I am adding an Auto Assembly plant to my layout. My layout is set in the mid to early 90’s. I’m curious about what kind of equipment I’d need. I know about auto racks, but did the 86’ boxcars survive? Would I be ab;e to include hoppers of plastic pellets or some other granular substance? What about tankers of chemicals, gasoline maybe? I’m not sure, I live in New Hampshire and don’t see the traffic that these plants generate. Could someone help me please?
I’ve been to several auto plants, and you would see 86’ boxcars (still in plentiful numbers today), auto racks, 86’ flats hauling frames (sometimes in gons, or in 50’ or 60’ flats), 50 and 60 foot high cubes hauling engines, transmissions, axles, and other heavy parts, covered coil cars hauling steel coils for stamping into sheet metal parts, and lots of trucks hauling in various other parts. These days, auto plants don’t do much plastics molding in-house, this is usually sub-contracted out and the finished parts hauled in. Often, inbound boxcars will be reloaded with empty racks headed back to the subassembly plant. Sometimes cars will get caught in a cycle of going back and forth to the same 2 plants; this is sometimes referred to as “captive service”. It’s not uncommon for cars from far away railroads to stay in captive service for months or even years. Tanker cars are seen in auto plants, but not in huge numbers. They bring in gas, various lubricants, and (in some cases) paint. Modern auto plants contract out quite a number of parts for every car, in some cases the only parts made in-house are the sheet metal body parts and things like the door hinges, hood hinges, etc. Nearly everything else is made by outside vendors.
Any other questions, feel free to ask.
Brad
I lived near the Chrysler Corp. assembly plant in Belvidere,IL and one of the most interesting things that plant did was produce heat and electricity by a coal fired furnace built as an addition on the North side of the main assembly building. They would unload coal hoppers all year long to store enough coal outside in giant piles for the heavy use in the winter. Cat bulldozers would pu***he coal into huge piles during the summer and then you could see these recede during the winter as the coal was used up for heat as well as electric power. This would sure add interesting train switching to the mix of other rail cars. I hope this adds to your " fun " .
Ray — Great Northern fan.
I work at the Subaru plant in Lafayette, Indiana. The only thing that goes onto the plant’s siding are auto-racks. Everything else is trucked in or produced in-house. Granted, we don’t build the number of cars that Ford, Chrysler, or Toyota do, so they may find it viable to have incoming supplies on railcars. I just don’t see that as working with the current concept of “just in time” that everyone preaches, but hey, I’m just a maintenance guy, what do I know?
Having said that, if our plant ran more volume, we would probably use more rail based supplies. We use plastic pellets for the injection molders in the bumper shop and coil steel for the all of the body panels in stamping. Paint shop I don’t know about, but they have to bring in a large quantity of paint somehow. As for gasoline, one of the guys in the trim shop told me they only put between 1/2 and 3/4 of a gallon of gas in most cars. Basically, just enough to get out of the plant and on the auto-rack or semi. They do put more in on the cars that go to the test track, but not much! That rules out using a tanker full of gas in a reasonable amount of time. That’s about all I know, if I can be any help, feel free to ask. Good luck
I recommend obtaining the Walthers book on modeling the auto industry
Dave Nelson
I grew up in spitting distance of Ford’s Chicago assembly plant, most common cars were high-cube 86’ (and longer) boxcars for sheet metal, 60’ boxcars for heavier parts and long flats or gondolas (in the past) for chassis. Chassis were loaded flat on the flat cars and on end in the gondolas. All were in dedicated service. Coil gondolas and flat cars were not seen here since the stamping plant is a separate facility about 15 miles away in Chicago Heights.
Due to the geography of the area, the loading facility for auto racks and haulaway trucks was a few blocks away from the plant and was operated by a separate firm. Autos were driven on their own wheels on Torrence Avenue from the plant to the loading facility.
