I have a fairly tight N scale layout and I’m curious to know what kind of industries are able to be placed on a passing siding, rather than on a spur of it’s own. I have room for only 2 spurs in the center, but my passing siding is fairly long and can support the placement of at least one structure. I need another customer for my railroad. I’m curious about what else is possible, even if it stretches the prototypical boundry a bit. Pictures would be great.
The key word is “passing” siding. If you want to spot any cars at this industry, it’s not a passing siding anymore. If you really have no way to cut in a swtich for the industry, it’s your pike and modeler’s license goes a long way.
If there’s enough room for the passing siding, can it be shortened just enough for you to place another turnout. Or make the lead into the passing siding the siding for the industry. Then reroute the passing siding back out to the main. This will shorten the passing siding, but it may work for the industry.
My pike is a really small continuous, about 2x6 ft, a mainline that’s 26 ft in length, with 2 passing sidings. That trackage total does not include the sidings or spurs, it is only the lineal ft on the continuous run. It is entirely within reason that running 2 trains in opposite directions on such a small layout would really take up quite a bit of the operator’s attention, thus switching on the siding we’re talking about can be forgotten during this type of running…or, the stop can include a train that has empty cattle cars, for example, that can be loaded in a short time frame. When there’s only one train running more emphasis can be placed on switching, so spotting a car or 2 there is not a big deal.
Or perhaps the better question might be…what industries would allow the car to be loaded quickly while the train is waiting to depart? Or what industry might a railroad own that would allow it this kind of flexibilty of trackage rights?
Like you said, there’s freedom in the license. I’m trying to push the prototypical limits of the space with operational purpose and imagination. I don’t even have a yard, and there’s still some decent amount of railroading “work” that can be done.
The previous answer is correct. If it’s truly a siding that is regularly used for meets and passes, then there’s no industry that will be placed there. Otherwise it’s not a siding, it’s an industrial spur or runner with turnouts on both ends. Plenty of those out there – many of them are former sidings that are now too short for trains, or in a bad place for meets, or both.
Typically once a car is constructively placed (i.e., spotted at the industry), the receiver has at least 24 hours to unload the car and release it before the railroad begins charging him demurrage.
There are historical instances of stock loading being done off a siding, because stock loading is so infrequent that it’s not worth building a spur, and because a single livestock shipment may amount to 40-60 cars. That would be a very expensive track for four or five shipments a year. In that case the railroad just loses use of the siding for 8-12 hours while a stock train loads – the engine shoves the train past. Also there are many instances of one-time or short-period loading of logs, rip-rap, etc., off a siding – nothing permanent though; in that case a spur would be built.
There are also examples of a siding being used both for industry spots and for train meets. In that case a short train would pull past the end of the siding and back in against the car(s) spotted at the industry. This is very common on short lines and branch lines both historically and today. (I even know of some places it’s done on high-density main lines with 80-plus trains a day.)
By the way “passing siding” is really an incorrect term as about 99% of what happens at sidings are meets, not overtakes. Just “siding” is preferred. I hear a lot of people I work with at railroads use “passing sidings” anyway, though.
S. Hadid
Not an “industry,” exactly, but a passenger station would have all the characteristics you need. If you’re running steam, then coal and water facilities might work for you as well. A train of refrigerator cars could pull up to an icing platform to be “refreshed” en-route without actual unloading.
This is the prototypical situation I was hunting for…it will justify a structure and a stop.
Another good suggestion, it follows the pattern of not spotting cars that block the siding. Similar to the stock yard stop.
lost pic, sorry
bill
Another ‘stop, load, go’ industry would be a creamery, or just a car-floor high platform where milk cans would be assembled for transportion to a creamery elsewhere. Dairy products were not left to sit for 24 hours. The cars usually weren’t even uncoupled from the train - which would often be a local passenger train that carried milk reefers.
