filled in a few blank areas for me, I will let you know why I asked the questions. I really like Bloomer Chocolates and I like the canyon effect that you have created with Bloomer and the warehouse the other side of the tracks. I also liked your idea of increasing the size of the warehouse and making it into a food distribution facility.

But……………………

I don’t think that I would like it nearly an much if it couldn’t be viewed from the end. In this picture it looks like Bloomer’s blocks you view too much and takes away from the warehouse when viewed from behind Bloomers. It also seems like it is very difficult to see what’s spotted at Bloomers because of the finished height of the building.

   

My opinion of this shot is that this would make an awesome peninsula layout where you have access to three sides and could position yourself wherever you need to be to facilitate your switching.

   

Whichever design you decide on, I’m sure that it will look great because your mock-ups already look incredible and give us a good sense of how things are coming together.

Btw, How did you find it switching the industries? How did the uncoupling go with the building on the front of the layout?

Mark

[Justinmiller171]

I'm not sure if a combine industry would help operations on a ISL.

I think it would help Ed's layout look more open, the only problem I can see with Ed's layout is that the industries are kinda bunched together at the end of the spur, part of this is that there are too many individual industries in a small space, if Ed combined the Candy producer and the Food processor, and made it one big industry such as his "Gordon Food Service" example he posted earlier, it would not only open up the layout, but would make the spur look more like it has a purpose.

[Brakie]

Justin,Interesting thought but,from my experience most rail served industries seems to be bunched on urban industrial leads.Another thought is Ed has a lot of headroom to switch the industries without the need to jockey the cars around like a switching puzzle..

I'm still not convince combining a bakery and a food processor would be a good idea since you have two unrelated industries.. :?

[FCIN]

Thanks every one for the happy birthday's :-) Gee time flys!

Ed, I would combine the candy producer and the food processor into one big industry like you mentioned earlier.

Justin;
Pretty unlikely that you'd have a candy company and a food processor/distributor as one industry. At least I've never run across any such facility and the two are in no way related.

I think it would help Ed's layout look more open, the only problem I can see with Ed's layout is that the industries are kinda bunched together at the end of the spur, part of this is that there are too many individual industries in a small space ...

As for the industries being bunched - well that's pretty much what you see on most industrial spurs. I could point you to numerous examples. Remember, approximately half of the left side of the layout is more or less staging and room to work the industries. There is nothing unusual about seeing an industrial spur with a lot of industries packed in to a small area - even in more open areas like you find in the midwest and west. As Larry pointed out, I made sure there was ample room to work all the industries on the spur without the need to do un-prototypical puzzle type moves to work an industry. Just for one of those Rule of Thumb things, if your industry spots 4 cars, then you'd better have room beyond the switch to hold more than double that number of cars and your motive power.

Of course, as I mentioned, it did feel like I was trying to include too much on the layout, mainly because of the limited number of inbound/outbound cars on a typical operating session. Thus the reason for another revision of the track plan. I did change the track on the layout yesterday and of course in the process, all my structure mockups became obsolete. Haven't had a chance to try operating it yet, but will do so later today and see how it works out.

(...) it looks like Bloomer’s blocks you view too much and takes away from the warehouse when viewed from behind Bloomers. It also seems like it is very difficult to see what’s spotted at Bloomers because of the finished height of the building.

Mark;
Didn't find that to be a problem at all. You could easily see what was at the warehouse over the chocolates plant and working it was no problem. The one thing that did bother me was the fact that you couldn't see what was on spot at the chocolates plant, unless you did stand at the end of the layout - which of course I can do.

My opinion of this shot is that this would make an awesome peninsula layout where you have access to three sides and could position yourself wherever you need to be to facilitate your switching.

No way to do that at all. Just isn't room to put any sort of peninsula on the layout. Had there been room, I would have come up with a plan that would have included such an arrangement.

Btw, How did you find it switching the industries? How did the uncoupling go with the building on the front of the layout?

It was never a problem to work either the chocolates plant or the warehouse in the original arrangement. The track at the chocolates plant was a bit further away from the structure then what you typically see (based on the prototype) and I could easily look over the top of the structure and uncouple the cars as needed.

