I’ve been considering what industries I want to include in my small town, central appalachian short line. There are numerous springs that feed water bottlers around here so I thought that might be good. I know in real life these are probably truck-served only, but in my more perfect world, it will be served by rail. My question is, what do these facilities actually look like? Is there a pumping house over a spring that pumps water to the bottling building? Is it all self contained in a single building? What type of traffic would it see? I’m thinking just a couple boxcars a day for bottles in and out, but would there be tank car traffic for water-purification chemicals?
Does anybody know?
Also, what would be a good kit to start with on this?
There were “bottled” water companies in California served by rail. One located in the mountains above Los Angeles shipped water in tank cars on the Pacific Electric. I believe there was one near Dunmuir (in northern Calif ) that shipped water on the Southern Pacific.
Can you tell me any more about these companies? I wasn’t really thinking about shipping water via tank cars, I was more interested in the bottling facility itself.
Well. As a former trucker we have been sent to really good water bottling plants. There is one facility in Maine that bottles “Evian” water (Expensive kind)
The plant sat above a underground spring. It is precisely one building built of precast concrete. It is a rather large facility and requires plastic bottles, caps and cardboard. As well as filters, tools and day to day laundry service for the worker’s face masks etc. (Keeps hair out)
While we hauled water out of there in full truckloads that will easily fill boxcars or tankcars.
Dont worry so much about the actual building used in these facilities. In the modern era we live in, they all tend to look alike.
In the hobby you can have inbound tank cars for purification if you are … using water from the NYC’s east river. You can have any number of frieghtcars for both inbound supplies and outbound bottled water… or beer, whiskey, malt, sodas etc etc etc.
Once again the building I was in to pick up loads were made from precast concrete. Any building material will suit as long as there is a bare minimum of windows, doors and a clean roof free from many vent pipes and stuff (Airconditioning etc) to prevent leaks from getting into the botting machinery.
I worked for several years hauling carbon for water filtration into city and industrial sites.I would think that you would need at least one or more holding tanks atleast one silo.The larger plants have several tanks both above ground and in ground where water is filtered with carbon ,alum and different types of acid,Most water filtration plants on the east coast origanally were brick buildings with the false front styling.I know that this info is more about filtration than bottling but i hope it helps give you an idea on the bulk materials needed to process pure water.Besides the bulk carbon ,alum ,acid sand and gravel are used to filter water.
Most purification and bottling equipment would just be unseen inside a generic metal building. This is especially so if you’re modeling the Appalachian Mts where winter freeze would be a concern. If it’s big enough to generate enough traffic to ship water by tank car you would probably have one or two insulated storage tanks outside (one for raw water, one for purified water). The pumphouse would most likely be a small shed structure a bit removed from the main facility. You’ll need a loading dock. The building should have at least one large roll-up metal door to allow access in case they need to add or change water treatment equipment (mostly large filter tanks and associated piping).
Most likely the amount of chemicals you’d need for water purification wouldn’t come in a tank car, but in plastic lined drums or palletized bags, and be shipped in a boxcar. As far as other railcar traffic, you’d have empty bottles in and loaded bottles out, all by boxcar. I like the tankcar suggestion for shipping some product.
One last idea. If you want to bottle/produce artificially carbonated water, then you’d need to bring in the occasional tanker of CO2, and have a refrigerated storage tank alongside your building.
Don’t have any info readily available but this quote is from the Electric Railway Historic Association of Southerm California web http://www.erha.org/ regarding the Pacific Electric’s Arowhead Line:
“Introduction:
ARROWHEAD LINE
This line was a suburban line operated from the San Bernardino Pacific Electric Station northerly to Arrowhead Springs, where connection was made with a private bus for resorts farther up in the mountains. Operation from San Bernardino to Highland Ave. was over a single track line jointly used by the San-Bernardino-Colton local line, and ran though a fairly well built up residential district. Beyond Highland Ave. the territory was not thickly settled and the remainder of the run was made through “wide open spaces”.
ROUTE:
Built from 3rd & D to Base Line & D by San Bernardino Valley Traction Company in 1901; it was the first electric line in SB and opened for service on 22 February 1902. Extension north to Arrowhead Springs Hotel was built 1906-1907 and opened on 15 March 1907. The 1924 power shortage caused temporary suspension of service, but restoration took place on 2 January 1925. Final abandonment of passenger service took place on 1 September 1932. Freight service continues to date, composed entirely of tank cars to and from bottling works at Arrowhead Springs; this service was dieselized in 1943.”
I seem to recall hearing about one in Mount Shasta City, CA. (probably the one Donald Schmitt was refering to). It seems like they still received plastic pellets by rail (McCloud Railroad (formerly McCloud River Railroad)). The building looks like a Pikestuff building. I think one of the links below is where I read this.
A few years ago Evian was going to build a bottling plant in Baraboo. I believe the proper way to model this would be to put “We Don’t Want It Here” yardsigns in front of every home.
A bottling plant could be sub-leased for a variety of other drinks. You could add labels for your favorite drinks, from carbonated to fruit juice. THe Tropicanna train ships concentrate that has water added & packaged before you get it in the store. Several provate label brands are done this way. You could include some sort of cold storage facility to load temp controlled boxcars or reefers.
okay, this area is also a big apple growing area, so I could also model an apple juice/cider/sauce facility. That would probably have the possibility of more rail traffic (apples, containers, tank car of water from my water plant, covered hopper of sugar, and finished product out). What do you guys think?
Good idea. It’s always nice when you can model a couple of industries that not only are representative of your area but which can do some interchange of cars.
And, from the Index of Magazines, here’s a citation for an article about bottling fire water:
“From barrels to bottles” Model Railroader, March 2001, page 74 A model Seagram’s bottling plant provides a destination for tank cars ( BOTTLING, “HEDIGER, JIM”, INDUSTRY, PLANT, SEAGRAM, STRUCTURE, PROTOTYPE, MR )
Bob
NMRA Life 0543
