But, as most modelers per some recent polls are modeling the 60’s-70’s era these industrial parks were, especially Appliance Park in Louisville had a very active railroad presence, the number of 40’ Hy-Cubes built for appliance service along with modified 40’ boxcars on numerous railroads along with the later 60’ Hy-Cube boxcars for appliance service means these parks were hives of railroad activity at that time.
Rick Jesionowski
In regards to the modern era, 25% of the facilities being rail customers is a lot more interesting to model for railroading purposes than “The Glenwood Estates Community and Country Club” on a former brownfield (e.g. major industrial) site.
As they should be…A ISL will give hours of switching fun and cheaper to build and doesn’t require a full basement or spare room. One does not have to model contemporary railroads however,if one chooses to do so he is free to have every industry receiving cars. This adds to the operation value of the ISL…Then there’s hours worth of detailing a ISL. If one cares to go a extra step then research will be needed to ensure the Dumpsters has the correct type of scrap.
What makes you think that scrap yard receives production scrap? Some scrap goes to recyclers or to mills as scrap to be melted down. In some cases scrap goes to the highest bidder…
Not so long ago industrial parks relied on rail even today the major industrial parks receives far more then 25% more like 50% due to the bulk items needed for production.
Last week NS handled 17,290 while CSX handled 17,566.UP handled 23,410 and BNSF handled 12,135 boxcars. Short line bread and butter is the boxcar followed by the covered hopper.
2’X 12’ ISL will fit along one wall of a man cave leaving room for a work bench,a large screen TV for watching railroad videos,computer desk or a spray paint booth.
A ISL will give you quality over quantity without the need to break the bank like large super size layouts.
BTW.ISLs has gain a lot of popularity over the past five years.
As always, Rule #1 applies.[:D]
Now to see if it can be made to work. Cutting down the north-south size is easy, but I need to look at the east-west. Part of the beauty of this layout would be those lovely crossing curves at the north, but it has to be small enough that our 1:1 size arms can still get to all the tracks. The buildings can be shrunk some, but they have to be big enough to be believable.
Possibly make it more “L” shaped. Take the area between the two north/south streets to the right of the switching area and delete it. That will pull the factory closer. The majority of the factory on that side can be put against a wall so the factory continues “into the distance”. Then cut off the bottom of the factory to the left of the switching area, somewhere around where the power plant is. Still might have an issue in the area south of the water treatment plant.
Think, think[:|]
All of my GE 70 and 44 Tonners from Bachmann gave way to eventual cracked axle gears. All of them. Too bad they are the only models offered.
Cracked just like the Proto GPs, but with about 10% of the publicity, if that.