Note that this refers to carrying milk in cans (those fireplug-size ones with mushroom caps.) Milk tanks would be spotted and pre-chilled, then loaded just before moving.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
As Gary Cooper would say, “Yup”
In 1957 there was just such a stock-loading facility about 15 miles west of Forsythe, Montana; during beef cut we’d run half a thousand beeves into the holding corrals on the evening before shipping. First thing in the morning a block of fifty to sixty stock cars would show up from Miles City, usually pulled, if I recall, by a pair of rear-cab switchers, although I do remember one time there was a pair of covered wagons on the point. The first car behind the lokes and ahead of the first stock car was always a rider car of one sort or another.
This particular facility had three loading chutes and we could punch (there’s where that word cowpuncher comes from) about nine cars an hour. THE LOKES ALWAYS PUSHED THE CARS WHEN THEY MOVED THEM IN THE SIDING. DON’T ASK ME WHY. This particular siding was probably one hundred and forty cars long; the train started with the loke(s) at the extreme west end and ended with the first three stock cars that had been loaded in the early morning sited just short of the east switch.
We always had a chuck wagon - no, it wasn’t still pulled by horses but was, instead, on the bed of a flatbed pickup truck - on the site and would break for a good nooner and the work could usually be done in about eight ho
A “stop and unload fast” that I have seen (in Trains IIRC) was part of a trestle over a side road. The local county highway department pulled trucks under the bridge to be loaded with rock salt from a covered hopper stood for a very short while on the bridge above. As fas as I recall the train stayed on the main track and the car wasn’t even uncoupled. this may have been a Shortline?
[:)]
NP, I have that illustration already. And I think that a lap siding is a very interesting solution that will give me the best of both worlds. I can still have the meet while the dock is occupied.
Excellent suggestions…many thanks to everyone.
Question. If in a small western town ca 1880, that had one small spur to service one industry, would the passenger station typically be on the main line, (since in this small town the amount of passenger traffic would be very limited) or would they put the passenger station on the industrial spur? I envision the train stopping only to pick up or drop off the occasional passenger. Also didn’t the mail bags get hung out the side of the mail car to be caught by a hook when the train went through the town, and if so does that fit in a ca 1880 setup? And if so was that mail hook located on the platform of the station depot? By the way what was the official name for this “mail bag hook”? I know there was such a thing, but I don’t remember anything about what it was called or when and where it was used. Also I don’t remember reading anything about modeling a “mail handling car”. I would like to have my passenger station on the main line if appropriate rather than the industrial spur. If I added coal and water facitlities, then would the station even have a mail hook or unload the mail bags at the station while stopped to refuel? Comments please.
Woodlandtoots
All this talk about stock yards has me thinking (yes…I know…dangerous). Last week I was looking through a bunch of historical pictures taken along the Santa Fe in Kansas during the 1930s. A lot of the pictures were of small stock pens…most less that 100’x100’ (almost every pic had the pen dimensions as part of the discription) and having only one loading ramp. At the time, I thought that would be something to model if I had the room for another spur. Now I’m thinking maybe they were not set off on a spur by themselves.
Almost always on the main. The passenger trains only stopped long enough for people to board and deboard the train and pulling into a spur would be a waster of time.
Not sure about the 1880’s but they only used the hook on through trains for mail and train orders, not the ones that stopped.
They are called RPO’s (railway post office) I’m not sure when they were first used but 1880’s may predate RPO’s.
A station may have the hook regardless of water and coal facilities as not all trains stopped for refueling.
&nb
Hey, if you get the chance, post a link. I’m leaning hard towards the stock yard and I’d love some prototypes to inspire the project. Here, [:D]I have these to trade from cough another forum cough:
A baggage car or an LCL boxcar might be unloaded fast while the train waits. Either way, the building will probably be near one end of the siding.
Anybody that uses a hopper car can unload fast and clean up the mess later (why would something that can hack being out in the weather also be time-sensitive?). You could have a neat mini-scene where the tracks go over a short shallow trestle and a conveyer belt is ‘where the river ought to be’. The bridge is also the cargo dump spot.