An industry for those CenterFlo hoppers - and a lucky find for me

An industry on my layout is going to be Luetzow on Badger Siding on Davis Avenue in South Milwaukee on the UP, formerly the C&NW.

Mark “Fuzzy” Hintz has current photos and informtion about this siding on his very large website

http://www.fuzzyworld3.com/pictures3/railroad/up01.html#up01

Mark quotes an earlier post of mine where I see I spelled Luetzow wrong.

The company started as a dry cleaner but developed its own plastic bags for dry cleaning and converted entirely into a manufacturer of plastic bags. They get plastic pellets (about the size of aspirin) in ACF CenterFlo covered hoppers. These days they get two such cars at a time.

What makes this particular industry useful for a model railroader is that the unloading device and tubes are across the street from the factory itself, so in a tight spot you could simply omit the building and just have the cars and the unloading devices.

What was driving me a little nuts is that while I have photos of what the building looks like now, my recollection of what it looked like circa 1967-69 when I model the Chicago & North Western is decidedly hazy. And here is where the internet is so great … Luetzow has a website

http://www.eluetzow.com/index.shtml

and fortunately for me, they include a page of historic photos including what it looked like in the late 1950s which is exactly what I [now] recall it still looked like in 1967

http://www.eluetzow.com/history.html

Dave Nelson

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?

Sounds like a good candidate for a John Armstrong-style, ‘Virtual Industry.’ All the car-unloading racks along a siding on either side of the close-to-the-fascia main or thoroughfare track, and the industry itself nothing but a graphic on the fascia - it would be in the aisleway if the aisleway wasn’t needed for people access…

Thanks for the inspiration.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)