Wow, thanks for the input. My Railroad, The Pennsylvania Northern, is based on the Old Pennsy line from Newberry Yard in Williamsport Pa, to Syracuse NY. I want to put an auto assembly plant on line. I like the idea of bringing in three or four loads of coal. I will have to see if I can find the room for the powerhouse. I think the receiving yard would look nice with a couple tankers and coal hoppers mixed into the autoracks and boxcars of parts. I also didn’t think that there were any parts stamped in the assembly plants. I thought it was all contracted out and they brought in only finished parts to be assembled. I will plan for Coil steel cars and I think this plant is going to take in hoppers of pellets for it bumper line. Thanks again everyone, you really got my gears turning.
I used to drive expedite freight hauling plastic pellets to auto parts manufacturers and sometimes their plants were near automotive plants and sometimes not. You need to decide for yourself whether you want to stage those hoppers there or not. That’s the beauty of model railroading, you make the decisions and let your imagination run wild.
The Ford plant in Kansas City, had, up until about three years ago a department called
"Multi-Level, " whose job was to load the auto racks. As the plant built both light trucks
(F-150s) and automobiles (Falcons, Fairlanes, Mavericks, Comets, Tempos, Topazs,
Contour, Mystique). Pickups were loaded on two level auto racks, and cars on three
level auto racks. By the 90s all of these were the 86 ft “enclosed” style rack you see
in models today. The installation had five tracks each capable of about 5 86 foot racks,
loaded circus style from fixed ramps similar to the Walthers portable loading ramps,
as well as a couple of the portable type so vehicles would be loaded from the outbound
end of the track if there was a problem with the fixed ramp. All five tracks were fed
from a single track connection to NS trackage. During a plant expansion this area
was eliminated, and railroad loading is done on a siding off the NS main, about
two miles south of the plant.
In addition high cube and other cars bringing inbound parts were fed on two tracks which ran entirely through the building, pulled in from one end, and out the other
when unloading was complete. Three hydraulically controlled bridges (actually
elevators) allowed access back and forth across the two tracks when not switching.
(Two other Ford plants in Ohio had similar arrangements for parts unloading.) Gates and blue flags controlled railroad access to
all the switching tracks. In recent years, the through tracks were closed, and interior
trackage reduced by half, and accessible from only one end.
Hope this adds some useful information, and good luck with your railroad!
Think that you have had most of your questions answered. Have been in the auto industry for thirty years. Today you will see 60’ & 86’ box cars hauling in parts from supliers or other plants, flats and gondolas with steel and frames also coming in. All of these are unloaded inside. You have Auto racks and truck away leaving. The auto racks are never more that five 86’ racks long for loading or unloading. Remember that inbound cars are just in time, which calls for a switcher on location 24-7. Was always going to model the auto plants, but never could devote enough room to do it the way I want to. My steel operation is 35’ by 30" and growing.
You’re right BuffaloBob, I’ve gotten a lot of input. My Railroad is still under construction. I have the basic L-Girder in place and I’m free handing the railroad on top. I have two five track loop staging yards, stacked one on top another. Where the yards are, I have a shelf over a foot wide around the edges. This shelf along with a peninsula extending three feet to a wall, give me a lot of room for one large industry, or an industrial park with a small yard to service it. This industrial park and yard could even be a short line railroad.
I thought about all of this and after what everyone told me here, I’m going with the auto plant. I do like the looks of the autoracks in my trains. I’ve started pinning some roadbed down planning a four track yard. I think I have room for a small building with one track (2 cars) inside it. this will be for the lube oil, maybe an occasional tanker of gasoline and paint (Maybe). I will have a steel shed near that for the coil steel loads. I think I found room for the power house so I can have loads of coal coming in. That is something I’d have never come up with on my own. On the peninsula I’ll put the inbound wharehouse and the rack loading tracks. I’m going to try and fit in a spot to unload hoppers of plastic pellets.
