10-19-2011, 01:16 AM
Well here's one that is not far from where I live and something that I'd been overlooking as a potential industry for a switching layout. Out of sight, out of mind I guess. In fact, if a person were interested, you could have a nice little little ISL based on this location.
This is the J. M. Smucker Jif Peanut Butter plant in Lexington, KY.
Here's a Bing view of the facility for reference: http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=qb692b7...orm=LMLTCC
Located on R. J. Corman's Central Kentucky lines operation (former L&N/CSX) in Lexington; the plant is on the east side of Lexington about 3 miles from the Corman yard on the west side of town and at the end of the former Lexington Belt Line Railroad, that was jointly served by the L&N and C&O.
Not too many years ago, the Belt Line was quite a busy operation, with many industries located along the line. But as is often the case today, many of the industries have closed or stopped using rail service. There is an active scrap dealer still using rail service, and a GE Lighting glass plant which is being closed because they can't compete with those Chinese exploding light bulb manufacturers!
This facility was first put in to operation as W. T. Young Foods in 1946 and produced Big Top Peanut Butter. Anyone on here besides me, remember Big Top? Big Top peanut butter was a major part of my diet when I was growing up. William T. Young was a major owner of thoroughbred racehorses (naturally) and passed away in January 2004. He sold the plant to Proctor & Gamble in 1955 who then changed the brand name to Jif.
Smuckers purchased the plant from P&G some time in 2001 and continues to produce the Jif brand of peanut butter at this location. After selling Young Foods, Mr. Young then built and operated a huge storage warehouse, W. T. Young Storage, located on the C&O line about 2 miles east of the peanut butter plant. This facility plays a large role in the operations of the Jif plant. Guess you could say that Mr. Young never really got completely out of the peanut butter business.
As you can see in the Bing view, there is quite a bit of piping and some vertical storage tanks on and around the main plant and there are three tracks in the plant. One currently for vegetable oil tank cars and the second that splits in to two tracks, currently for covered hoppers. Recently, two other tracks that formerly lead to Congleton Lumber (northwest side of Smuckers) have been placed back in service and a shed placed over them. Not sure what they are using this new facility for. You can see this change in this Google view: http://maps.google.com/?ll=38.041953,-84...18&vpsrc=6. Always nice to see a rail served facility expanding instead of closing!
Currently, Smucker's receives pneumatic discharge type covered hoppers of bulk peanuts (cars are similar to those that transport plastic pellets, but shorter); and a couple of pressure differential covered hoppers of sugar and tank cars of vegetable oil per week. Like many industries these days, while most of the product ingredients are received by rail, the finished product goes out by truck. Smucker's also has a small Trackmobile at their plant for moving cars around between times when the train switches the plant.
Operations back in the 70's and until the mid to late 80's were more interesting in my opinion, with more car types and spotting locations. All the peanuts were shipped in 100lb bags in 50ft box cars. P&G would spot some of them at the plant where they were unloaded, but a lot of them were handed over to the C&O and taken to the W. T. Young Storage warehouse where they were unloaded, inspected and then trucked over to the plant. I have no idea why some went directly to the plant while others were sent to the warehouse other than perhaps due to shipping date of the peanuts. Now and then, they would actually reload some of the box cars and send them back from the warehouse to the plant; but that wasn't a regular move. It wasn't unusual for there to be 10 or more cars of peanuts on spot between the plant and the warehouse at any one time.
During the 70's and until the perhaps the mid-80's, some of the finished product was still shipped out of the plant in 50ft insulated box cars and with piggyback service, the L&N having a TOFC facility in Lexington. Rail car shipments only amounted to about 2 or 3 cars per week though as P&G quietly switched over entirely to truck shipping. I only worked at the Lexington yard now and then during the late 70's so I'm going strictly by my (failing?) memory as to the number of outbound shipments.
The plant also received a couple of Airslide covered hoppers of sugar per week (now and then box cars of bagged sugar) along with two or three tank cars of vegetable oil per week. Box cars of peanuts were spotted on the long track closest to the main plant, along with the tank cars. Box cars for shipping out product, were spotted on the middle track (again closest to the main plant) and the covered hoppers of sugar on the outside track. Now and then, box cars were spotted opposite each other on both the middle and outside tracks, with the outside car being loaded by going through the car on the middle track.
Like most large facilities, cars had to be spotted at specific locations per the customers instructions; resulting in a lot of placing, pulling and re-spotting of cars. It wasn't unusual for a crew to spend 3 hours or more working the plant. Corman switches the plant 6, sometimes 7 days a week.
