I’m in the process of planning my first layout but I’m a little stuck as the dimensions since I don’t know how much room some of my industries will be. Or rather I should say how much rail space I’ll need. The layout is N scale, and going to be around 5 x 3 ft, I think, set in the late 50’s to early 60’s. I plan on having a hand full of rail industries but there will only be two major ones. The town will be a down town scene with mostly 30’s styled buildings. I also plan on keeping it mostly prototypical, only having to stray to freelanced where I need. My first main industry I planned on using was a feed mill, but from what I’ve seen the feed mill kit that caught my eye from Walthers has is set up to recieve grain from trucks and ship the bagged grain by rail. I’m wondering if it would be too unrealistic to set up the feed mill to recieve from grain (I already have a few PS-2 covered hoppers) and how would I do it. Just add on a grain tower and modify it to unload hoppers? Or should I add on an unloading building and hook it up to storage bins? My second main rail service is a lumber yard. My plans are to use a pair of Walthers Walton & Sons lumber yard kit, making one kit into a pair of exposed sheds (with 3 walls) and the other kit as an indoor kit (with 4 walls and doors). My main concern there is getting the right type of rail cars to drop off products. With out knowing some of those things I can’t figure out how much siding rail I’m going to need for cars. I’m also planning on adding a general freight depot where rail cars can be unloaded onto trucks for places like the stores. Thanks for any help and I hope I wrote all that so it can be easily enough understood.
For the lumber yard, I would maybe get one Walton’s kit first and look it over. Putting two of them together is going to take up a lot of space. It’s important (IMHO) to leave space for things like parking, roads, an office or other smaller outbuildings (a tool shed for example). If you cram too many buildings into a small layout it can look too crowded and unrealistic - but again that’s just my opinion.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking about with the feed mill. I think the feed mill would get grain by rail and then turn it into feed to be sold to local farmers for their livestock?? A flour mill would receive grain in covered hoppers, and ship out sacked flour in boxcars. I guess a large feed operation (like Purina) would receive grain and ship out animal feed, but I think the Walthers one is a smaller operation.
Anyway, Kalmbach/MR makes a good series of books called “Industries Along The Track” (look to the right margin in the link) they might be a good place for you to start.
In the 1950’s, early 60’s the feed mill or flour mill would get grain in boxcars and ship out products in boxcars. They wouldn’t use covered hoppers at all. Grain wasn’t commonly shipped in covered hoppers until the late 70’s. Especially a smaller facility.
They would get a variety of feedstocks (corn, oats, cottonseed meal, alfalfa) plus commercial feeds and blend/reblend or sell stock feeds. The flour mill would get wheat and ship flour. The type of wheat would depend on the type of flour.
You can use that to pick your cars. Boxcars from southern roads would carry cottonseed meal. boxcars for central/eastern midwest roads would carry corn or oats. Cars from upper midwestern states would carry wheat. SP car? ship cottonseed meal or rice in it. MP or CNW car? Ship corn. NP or UP car? Ship wheat.
Dave H.
In the late 50’s/early 60’s, the PS-2 3 bay ‘grain hopper’ was sort of new. Not too many were in service. That Walthers ‘Sunrise’ feed mill is about the size that may be receiving grains from farmers and shipping bagged feed by rail, but I suspect it really is not big enough. I would think that it would be selling the bagged feed to local farmers(providing the mixing/grinding/bagging service). If you are going to ‘receive’ grain, then a ‘between the rails’ pit with an auger/elevator would be needed to unload the grain hopper. By the end of the 50’s, things like ‘fertz’ would be something that would be mixed/bagged for local farmers. I would expect to see ‘potash’ arriving in PS-2 covered hoppers for mixing…
For your lumber yard, 50’ double door box cars and flat cars(open deck or bulkhead) would be arriving with loads of lumber/sheetrock/bagged cement/etc. Many times a lumber yard also sold coal/gravel/sand. 2 bay open or covered hoppers would be be used in the late 50’s.
A freight house still would have business in the late 50’s. There was still a lot of REA business and many packages were still shipped via rail.
Jim Bernier
cool that all helps. i was mainly trying to use the cars i already have, couple of PS-2 hoppers, flat car, 40’ box and a 50’ box and a gondola (although i don’t really care for the unpainted concrete cylinder load), so that’s mainly why i was asking. the hoppers were actually the first cars i bought, one of my favorites i guess. from looking around i was starting to guess that i would have to stock up on box cars and sorta looks like that’s all i’ll be using. main reason i asked about the Walthers ‘Sunrise Feed Mill’ kit is cause at first i planned on modeling my layout in late fall (when i first got into actually doing something) so i was trying to model industries that would be used year round.
the lumber yard i’ll definetly hold off on getting two of them. i originally did look at a different kit, but the building was about twice the size of Walton & Sons, too big for my taste (if i remember right it was a tick over 13 inches long and around 7 inches wide). i knew i wanted to add something with coal for heating and thought about adding a sepperate fuel supply. more things to think about. the town scene is only going to be like the edge of a downtown, but i imagined the two would be around a few thousand people.