The following are the only companies i could think of that uses the railroad. I could only think of the following:
-Lumberyards
-steel mills
-power plants
-truck-train terminal buildings
If I’m missing any, please add on.
Note: All eras and locations are acceptable. This is for pure conversation. If anyone gain any ideas congratulations and if you do not, then, oh well. This is for pure talk.
How about Stock yards, meat packing plants,coal and iron mines, quarries, oil storage, saw mills, Coke and gas retorts, auto transport, to name just a few that I have on my layout. Bob Hahn
Could you consider powder cement plant an industry? Not the construction mobile plant, but the ones in factories who uses boxcars?
Not as much today, but yes definately. There a a few extremely large ones in Pennsylvania.
Off of my railroad, you can also add Breweries and food.drink production, heavy machinery shops, oil companies, plasitc product manufacturers who order the plastic pellets by the hoppercar full, lumbermills, co-ops,
Do you have a time period in mind? That might make a difference as some businesses used railroads in the past and no longer do so. Here’s my list of rail served businesses that I am considering or have seen. MR has a series of newstand books out on line side industries and how to model them. I think there are four or five now.
Grain Elevators
Seed packaging for agriculture.
Feed Mills for livestock.
Oil dealers and refiners.
Coal dealers.
Furniture manufacturers.
Meat distribution warehouse.
Wholesale grocery warehouse.
Building contractor supply yard.
Junk yard or metal reclamation facility.
Less Than Carload (LCL) transfer facility.
Wholesale hardware distribution warehouse.
Electrical supply warehouse.
Brewery.
Foundry or iron works.
Paper products manufacturer.
Corn syrup distribution facility. Not mine, but it was featured in MRP not too long ago.
any time period.
I mean in general. anytime, any country, any railroad or railway
Add: Ice plants, Railroad Express Agency, and pickle factories – All 3 industries required specialized freight cars.
Don’t forget milk trains picking up the milk cans in the country from a farmer’s pick-up truck + simple platform to a centralized processing facility.
Perhaps a refurbished train station will add “abandoned structure” contrast.
Do not forget freight depots that are connected or inside passenger stations.
Ethanol Plant
Intermodal Yard
Auto Manufacturing Plant
One of the best sources for modern day rail-served industries that I have found is David P. Jordan’s very interesting Peoria Station blog. He goes into great detail as to what is shipped or received: http://peoriastation.blogpeoria.com/
John Timm
war machinery plants
A good place to start for general ideas is the Opsig (Operations Special Interest Group) list of railserved industries: http://www.shenware.com/indman.html
But it’s kind of useless to ask for a general list of industries “anywhere, any period”, and then pick a few at random for a layout. The “tell me everything you know in random order” method has been tried before, many times, and it does not work all that well.
I would suggest picking some location and some era, and then ask some specific questions. There were (and are) tons of industries shipping by rail.
Smile,
Stein
Well I was asking people in general and if you want to bring up everyone enjoyment then you can go elsewhere. I was talking about what I knew and everyone else comment what they knew.
Thank you.
I hate when people who bring negative vibes onto someone else post. These ideas are not for me, but for everyone who commented. I already have my packing and steel mill as well as my concrete plant on my layout and I really do not have enough room for another industry. sorry if you think I’m some idea stealer.
On my layout, I have
paper cup company
limestone quarry
cement plant
feed mill
grain elevator
pulpwood & woodchip
chemical plant
gas & oil distributor
junk yard
frozen food factory
stamped metal products factory
joint compound factory (spackling)
rebar fabricating plant
farm supply company
bakery
a mysterious company that receives high quality paper and black & green ink, but doesn’t ship anything. There are always armored cars parked at the loading dock.
ACME Manufacturing (American Company Making Everything). The consignee is Wil E. Coyote.
Off the layout, but served thru an interchange is a meat packing plant.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
This link is a good start. http://www.opsig.org/reso/inddb/
They have lists in text and Excel format divided into geographically areas.
You have a nice layout. I saw one design preservation. Did you kitbash any?
Okay, that’s kinda cool. This post started out between the post box and the tag box, but it’s not actually in anything. Let’s see where that text ends up, shall we?
No, I don’t think that was meant to be a slam at all. A lot of people have come in here asking for generalized info, or simply badky misworded a post (not me…[:-^]) and then it ends up feeling like a waste of time for the repliers. When that’s not the case, that particular thread seems like an oddball.
So what you are wanting is to just brainstorm industries that were railserved, for the sake of making a list, and not for layout purposes, right? That’s fine by me.
In that thread, let me add in a few more:
My post is in a catergory but you clearly do not see it but thats is ok and It’s funny how I was only talking about industries and not the stuff you were talking about but it’s ok since you want ruin my at the time great post. The stuff you listed someone either already posted it or does not relate to my post but thank you for trying. You can call me odd or without you think of but it wont ruin my post for other people to read and/post.
Btw you are anyone parent in my dicussion with everyone who posted so if you want to increase your ego you should take it elsewhere where people w