A couple of other things about this location: There were two other rail served industries located on the northwest and northeast sides of the plant, forming a little triangle of industries. Congleton Lumber had two tracks that ran in to their lumber yard and they always had 2 or more cars of lumber, plywood or other building products on spot. There was also Papania's Inc., a wholesale supplier of fruit and vegetables that had their own siding that came off the lead to P&G and Congleton. They usually had one reefer on spot at their building at all times and now and then when they would get more than one car at a time, would spot one on the Congleton lead and unload the car there.
Unfortunately (as far as us model railroaders are concerned) both Congleton and Papania no longer receive anything by rail, but still the potential is there for an interesting cluster of industries in a relatively small area, if you back date the operation to the 70's or 80's.
On the remaining former C&O trackage east of Smucker's, is 84 Lumber (rarely gets a car), W. T. Young Storage (where covered hoppers of peanuts are now being unloaded for storage instead of box cars), K&I Lumber (occasional rail shipments), and International Paper (usually has 4 or 5 box cars on spot).
Incidentially, RJCC shoves their train from the Lexington yard with a caboose leading when they only have to work Smucker's on the Belt Line. The locomotive will lead when they have cars for the International Paper plant on the former C&O trackage and use the W. T. Young run around. This type of operation makes this a good candidate for an industrial switching layout as there is no need for a run around. In L&N days, the engine would lead the train and they ran around the train using the east Lexington wye for the return trip. The current train handling practice of either pulling the train or shoving with a caboose leading, started under CSX operation of the Belt Line when the C&O yard and most of the line east was abandoned.
Were I going to base an ISL on this facility, I suppose I'd model it looking south toward the main plant with that structure as a low relief background structure. I'd probably omit the smaller structures on the outside track or make them low height structures so that you could easily look over them. Same thing with Papania, a low height structure that you could look over. Congleton Lumber would only need to be represented with the paved over unloading area.
I've been tossing around the idea today of possibly basing an ISL with the peanut butter plant as the main industry and include the lumber dealer and produce distributor. I'd also use modelers license and move the G&J Pepsi bottling plant to my line so I'd have a destination for my corn syrup tank cars
and maybe also move the old Lawrence Brewer & Son feed mill to the line so I'd have a destination for my covered hoppers.
Lawrence Brewer was a major supplier of "Heavy Race Horse Oats" and is an interesting structure in itself. I'll have to mess around some and see what I could come up with.
Viewer Warning: This could result in a new ISL plan and thread (Oh No!!!). But we'll see.... I'm open to ideas that any of you folks might have for such a plan.
I'll be going back to Lexington in the morning (Wednesday), so maybe when I get through at the heart doctor, I'll be able to catch Corman working the Jif plant and can get a few photos. Should be about the right time of the day. But forecast is for more rain (Ugh!).
This is the J. M. Smucker Jif Peanut Butter plant in Lexington, KY.
Here's a Bing view of the facility for reference: http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=qb692b7...orm=LMLTCC
Located on R. J. Corman's Central Kentucky lines operation (former L&N/CSX) in Lexington; the plant is on the east side of Lexington about 3 miles from the Corman yard on the west side of town and at the end of the former Lexington Belt Line Railroad, that was jointly served by the L&N and C&O.
Not too many years ago, the Belt Line was quite a busy operation, with many industries located along the line. But as is often the case today, many of the industries have closed or stopped using rail service. There is an active scrap dealer still using rail service, and a GE Lighting glass plant which is being closed because they can't compete with those Chinese exploding light bulb manufacturers!
This facility was first put in to operation as W. T. Young Foods in 1946 and produced Big Top Peanut Butter. Anyone on here besides me, remember Big Top? Big Top peanut butter was a major part of my diet when I was growing up. William T. Young was a major owner of thoroughbred racehorses (naturally) and passed away in January 2004. He sold the plant to Proctor & Gamble in 1955 who then changed the brand name to Jif.
Smuckers purchased the plant from P&G some time in 2001 and continues to produce the Jif brand of peanut butter at this location. After selling Young Foods, Mr. Young then built and operated a huge storage warehouse, W. T. Young Storage, located on the C&O line about 2 miles east of the peanut butter plant. This facility plays a large role in the operations of the Jif plant. Guess you could say that Mr. Young never really got completely out of the peanut butter business.
As you can see in the Bing view, there is quite a bit of piping and some vertical storage tanks on and around the main plant and there are three tracks in the plant. One currently for vegetable oil tank cars and the second that splits in to two tracks, currently for covered hoppers. Recently, two other tracks that formerly lead to Congleton Lumber (northwest side of Smuckers) have been placed back in service and a shed placed over them. Not sure what they are using this new facility for. You can see this change in this Google view: http://maps.google.com/?ll=38.041953,-84...18&vpsrc=6. Always nice to see a rail served facility expanding instead of closing!