Placing industries on both sides of the industrial lead, was thinking outside of the box and something that I wanted to experiment with on my layout. It sure gives you a more realistic arrangement of a typical industrial spur, but of course does prevent you from seeing what's on spot at those industries. That's really more of a display issue than an operating issue.

Well, I'll test out the new track plan as time permits and see how I like it. If it doesn't really suit, then I guess I'll be back to square one and come up with something else. I tend to like to try and duplicate actual track arrangements from some area then fit my industries to that track arrangement, so will have plenty of prototype locations to choose from.

Being able to lay out my track plans and actually operate it before committing myself to a plan that looks good on paper, but may not actually work right for real has really helped me with my planning. Also being able to actually operate the layout and have formal switching sessions is FUN!

[FCIN]

Looking back over some of the previous postings thought I'd again show a prototype industrial spur that really appeals to me and one that I've based a couple of my track plans on. It's located on the Florida Central (FCEN) northwest of Orlando, FL and the track arrangement really appeals to me. Here's the Bing Birds Eye view: http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=nrx23y8...2713&sty=o
The portion that I have based my plans on would be between the switch off the main line up to the edge of the second street crossing. Note that you first have a bit of an open area with plenty of trees and what appears to be some sort of junk yard, then you enter the industrial area where there are five industries packed in close together and the tracks are arranged to make the most of the available area. First and foremost, it almost perfectly fits my available layout bench work with very little compression required and that's a big plus.

Of course the one thing about this industrial spur, along with most, is that you have structures on both sides of the switching lead and to me that really makes it interesting. So, what do you do? Do you change what some of the industries are and eliminate the structures so that you don't have structures on the front edge of the layout or do you think outside of the box and include them?

There are some tricks you could use such as only modeling a long open loading dock in place of the warehouse (suggested by Lance Mindheim), but with out at least modeling a canopy over the loading dock, that just doesn't look right. Another idea that has been proposed on another thread, would be to to model the warehouse so that you would have a detailed interior and then make the track side warehouse wall from a clear material and apply tinting to that so that you could see the cars behind the wall when you look inside the structure; while at the same time giving the appearance that it isn't see through.

Or ultimately, do you simply model a low relief structure (3 or 4 inches deep) and look over the top of the structure to couple/uncouple your cars? I have experimented with doing that and haven't found it to be that much of an issue other than from a display point of view. I have always manually uncoupled my cars and do not like using track magnets. To me, it just adds to the experience of operating the layout in a prototypical manner. When I did have the large chocolate plant on the front edge of the layout, I had no problem at all uncoupling cars on spot behind the structure, but I did take care to place that particular industry at the front, because of the way the track is spaced away from the main structure. Worked out very well, but had it been your typical warehouse structure, it might have been a bit more of a problem because of the cars being closer to the structure.

I have gone back to a plan that does include a team/transload track, and even reduced the number of individual industries, but right now I can't say for sure that I'm going to really be satisfied with it, although operationally, it does provide for prototype destinations for all my equipment and looks a little less crowded. Will just have to try it out some and see how well I like it.

If it ends up that I'm not satisfied with this arrangement, then I'll go back to something similar to what I had before or perhaps make up another version of the spur shown in the Bing view. I may even have to bite the bullet and mothball a bunch of my cars if I can't find a realistic destination for them and fit them in to my plan. Many model railroaders will stretch the bounds of believability in order to have a certain industry on their layout or to justify having this or that type of car on their layout. I tend to look for prototype facilities that would actually use my equipment types and base my industries on those. I also base what I do on my experience on the prototype and what I see on the prototype when I travel around or spend countless hours on Google/Bing maps looking for interesting industries and/or track arrangements.

Just thinking out loud here I guess, but also throwing out some things to consider if you're interested in this type of layout.

[BOK]

Hi Ed:

I have a suggestion for your beer distributor building. Take a look at the Pikestuff, #5410010, Distribution building.
While it is designed to hold a 40' car, with the doors on each side of the structure it would be easy to spot a
50 or 60' box/reefer with the door centered in the building and leave each end hang out. This would be helpful
if the car is a mechanical reefer with the motor running.

Just a suggestion.

Keep up the good work.

Barry

[Brakie]

Barry,Good suggestion..If I was going to use the Pikestuff #5410010 Distribution building I would combine two kits to get a larger warehouse.

