I will be building an L-shaped layout in a 9’x11’ basement room with a helix at each end to take trains to hidden staging under the deck. I am considering some sort of loads-in/empties-out operation over the corner/behind the scenery. I don’t have tons of room (who does?), but the road I’m freelancing has NO coal traffic of any signifigance. It is set in the 80’s, and industries planned include a grain elevator, heating-oil distributor, cement kiln, perhaps some sort of food processing and/or machinery manufacturer. Has anybody got any ideas, what I could do for LI/EO other than coal? I’d appreciate your input!
Loads in, empties out is usually designed for open top loads. So you would have to find what industries ship open top loads in your area if you don’t have coal. Could be a quarry/concrete plant for open top hoppers of gravel. You might be able to have a lumber mill or gypsum board plant and a building material wholesaler/distribution center to handle centerbeams of plywood/lumber/drywall. You could have a ore mine and a smelter. A rolling mill and a steel fabricator for gons of steel. A rolling mill and a stamping plant/auto parts plant for gons or flats of steel coil.
The other way to look at it isn’t a strictly loads in/empties out, but to make it two interchanges. Instead of LI-EO, have one track deliveries, one track pulls. By making them interchanges you can route literally ANY car that way, empty/load/open/closed. Any commodity. Want to run helium tanks and wide loads, route them interchange to interchange.
Dave H.
On a small layout, you can have a loads one way, empties the other without modeling both termini. My plan, on a layout which is not especially small, is for the loaded coal trains to appear at the mine (exchanged for an identical train of empties) and disappear into the tunnel portal that leads to down staging. The empty train appears from that same tunnel, travels to the mine and gets pushed under the tipple, vanishing forever from the ken of man (until it reappears at the tunnel portal again ‘hours’ later.) Inside the mountain, the loop back to the mine separates from the mains, which drop down another layer to staging.
Granting that a coal mine would be inappropriate for your location and era, what did your local power plant burn? Coal might still be an appropriate product. Otherwise, gravel or some agricultural product that travels in open-tops (sugar beets?)
While your grain elevator is suggestive, it would usually be served by closed cars. Only the state of the truck springs would differentiate loads from empties.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I disagree that loads in/empties out is limited to open top cars. The idea is that you don’t want to put a cut of cars in a siding and then pull it out as either one immediately. All you need are two industries that use the same type car. A large industry in the corner or two that are L shaped can hide the tracks and the curving connection. A furniture plant and a super market warehouse, Television and radio producer, publisher, And compsny that makes something could both receive or ship numerous box cars. Just put the buildings out from the backdrop so the sidings can pass behind the buildings and come out on the other side.
I’ve been working on a system to do similar. Not sure I have all the bugs out yet, but it involves magnets. In the grain elevator, there’s a magnetic arm on a spring. Then you have open hopper loads (coal [which we can scratch out here] gravel, etc) fronm the loads you can buy from Walthers/Athearn/others. a quick push on some hidden lever, a new load plops down in your car, and an empty becomes a full. the reverse happens at wjatever stops, plus the magnets in the laod wiill allow them to stack and you can offload several cars. Operator may have to pull them out at 5 a time and relopad the elevator, but for the realism, could be fun.
There’s also logging. Which can be done using a manual crane with springs. Operators working the mill have to use theis “pneumatic” carne that opens by spring on a log, then clamps on it, and then they move it on a track to the “mill” which conceals storage area with a slot return below the layout much like those straw holder things at movie theaters.
Dave,Another approach is to model empty/loaded hopper trains from staging “B” going to staging “A” and loads from “A” to “B”.These trains would need restaged between operation sessions.
On the other hand many use loads in/empties out on their logging railroads.
As far as loads in/empties out I still feel its a valuable foam of operation and contrary to popular belief two trains with the same engines and car numbers is not needed nor desired.
Why? Simple.Time is needed to “unload” or “load” those unit trains.
Thanks for your input, guys!
As far as the coal/power-plant issue is concerned, I forgot to mention that I’m modelling a privatized branch line in post-German Federal Railway Germany, in the northern Bavarian province of Central Franconia. There are no mountains, no coal deposits, and no coal burning power plants in the region. Our local power is generated primarily by gas and uranium. The idea of gravel/crushed rock and cement kiln might work, as these are typical industries in the region. A rolling mill for steel coils might work as well, 'cause there are a number of steel industries in the region. Also typical are plastic molding plants; they’d get loads of plastic pellets, but those come in covered hoppers, mostly from Rotterdam.
Bavaria’s 2nd largest lumber mill is located on our local branch line. They receive logs and ship finished lumber and wood chips via rail. I’d model that, but I can’t figure out how to get loads and empties of log cars from the saw mill to the log loading station at the same time as the loaded and empty centerbeams from the sawmill to the building supply distributor’s. The wood chip cars are covered gondolas, so that part of operations would be easier to realistically model.
Anyway, keep coming at me with your ideas!
Your machinery manufacturing operation could ship large machines via flatcar or gondola. There are a number of flatcar loads, both open and tarp-covered, that would be applicable here.
Here’s a link to a product which actually can load and unload a flatcar. It’s designed to operate “behind the scenes,” such as inside a structure or hidden by scenery.
http://www.dallasmodelworks.com/products/product_detail_accessories.asp?ItemNumber=DMW-101