I have been planning and building my 2x8 switching layout over the last few months. But now I am getting cold feet about the single industry on the layout.
I have a bakery there now, but now I’m starting to think maybe a lumber yard?
I liked the bakery idea because of the fact I could have 3 different car types: covered hoppers, boxcars and tankers. But now I am having second thoughts.
I really like the late 70s early 80s era, and even early 2000s. But the specific area I want to model is right behind my apartment. Theres a few buildings back there that still have the rails going to the docks. a few blocks away there was also a rail served lumberyard.
Going back to possible industries, which ones would give me options for multiple car spots and car types. Thanks all!
Other foods (Snack, Cereal, etc.)
Chemicals (Cleaning products, etc.)
Paper
Brewery (a favorite of model railroaders) Here’s one example (N scale in about 1X4 and needs additional space for a lead, but maybe provides some ideas).
Keep in mind that you can provide your layout with more track space by modeling your industry as background flats and/or low relief structures. Many manufacturing facilities will take in raw materials, chemicals and other supplies while shipping out finished products as well as waste materials and other manufacturing byproducts. Sometimes, chemicals used to manufacture one product are transformed by that process into another chemical that can be used by another industry. Thus, the one manufacturer would try to reduce manufacturing costs by selling the chemical byproduct to another business. A fictional manufacturer of say “widgets” could take in anything and ship out anything, too. One such business on my layout (no actual model but just a spot on a spur track) is Al Kemme Scientific. As this business is supposed to be high tech research and development, they are never working on the same thing and can receive almost anything in almost any type of car while shipping out who knows what in almost any type of car. Use your imagination and have fun!
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but any actual bakery that would fit in that space would almost certainly not use rail for commodities in, let alone out, by the era you want to model. On the other hand if you painted or facade-modeled the actual complex, lights, etc. of one at ‘appropriate scale of operations’ as part of the backdrop, you might have some highly interesting shipping, receiving, and material-handling (e.g. racks and connections for PD handling of food-grade material without pesky spillage) for the enterprise. One example to look at with good ‘modeling’ potential would be the Kellogg’s plant adjacent to the Frisco in Memphis. Cereal production and baked-goods production might usefully co-locate (if the railroad real-estate or shipper/customer-relations or business-development department is savvy) and additional industries like breweries or Internet-distribution-based specialty food producers with aggregate production scale high enough to merit bulk delivery might be developed (and promoted via facility signage).
Don’t forget the possibility of ‘intermodal’. There was an interesting “facility” on the Buffalo & Pittsburgh in Erie, PA where a string of cars – they were all covered hoppers while I observed this, but they need not be in modeling – were parked on a siding with apron access, and various trucks pulled up at essentially random times, with the paraphernalia for air slide or other operation presumably present, and unloaded at will. It is at least plausible that cars could be loaded in the same manner in the same type of ‘facility’ by small independent producers; a co-op or similar organization putting the special material-handling equipment on something like swap-body trucks and scheduling ‘loading days’ for its members…
If both industries fit in the same space, model both. Have each one attached to a thin base of somekind (Woodland Scenics 1/4" foam board, Gatorboard, wood, etc.) with each base the correct size to fit in the space. That way you can easily replace one with the other when you wish.
Excellent idea – and you can about as easily make panels for the backdrop that let you swap out “larger” industries, complete with lighting and effects, as well…
He sure shouldn’t need those heavy hot socks any more … bet his family will relish that development! [(-D]
Have you considered a steel mill? I’ve seen these on club layouts. For a one man band, it would likely be the entire layout. No, it wouldn’t use the rolling stock you’re suggesting, but there are a number of very specialized cars that would come into play.
A waterfront might also work. The aisle would be the water, with gantry cranes straddling some tracks, and the buildings on the far side of the tracks could be anything, with higher chances of nasty chemicals.
I agree, and part of the problem is the era in which you wish to model, as the structures are usually large and pretty nondescript in appearance, too.