I’m planning an around the clock switching operation there. I had already considered the operation, so I’ll have a sequence that needs to be followed. Certain cars need to be spotted before others and things like that.
All sounds good, except the statement about no more than 5 racks for loading at any one time. I’ve seen one plant that can load 10 or 12 on a track at a time, and had 3 tracks. Thus, they could spot and load 30-36 cars at once. I was there when they were loading racks, and they had like 15 guys who would drive the vehicles out onto the racks, and 1 more guy on a glorified golf cart who would ride them all back inside. Typically, they would load one level at a time for each string of racks, only having to move the ramps once.
What really amazed me was touring the Ford plant in Louisville, KY, seeing how they line up all the parts for the production sequence. It truly amazed me to see 100+ engines hanging awaiting installation, 600+ tires on conveyors for installation, and watching all this come to the assembly ine in the correct order. This plant had their own stamping building next door, the stamped parts were shuttled over by rail. I did not know that there are something like 60 steps to painting a vehicle, mostly involving cleaning (acid dip), chemically etching the metal for primer to adhere, corrosion protection, and the like. There are only like 20 steps to the actual painting process, something like 4 steps to each coat of paint, primer (usually 1 coat), 2 color coats, and 1 clear coat. The last steps are basically inspection/quality control, and assembly line prep (removing masking tape, etc.) This plant was so large, I ran into 3 RR employees who were walking around inside the plant looking for 2 lost 86’ boxcars. Believe it or not, the actual assembly “line” was only in an area about 20,000 sqare feet, the rest is subassembly stations, body welding line, paint shop (about 100,000 s.f.), and staging for parts. This plant had 5 huge paint tanks for “factory” colors, and 3 smaller tanks for “custom” colors (like DOT trucks).
Brad
Jim,
Greetings from Lansing, Michigan, home of General Motors two most recent auto plants. Lansing Grand River, where we build the award winning Cadillacs, used to truck its cars towards Detroit to board the trains. Since we’ve added Lansing Delta Township, home of the Outlook, Acadia, and Enclave, CN has built a yard south of the LDT plant. Both LDT and LGR ship vehicles out of that yard if they are going more than 500 miles from Lansing.
These vehicles are very successful, and there are tons of auto cars moving in and out every day. All of the suppliers and materials are delivered by truck, so the only rail traffic is outgoing (they forgot to consult me on that one).
BTW, the LDT plant has won several awards for its green efforts. They even collect rainwater to flush the toilets! And just west of the plant is a horse farm where they raise Belgians. Since the plant is silent, it’s quite the pastoral scene.
Phil
Jim,
I too am intrigued by the automotive industry’s relationship with the railroads. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to model some segment of this industry on my layout. I quickly realized it would be difficult to represent an industry of this size (even with selective compression) in a realistic manor. So I have decided to model the destination of all those autoracks…a distribution center. Mine consists of three tracks with capacity for 4 autoracks each. This still comsumes a large area on the railroad (18"x60"), but was workable in my particular plan.
It is not complete yet, but has added a great element to the railroad. This industry has its own switch job that originates/terminates in the main yard a couple times during an operating session.
If you use goole earth you can view the Chrysler plant in St Louis Mo along I-44 just SW of I-270. It clearly shows an area for large boxcars (60’ and 86’) as well an an autorack loading area. THe complex is huge, but it can give you an idea of how the track arrangements are.
Hope that helps.
Here is a small auto terminal in Silver Bow, MT.
That is very similar to the one here in Tulsa (now closed) that I am modeling mine after.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=36.085332,-95.854168&spn=0.004231,0.007253&t=h&z=17
See my post about how I modeled an N scale assembly plant in Packers’ thread about the same topic…
Lee
Depending on which built you build, the freight cars vary? Please provide the typical model.
I know one Ford plant, that had 86 footers, autoracks, frame cars, usually two cars, and three to four bulk paint cars as well. Let me know I can provide you with pictures.