Currently, Smucker's receives pneumatic discharge type covered hoppers of bulk peanuts (cars are similar to those that transport plastic pellets, but shorter); and a couple of pressure differential covered hoppers of sugar and tank cars of vegetable oil per week. Like many industries these days, while most of the product ingredients are received by rail, the finished product goes out by truck. Smucker's also has a small Trackmobile at their plant for moving cars around between times when the train switches the plant.
Operations back in the 70's and until the mid to late 80's were more interesting in my opinion, with more car types and spotting locations. All the peanuts were shipped in 100lb bags in 50ft box cars. P&G would spot some of them at the plant where they were unloaded, but a lot of them were handed over to the C&O and taken to the W. T. Young Storage warehouse where they were unloaded, inspected and then trucked over to the plant. I have no idea why some went directly to the plant while others were sent to the warehouse other than perhaps due to shipping date of the peanuts. Now and then, they would actually reload some of the box cars and send them back from the warehouse to the plant; but that wasn't a regular move. It wasn't unusual for there to be 10 or more cars of peanuts on spot between the plant and the warehouse at any one time.
During the 70's and until the perhaps the mid-80's, some of the finished product was still shipped out of the plant in 50ft insulated box cars and with piggyback service, the L&N having a TOFC facility in Lexington. Rail car shipments only amounted to about 2 or 3 cars per week though as P&G quietly switched over entirely to truck shipping. I only worked at the Lexington yard now and then during the late 70's so I'm going strictly by my (failing?) memory as to the number of outbound shipments.
The plant also received a couple of Airslide covered hoppers of sugar per week (now and then box cars of bagged sugar) along with two or three tank cars of vegetable oil per week. Box cars of peanuts were spotted on the long track closest to the main plant, along with the tank cars. Box cars for shipping out product, were spotted on the middle track (again closest to the main plant) and the covered hoppers of sugar on the outside track. Now and then, box cars were spotted opposite each other on both the middle and outside tracks, with the outside car being loaded by going through the car on the middle track.
Like most large facilities, cars had to be spotted at specific locations per the customers instructions; resulting in a lot of placing, pulling and re-spotting of cars. It wasn't unusual for a crew to spend 3 hours or more working the plant. Corman switches the plant 6, sometimes 7 days a week.
A couple of other things about this location: There were two other rail served industries located on the northwest and northeast sides of the plant, forming a little triangle of industries. Congleton Lumber had two tracks that ran in to their lumber yard and they always had 2 or more cars of lumber, plywood or other building products on spot. There was also Papania's Inc., a wholesale supplier of fruit and vegetables that had their own siding that came off the lead to P&G and Congleton. They usually had one reefer on spot at their building at all times and now and then when they would get more than one car at a time, would spot one on the Congleton lead and unload the car there.
Unfortunately (as far as us model railroaders are concerned) both Congleton and Papania no longer receive anything by rail, but still the potential is there for an interesting cluster of industries in a relatively small area, if you back date the operation to the 70's or 80's.
On the remaining former C&O trackage east of Smucker's, is 84 Lumber (rarely gets a car), W. T. Young Storage (where covered hoppers of peanuts are now being unloaded for storage instead of box cars), K&I Lumber (occasional rail shipments), and International Paper (usually has 4 or 5 box cars on spot).
Incidentially, RJCC shoves their train from the Lexington yard with a caboose leading when they only have to work Smucker's on the Belt Line. The locomotive will lead when they have cars for the International Paper plant on the former C&O trackage and use the W. T. Young run around. This type of operation makes this a good candidate for an industrial switching layout as there is no need for a run around. In L&N days, the engine would lead the train and they ran around the train using the east Lexington wye for the return trip. The current train handling practice of either pulling the train or shoving with a caboose leading, started under CSX operation of the Belt Line when the C&O yard and most of the line east was abandoned.
Were I going to base an ISL on this facility, I suppose I'd model it looking south toward the main plant with that structure as a low relief background structure. I'd probably omit the smaller structures on the outside track or make them low height structures so that you could easily look over them. Same thing with Papania, a low height structure that you could look over. Congleton Lumber would only need to be represented with the paved over unloading area.
I've been tossing around the idea today of possibly basing an ISL with the peanut butter plant as the main industry and include the lumber dealer and produce distributor. I'd also use modelers license and move the G&J Pepsi bottling plant to my line so I'd have a destination for my corn syrup tank cars
Viewer Warning: This could result in a new ISL plan and thread (Oh No!!!). But we'll see.... I'm open to ideas that any of you folks might have for such a plan.
I'll be going back to Lexington in the morning (Wednesday), so maybe when I get through at the heart doctor, I'll be able to catch Corman working the Jif plant and can get a few photos. Should be about the right time of the day. But forecast is for more rain (Ugh!).
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