If those industries are still rail-served, then why not use them, in model-form (even if there’s nothing available that looks much like the real ones), perhaps shuffled around in their layout relative to one another, making many of them as background-type low-relief “flats” served by multiple tracks.
One of the main reasons that I back-dated my layout to one set in the late '30s, is that lots of relatively small industries still used rail service…perhaps not too often, but enough to support operations on a medium-size layout. Many of my small industries have operations in more than one of the on-layout towns.
Any industry that requires reagents, fuel, raw materials, materials for cutting/grinding/milling, waste haulage, and product removal can have a wide range of rolling stock. Several have been mentioned, but a milling operation, a crushing/quarry operation, an outfit making roofing shingles, paper mills, refined sugar and sugar products, frozen foods…really the limit is found between our ears. Does the facility generate a lot of its own power? Does it have a co-gen? What is its fuel? Does it require diesel for a large generator? If it’s a concentrator, it will need flocculants, thickeners, balls, rods, steel liners for the mills, rubber liners for slurry pipes like (what used to be Linotex), and you’d ship two or three concentrates like molybdenum and copper, or bismtuth, lead ingots, zinc ingots…cadmium…and so on.
I like the idea of limiting your modeling to the materials facility/facilities, and then using against-the-wall thins or a painting to represent the larger complex.
Keep in mind there are many specialty-metals operations that would fit or ‘selectively compress’ nicely into small footprint – vacuum castings, titanium or exotic metals for specific defense production, specialty superfinishing … the list is long and while most of this might have gone to trucks by the '70s the ones with plants started in the WWII to Korea years might well have involved rail. Another option would be brass or other nonferrous production, as in so many plants in some New England areas. Small, specialty batches for expensive, precise, or very unusual important products – perhaps unlike much of GERN’s actual throughput? [(-D]
(I’m still waiting for the official history of GERN with the chapter on the '50s-'70s being titled “Flux in Transition”…)
I think I got into my head too much. Im running with the bakery! Going to name it after a local chain, Lovin’ Oven. I made a slight adjustment to the bakery siding. In my town theres an old warehouse and the tracks up to it are at an angle to the mainline. I wanted to represent this and have room for plants and a fence between the siding and the main. Thanks for warming my feet!
Going to kitbash into a larger facility. The building is from a cold storage kit and I have yet to built the bakery. I want to make it a larger building for more boxcar and tanker spots
I think the bakery is a good choice. Don’t forget, sugar can arrive in covered hoppers, and flour in pressuraide hoppers. Corn syrup in tank cars. Not sure what arrives in a boxcar for a bakery, but boxcars could be used for shipping.
Also consider the industry to make one specific product, like a cookie or a snack cake. These buildings could be smaller than a bakery that might put out volume breads, etc.
IMO, the sugar and flour deliveries should occur in a covered area, or run the track right into the building. Interesting thoughts before you kitbash.
Edit: the covered area for the covered hoppers (flour) could be the second track from the building, with pneumatic tubes running under or over the first track which could hold the boxcars or corn syrup tank cars.
With all of those different cars, think about having space for sorting. Notice Cuyama’s plan has what looks like holding tracks, then delivery tracks into the bakery. If you’re not too far along, might want to think about that.
You should have room to model a portion of a lumberyard at the other side, provided you can allocate a part of a bakery storage track for a switch lead for the yard. I’d say only one centerbeam or bulkhead flat for the yard, since they tend to be long cars and most space will be devoted to the bakery.
IMO, 2x8 is plenty of space to have both, if carefully planned.
Boxes and packaging. Fruit filling and preserved nuts and whatever you mix the icings with. Fondant and spices.
Arguably an order of a bunch of these things from a specialty supply company might merit a boxcar or container if shipped together, as opposed to a bunch of separate parcel-size or LTL deliveries… if you need ‘plausible denial’, you know…
