I have a corner on my layout where I would like to model a portion good sized canning factory with 2-3 tracks. I was wondering if anyone had pictures, real or model, of a canning company with some good shots of the outdoor equipment, building layout, track access, etc…
Also what rail cars would be appropriate for this?
Boxcars - for finished canned goods/incoming supplies
Covered hoppers - for incoming veggies
Others?
By the way I’m modeling a ficticious town on the Wisconsin Central lines before they were bought out by CN (1990’s I believe).
I do not recall hearing of vegetables being shipped in covered hoppers. Also, canneries are usually located where the fruits or vegetables are grown, so they almost always come in by truck.
You could have tankcars bringing in corn syrup. Of course you will need RBL boxcars to ship product out. Depending on what is beinging shipped and how it is packaged, you could also have XM or XP boxcars shipping out products.
While it does not seem to be prototypical, you could bring in empty cans, wood (if crates are used), and paperboard in by boxcars. Perhaps plastic pellets in by covered hopper. You could also have sugar coming in by Airslide, Pressureaide, or Pressure Differential hoppers. Of course I have seen a train consist listing sugar being carried in regular covered hoppers. Again, this is something that does not seem to be prototypical.
Here is a link to FMC FoodTech’s website. They manufacture much of the equipment most food processing plants use. Surf around on there and you can see what the equipment looks like and what it does.
Here is a link to a tomato processing company. Looking at Wisconsin in the encyclopedia, it does not look like tomatos are grown there commercially, but the website does have photographs and interesting information in it.
Have you considered modeling a creamery? You could ship out butter, cheese, and possibly ice cream in reefers and dry milk and whey in regular boxcars.
Actually, “ericsp,” Both the Santa Fe and the Northern Pacific had special foam-insulated, mechanically refrigerated Center-Flow covered hoppers that were used to carry potatoes. They were known as Conditionaire cars. But those were the exceptions to prove the rule, and except for those cars your general comment is correct. If someone wanted to stretch a point and carry produce to a cannery by rail, refrigerator cars would be the most likely choice. Anyone interested in modeling those refrigerated hoppers can refer to the following “Model Railroader” article: Modeling Santa Fe’s Conditionaire covered hoppers Model Railroader, October 1988 page 74 ( ATSF, COVERED, “HENION, BURR”, HOPPER, SUPERDETAIL, FREIGHTCAR, MR ) So long, Andy
I thought it would be a good idea since I come across a lot of canning company’s around here (mostly string beans) thru my work. I suppose a dairy/cheese factory would be a good idea, I’ve come across quite a few of those also. Do you have anymore info on this them? Altho I see them all the time I never really have time to stop and look at them.
I lived in the Racine area for about 15 years. They grow a lot of cabbage in the area. Some of it was processed/packaged at Frank’s Kraut in Franksville, Wi. The plant burned down around 1987. Several people mentioned that the cabbage was being shipped to northwest Wisconsin to a packaging plant there. I do not know the name of the company, it might be Del Monte, Stokley or another food processor.
Maybe some investigatimg on your part might turn up who is doing the processing of the vegetables. It might be worth a ride up there on a weekend to see what is there for you to model.
Del Monte stopped listing the products at its processing plants after its 2002 SEC Form 10-K. That year’s 10-K lists the following plants in Wisconsin.
Cambria, WI: Green Beans, Italian Beans, Corn and Peas
Markesan, WI: Green Beans, Wax Beans and Italian Beans
Plover, WI: Green Beans, Carrots, Beets and Potatoes
Having done some work at a chicken processing factory… different but it’s all “processed food”…
You will want pallets, fork lift trucks and room for them to operate. Box cars will want doors large enough for the FLTs to access and drop plates from the dock for them to cross into the cars.
How is your plant powered? In the late 80s/early 90s maybe by propane? Delivered by a 33,000 gal tankcar once in a while?
Have you thought of cryogenic reefers for some of the more fastidious vegs that might be canned?
An awful lot of canned produce is truck traffic… so you want a high value product that will be carried a long way in bulk if it is to go out by rail (cans weigh a lot… try shelf stacking at a store for a shift). So you may well be looking at your product only arriving by rail. You will still want palletised loads.
Actually, out here the canneries ship out much more cars of product than they receive cars of supplies, of course he is modeling WI, not CA. Many of the processing plants ship product all over the US.
Even the plants in remote areas seem to have natural gas service. I suppose when you are operating boilers, you want a pipeline delivering fuel. That being said, most seem to be located by, or in, cities.
The door opening on the RBLs range from 10’ to 16’.
OK, someone else mentioned tank cars of corn syrup or fructose, do you intend for them to have an onsite can plant? If so you will want boxcars of coiled tinplate and a beat up old gondola for tinplate scrap and maybe another one for baled cardboard scrap. If not, inbound cans/bottles in boxcars, and same were used for shipping finished pallets of cased canned/bottled goods. For the plant you will need a boiler room for processing steam, what fuel? Coal would come in hoppers, oil could be tanked in. Gas fired would probably be piped in. I spent 35 years in food plant engineering after a short railroad career. Enjoy! jc5729
The Cambria and Markesan plants are served by the WSOR. Cambria gets a car loaded once in a while. Markesan ships 20-40 cars a week in season. Usually inbound empties, outbound canned goods in RBLs. Sometimes inbound pallets in the RBLs. Seneca in Ripon gets occasional inbound carloads of seed. The beans come in by truck from the local area. Markesan has a big dumper, takes the whole truck or trailer and lifts it to about a 45 deg angle, to get the product out. Then the beans go into a conveyor deal, and start their trip thru the canning process.
I well remember open hoppers full of sugar beets being hauled by the UP in Northern Utah (Cache Valley) up into the 1970’s. Del Monte had a plant in Smithfield, Utah that processed string beans, and other vegetables. It was a large, long brick structure with both white and green window frames and doors. It had it’s own boiler plant and a water tower.
I passed that plant every day going to highschool. What I remember most is that, although it was well-staffed and always seemed to be running, the outside was cluttered and the walls rather dingy. Spotless inside, but not a lot of maintenance done on the outside. There was also some issue with trees and shrubs, tall grass, etc growing close to the plant and the tracks.
There was ALWAYS some cars alongside the loading docks. Boxcars, hoppers, and the occasional tank car, which leads me to beleive that they used oil for the boiler plant, since I assumed they were oil tank cars, they being black and grimy most of the time.
Well, that’s my 2-cent’s worth from some 30+ years of memory. The plant is still there, but I believe it to be shut down now.
The plant is no longer in operation and is now an industrial park, but in it’s greatest size it was easily modelable.
Let see One spur track that served two warehouses. One attached to the plant one not. It canned corn, peas, corn and peppers (that was a mess) and saurkraut. It also labaled for Stokely, Franks, Del Monte and …one other brand that I can see the image of but can’t remember the name.
During the canning season, and the planting season it would have between 6 and 10 cars a week with 2-4 cars a day during prime canning season, corn and peas. I don’t recall ever signing a shipping bill for saurkraut so that must have mostly gone by truck.
Orignially (the late 1900’s-1940ish) the retort cookers were fired by a coal plant on site, but that had long since been removed. The facility was converted to fuel oil sometime after the 40’s and in the 70’s converted to natural gas. I have seen pics from that early period that had photos of about a dozen twin bay hoppers parked out in front unloading coal and later about 4 or 5 fuel oil tankers. As a side note in the 1930’s you could always model a boiler explosion. The heating plant blew up, sparked by a fire in a nearly empty coal bunker.