I would really like some information about the switchers duties at some of these industries. What do they do? When do they do it? and why do they do it? I thin that this might make a good small, but operational layout. In the future… I know that I would like to see more industrial track and operation plans. Chemical industries, power plants, construction railways and coal breakers. Coal breakers might make an excellent layout in themselves.
For one there’s the narrow-gauge steam dinkeys that take the buggies to the mine. They also take whatever the miners need there too, like wooden beams etc… They pull their buggies from a stock yard and perform some duties there too. That’s only going too be a couple of miles, but it could be excellent. Take Wanamie Breaker for example… just search that in google images.
I would also like to see plans for creosoting plants and any site where an industrial locomotive operates. This is what I would like to do.
Sometime in the 1980s, MR ran an article on a tie-treatment plant. The article had three layouts: one all standard gauge, one standard and three-foot gauge, with dual-gauge trackage, and one with standard, three-foot, and 30" gauge track, including a triple gauge turnout, and multiple gauge track.
Consider a large grain elevator. It can receive 100 cars at a time at its siding, but only two fit under the loading chutes or over the unloading hoppers. It needs either an old switcher, a trackmobile or a simple car puller device to move cars into position for loading or unloading.
Consider a another large industry, that has maybe half a dozen loading spots. For the sake of argument, let’s say they can load or unload a car within a few hours. The industry has a storage yard where empties are held for loading. When the spotted cars are full, the switcher pulls them out, moves them to the storage/interchange track and moves more empties in. This way they can load dozens of cars/day but only need a loading dock that handles half a dozen cars instead of twenty. The railway only picks up and drops off cars into the interchange/storage tracks. All the spotting and switching is done by the private switcher.
This is a good suggestion, but some libraries discard older periodicals after a period of time*. However, some libraries may be able to get copies of articles from a periodical bank. Talk to the librarian.
*I got most of my MRs and RMCs from the late 1960s - early 1970s when my public library - I worked for them in the 1980s - was discarding periodicals over ten years old. However, many of these magazines show the wear and tear of magazines that were lent to the public, have library labels, and markings. The RMCs were kept in the children’s department, and are especially beat up.