Again guys I’m looking for information on what types of different railcars to use on my layout. I’m in the planning stages right now. I know there are a few books out there but I was looking for something on the web that might give me an Idea of what types of inbound cars you at diffrent factorys and what you might see going out.
Two different time frames 30’s 50’s and 80’s to present. I seen a list in MR years ago and just thought there migt be some place on the net with the same infomation.
Your question unfortunately is far too broad to answer succincly. Box cars and hoppers were primary modes from the 30s through the 50s.
For factories, they have raw materials and empties delivered. They ship cars full of product, and empties after they unload the raw materials. What the raw materials might be depends upon what kind of factory it is. For instance a furniture factory receives wood and ships out furniture. Up thru the 1960’s, box cars were used for both shipments. A paper mill takes in logs, chemicals and fuel, and ships paper. The logs might come in gondolas, or old box cars with the roof torched off. Chemicals, chlorine, come in tank cars, and fuel, coal, comes in hoppers. The paper ships out in boxcars, often specially marked “For Paper Service Only” Other industries, other shipments.
Unfortunately for railroads, factories began shipping finished goods by truck in the 1950’s and today hardly anyone ships by rail. Reason? Truck will get your product to the customer in a matter of days, and the customer cuts the check when the stuff gets to him. Shipping by rail might take weeks, and the check is delayed by weeks. Getting a check for a truckload of high value product might be the difference between making payroll and having to go to bank to borrow payroll.
First, you have to choose your industries - which will vary by location as well as by timeframe. Then, you can research each to see what they would ship and receive by rail. If there was a reference work to answer the question as originally stated it would be the size of the Manhattan phone book, in equally small print - and everything you need and can use would probably condense down to a single page.
One thing to think about. On altogether too many model railroads, a factory or other business is represented by a building that has less interior cubic than the box car parked at the loading door. Realism isn’t well served unless the industry is big enough to justify the traffic. However, the industry doesn’t have to be modeled full size on the layout. Two tracks disappearing behind a hill, with an industrial water tank and a smokestack lettered for Humongous, Incorporated, can generate a LOT of traffic. So can a building/loading site that’s a thin section right at the fascia.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I guess they run trains just for the fun of it just like us playing with our trains.
As a percentage of businesses, it is a fairly low number, so the statement “hardly anyone” can be accurate. As a percentage of total national freight tonnage, it’s the overwhelming major of business. It also depends on if you’re going to so broad as to include all intermodal, where a business may not realize that their freight did move by rail.
Can you give account of the 14,916 boxcars NS handles monthly?
How about the 16,604 gons?
The list is endless.
NS runs around 40 trains a day by my house the majority is general freight.
Yuuuuuuuup! No body ships by rail. LOL.
You tube is full of videos showing locals and short lines at work delivering boxcars to factories.
You the man.
You need to state what industries you want to model. HUGE difference between those two eras in almost every way. ARe you building two layouts? Mfg plants were very different between those eras as well and so would use different types of cars. A lot of plants in the later era would use trucks more so than railcars— in the beef packing industry for example.
If you don’t have a lot of room and can’t have large 30"+ or so radius curves then maybe concentrate on the earlier time period with shorter cars. 40’ reeefer vs 89’ autorack for example.
Richard
CSX-SEC RR,
Probably won’t give you the answers you appear to be seeking, but it will surely give you an idea of what was going on and what time frame. A lot of Railroad related info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_the_United_States
Cheers, [D]
Frank
The various Jeff Wilson books that Kalmbach has published in the industries beside the tracks series really do provide this kind of information in the photos and text, and they cover the range of eras you ask about as well. Without knowing what industries it is very difficult to provide any useful guidance here. I do think it is safe to say that some loads that were seen in the 1930s to the 1960s as rail shipped have over time migrated to the trucking industry, in part because the railroads have lost interest in loose car railroading where a given small factory might get a load a month or a load every two weeks or whatever. Back in the 1930s for example, a furniture factory that needed two 55 gallon drums of glue every month might easily get them by rail as Less than Carload Lots (LCL) shipments that perhaps their truck picked up at the depot. That volume and frequency would not be seen today on the rails.
What raw materials are we talking about – huge slabs of steel (flat cars, maybe gondolas) or powdered materials such as kaolin clay (covered hoppers today, maybe bags in boxcars in the 1930s modified boxcars with roof hatches in the 1950s)? That kind of thing. Does the factory make food or does it make tables?
Plastic pellets come in a variety of covered hoppers, including Center Flow. Indeed the rise of the plastic business coincides with the development of covered hoppers.
The question you’re asking is a good one and knowing the answers will add to the realism of a layout but there are entire books on the topic of what loads go in what cars, and what products a given industry needs in quantity.
Some of us go to swap meets that focus on railroad collectibles, rather than model trains, and I can tell you that actual prototype waybills that show the car and car type, the routing, the load, the shipper, and the destination industry, are highly sought after at those swap meets.
Dave Nelson</
RMC was running a series on various industries that may be helpful. It’s more turn of the 20th to the 1920s or so, but a lot of things with industry itself didn’t change much over that time and many would still be helpfull for the 1930s.
Rolling stock did change a lot, though. That’s something to keep in mind, especially if you decided to do both eras. Choose carefully, and many of the industries will be believeable with the same physical plant. Change a few details and you can easily switch others back and forth between the 30s and 60s. With rolling stock, changing it out completely would be best. Modern steel equipment has a lifetime of ~40 years. In the 30’s, all-wood construction was almost gone, but lots of wood/steel composite designs, both of which had generally shorter lifetimes or a need to rebuild vs steel.
Remember too that you’d see the same cars going in and out…that is, if a train delivered a factory say a tank car of some chemical they needed, the empty car would at some point be picked up by another train. Similarly, the factory might get an empty boxcar to load, with the load later picked up by the railroad that delivered it.
As mentioned, there are many differences in the eras you are thinking about. Not to say that with a little work it can’t be done. Many old factory buildings that were around in the 30’s are still around today and theoretically could be rail served. Very few locos and cars of the 30’s were still around in the 80’s other than for excursion trains. Car length is a major consideration, as new, long cars need a larger radius to operate well on. You could have a couple of changable scenes to “modernize” you layout, but you would also have to have a full second set of vehicles as well as rolling stock and some figures would look a little strange in the “other” era.
Look through a catalog and see what structures you like. Then decide if you want to go dual era or single. Then it will be easier for you to decide what type of rolling stock you will need to serve the structures you like.
Good luck,
Richard
Again guys I’m looking for information on what types of different railcars to use on my layout. I’m in the planning stages right now. I know there are a few books out there but I was looking for something on the web that might give me an Idea of what types of inbound cars you at diffrent factorys and what you might see going out.
Two different time frames 30’s 50’s and 80’s to present. I seen a list in MR years ago and just thought there migt be some place on the net with the same infomation.