[Justinmiller171]

Justin;
Pretty unlikely that you'd have a candy company and a food processor/distributor as one industry. At least I've never run across any such facility and the two are in no way related.

Perhaps a larger candy company would also need reefers and boxcars, they might produce Popsicles or some other frozen treat, they could also receive produce in reefers if they use natural ingredients. Or if you want to make a large food processor they could still get corn syrup and hoppers depending on what they produce. I think it would be more fun to operate a bigger industry rather than 2 smaller ones.

A cereal company would be another example, corn syrup for all of the sugary cereal they make nowadays, hoppers of grain and/or sugar, boxcars of finished product or empty boxes(Perhaps made by Consolidated Container ). I am not sure about reefers, but I guess they could get in fruit via reefer.

[FCIN]

Hi Ed:

I have a suggestion for your beer distributor building. Take a look at the Pikestuff, #5410010, Distribution building.
While it is designed to hold a 40' car, with the doors on each side of the structure it would be easy to spot a
50 or 60' box/reefer with the door centered in the building and leave each end hang out. This would be helpful
if the car is a mechanical reefer with the motor running.

Just a suggestion.

Keep up the good work.

Barry

Funny you should mention the Pikestuff kit Barry. I have one of those in my collection of unused structures and it would be a good fit for that spot. I also have a add on office section that could be placed on one end of it if desired. The prototype structure that I found for this industry is simply a very plain looking warehouse roughly 196 ft in length (based on the Google distance measuring tool) and it has only one door centered on the track side. As luck would have it, when I assembled the Pikestuff kit, I put one centered door on the track side and 3 doors on what would be the street side. Pretty easy to get a car spotted behind it and wouldn't hide the car as much as a model of the actual structure.

Thanks for reminding me about the structure.

[Russ Bellinis]

Perhaps a larger candy company would also need reefers and boxcars, they might produce Popsicles or some other frozen treat, they could also receive produce in reefers if they use natural ingredients. Or if you want to make a large food processor they could still get corn syrup and hoppers depending on what they produce. I think it would be more fun to operate a bigger industry rather than 2 smaller ones.

A cereal company would be another example, corn syrup for all of the sugary cereal they make nowadays, hoppers of grain and/or sugar, boxcars of finished product or empty boxes(Perhaps made by Consolidated Container ). I am not sure about reefers, but I guess they could get in fruit via reefer.

Actually popsicles are a product line of ice cream companies rather than candy companies. The fruit found in dry cereals is dried like raisins rather than fresh, so they would not need reefers. Much of the "fruit" in cereal is simply food coloring and fruit flavoring rather than actual fruit.

[FCIN]

Actually popsicles are a product line of ice cream companies rather than candy companies. The fruit found in dry cereals is dried like raisins rather than fresh, so they would not need reefers. Much of the "fruit" in cereal is simply food coloring and fruit flavoring rather than actual fruit.

Very good points Russ. Justin's message is a good example of why I made the statement that many model railroaders will stretch the bounds of believability in order to justify some types of cars at a particular facility or "make up" products that really wouldn't be coming from or going to a certain facility. Nothing wrong with that, if that's what you want to do, but I just prefer to try and find out what a particular industry would receive and in what type of car to make it believable or to duplicate what I've seen or observed at an industry that I want to have on the layout.

Incidentally, while I'm thinking about it; the type of facility that Lance Mindheim and others (including me) tend to call a food processing facility is actually a food products distributor. They don't process anything, unless you call unloading vegetable or corn oil from a tank car and putting it in containers with your own brand label, "processing". These facilities receive various bulk type shipments of food and food service items and then distribute them to restaurants, schools, etc. They might receive frozen meat and fish, sugar (in bags), corn and other meals (in bags), name brand cereals and even produce at some such facilities. Each of those products would have originated at another industry. In some cases they might repackage various commodities under their own labels and other times, they are simply a wholesale distribution center for existing brands.

On Lance's Downtown spur, he has two such facilities, Trujillo & Sons and Family & Son (which he incorrectly has labeled on his track plan as Family & Son Produce - they don't handle produce). One of the largest such companies in the US is Sysco, with facilities all over the country, many of which are rail served and they are often quite large facilities. There are other such companies scattered all over the country.

