Ahh, where would we be without conglomerates.
Rich
Does Gern have any plant switchers?
I’d thought about using this Tyco/Mantua switcher, but it was never a good runner…
The home road usually has a locomotive on-hand for in-plant switching…
…and often leases locomotives from interchange partners like the CNR…
…as GERN Industries is the road’s largest shipper by-far.
GERN modellers are free to model GERN in a manner which suits their layout best, but hopefully keeping the whimsical nature of the concept in mind, too.
A friend in Texas, has, as far as I know, the largest GERN factory around and also the largest single roster of GERN cars, too, at 31 with GILX reporting marks and another 6 leased covered hoppers in flux service.
My model of the GERN instsallation represents about 1/3 of the supposed facility, and is only a bit over 6’ long, while the flux mine, unseen and unmodelled, is under Lake Erie, extending out several miles - based on the salt mine at Goderich, Ontario.
Of course, if you don’t have enough room for a GERN factory, simply have it located “elsewhere”.
Wayne
Well, since its clear to me that eventually all members of this forum will succumb to the advancing juggernaut that is GERN, I have decided to proactively take measures (“Can’t beat 'em? Join 'em!”):
My (not quite finished) free-mo PDT modules are set in the late 2010s, and in this timeline GERN follows the same path as in Dr Wayne’s timeline, expanding near every fiscal quarter…until the late 1990s when it is acquired by a large, well known corporation…
Enron…
Oops.
After the Enron bankruptcy in 2001, GERN facilities around the land were shuttered in a similar fashion as the (real-world former) Garden State Paper plant in Garfield NJ.
I will create a late '90s (weathered & torn) billboard sign forelornly stuck in a forgotten location, probably replacing the ‘e’ in GERN with the tilted Enron ‘E’.
What were the late 1990s GERN advertising slogans again, Dr. Wayne?
Well, this one has been universal since GERN’s creation…
…but depending on the particular product offered, can be something totally different. Here are a couple examples…
Wayne
DoctorWayne, thanks for the fun stuff!
My Friday was greeted by this temporarily unsettling news. Only then did my wits kick in (they generally are rather delayed in the morning). GERN certainly must remain as a viable and thriving concern.
I understand that the supposed purchase of GERN by Enron, and its attendant corporate collapse, will be found to have been an elaborate but unsurprising contrivance. My late Uncle George informed me of this colossal ruse by a letter found in his desk after his untimely passing in 2017 under suspicious circumstances. The entire enterprise appears to have arisen as a result of the excavation near Hell, Michigan of a sample of what was purported to be an extensive deposit of flux that was superior in all respects that that found under Lake Erie. A hurried investment scheme was launched that captured hundreds of millions of “lazy” American and Canadian dollars and yielded the shuffling of the ownership of a number of ill-managed and unsuspecting corporations. That newly-discovered material turned out to be an inferior grade of kevonite that did not phosphoresce under black light. This largely unknown sham resulted not only in the shuttering of counterfeit GERN facilities, but initially tipped the feds into their Enron investigation. The rest is, as my Army buddies say, histoire.
Sadly, I have lost Uncle George’s letter. But I have been to Hell on a number of occasions since childhood - and have pictures (somewhere) to prove it.
[;)]
John
Thanks for your input, John.
GERN modellers can tailor GERN to their own needs, but I leave the rest to my brother, the creator of the concept (and also holder of the copyright for all GERN advertising material).
Use and enjoy it to suit your own preferences.
Wayne
We Await Silent Tristero’s Empire…
Indeed. Pynchon lives!
Great! One of my many projects that are in the works, is detailing a couple of AHM’s Flexi-Flow hoppers.
Plano makes an etched metal detail kit for them, complete with ladders, running boards, etc.
When I finish these, (miracles DO happen) I’m going to apply for reporting marks.
Mike.
PS. I forgot to post Dr. Wayne’s quote [D)]
On my layout, GERN Industries will not be represented with a factory of their owm, but there will be a few receivers of shipments originating from GERN. The GERN freight cars will be there, but no GERN plant or facility.
.
I do not have enough real estate to do GERN properly.
.
-Kevin
.
Hi SeeYou190
Well stick up a ridge with industreal security fence and gates company name on the gates with a big sign and gate house for employees to enter no tresspassing signs stand some tall chimneys up behind the ridge.
Make sure you can’t see over the ridge from normal viewing angle so no one knows the facory is literally only the chimneys and a single siding job done.
But make sure you know exactly how long the siding is and what if anything is down there.
This is an old trick I saw once in Model Railroader in that instance it was used as a DoD property of some sort what was it “well thats clasified if I told you I would have to shoot you” but the same base idea can be adapted to represent other industries.
Just something to think about.
regards John