Felt like I needed to clear that up as I've noticed that many people seem to get the impression that these facilities are actually producing food products of some type and often will have such a facility receiving commodities in certain type cars that they really wouldn't and shipping out products by rail. For a good example of the products distributed by such a facility, have a look at the Family & Son web site http://www.familyandson.net/Family_english/home.html or Sysco's web site: http://www.sysco.com/

They do make interesting facilities to model because you would see reefers, box cars and 25,000gal+ tank cars spotted at many of them. One reason that I wanted to include such a facility on my layout.

[Mike Kieran]

Actually popsicles are a product line of ice cream companies rather than candy companies. The fruit found in dry cereals is dried like raisins rather than fresh, so they would not need reefers. Much of the "fruit" in cereal is simply food coloring and fruit flavoring rather than actual fruit.

Very good points Russ. Justin's message is a good example of why I made the statement that many model railroaders will stretch the bounds of believability in order to justify some types of cars at a particular facility or "make up" products that really wouldn't be coming from or going to a certain facility. Nothing wrong with that, if that's what you want to do, but I just prefer to try and find out what a particular industry would receive and in what type of car to make it believable or to duplicate what I've seen or observed at an industry that I want to have on the layout.

Incidentally, while I'm thinking about it; the type of facility that Lance Mindheim and others (including me) tend to call a food processing facility is actually a food products distributor. They don't process anything, unless you call unloading vegetable or corn oil from a tank car and putting it in containers with your own brand label, "processing". These facilities receive various bulk type shipments of food and food service items and then distribute them to restaurants, schools, etc. They might receive frozen meat and fish, sugar (in bags), corn and other meals (in bags), name brand cereals and even produce at some such facilities. Each of those products would have originated at another industry. In some cases they might repackage various commodities under their own labels and other times, they are simply a wholesale distribution center for existing brands.

On Lance's Downtown spur, he has two such facilities, Trujillo & Sons and Family & Son (which he incorrectly has labeled on his track plan as Family & Son Produce - they don't handle produce). One of the largest such companies in the US is Sysco, with facilities all over the country, many of which are rail served and they are often quite large facilities. There are other such companies scattered all over the country.

Felt like I needed to clear that up as I've noticed that many people seem to get the impression that these facilities are actually producing food products of some type and often will have such a facility receiving commodities in certain type cars that they really wouldn't and shipping out products by rail. For a good example of the products distributed by such a facility, have a look at the Family & Son web site http://www.familyandson.net/Family_english/home.html or Sysco's web site: http://www.sysco.com/

They do make interesting facilities to model because you would see reefers, box cars and 25,000gal+ tank cars spotted at many of them. One reason that I wanted to include such a facility on my layout.

Actually, a food processor would add ingredients to the food like preservatives, corn syrup, fillers, etc. Justin has a point, just an incorrect example as well as Lance Mindheim's example. While they may distribute these foods, the foods are actually processed at a central location. The averagae chicken nugget has only 50% chicken meat in it. Guess what the rest of it is. Hint - it comes in in covered hoppers and tank cars.

Just read the ingredients in say, a can of Chef Boy Ardee. If you want to horrify an Italian, open a can in front of them and pour the can out, and watch them recoil in horror. I remember a brand of cookie called Grandma's Cookies. When you looked at the ingredients, you realize that Grandma was Madame Curie. You have hundreds of chocolate chip cookies for a reason.

Americans have poor diets eating these bad for you processed foods, but it works out to a cornucopia of freight cars going in and out of these businesses.
Soup companies are a prime example. A soup company would have reefers for meat and some vegetables (for example, potatoes); tank cars for corn syrup, oils, and other food type products; covered hoppers for preservatives, flour, rice, etc.; box cars for packaging; hoppers for a coal fired steam boiler (if you so choose, and maybe even coil cars for canning (some companies produce their own cans).

[Brakie]

Mike,I will add there are many types of food processors.

I plan on having a meat packaging company that package process meat into slice luncheon meats.

Another processor could be a frozen food company that packages frozen meals like TV dinners.

How about a frozen pizza company?

Frozen French fries comes to mind.

There are many such like industries where a reefer,covered hopper or tank car could be delivered.