Need some help guys, trying to decide what color(s) to paint my Magic Pan Bakeries kit. It’s going to be on my layout as a Pepsi Warehouse, distribution center. What do you guys think?
http://www.traintimehobby.com/product_images/q/240/09330000002915__64040_zoom.gif
I’m not sure that a distribution center/warehouse would have those vertical tanks. But that’s not relevent to the question. There is a Pepsi warehouse/distribution building near where I live. It’s just a nondescript white-ish block building. I think any color would do, including the colors on your link. All that you would need would be some appropriate Pepsi signage. I think the local building here actually had a large Pepsi painted on the building side wall.
That two story brick part of the building is also an unlikely addendum to a warehouse. I would remove that part and the tanks and keep them in your scrap box for future projects. Whether that means a patch of brick material is needed to cover the missing parts I do not know, but should be an easy enough modification since that end of the building would at most likely have a door or two, not windows.
But the basic business office + four bay warehouse portion of the structure is very well suited to your purpose.
Based on the era of the building i think the old fashioned very dark red bricks so common in the 1920s, or the yellowish cream brick we see alot of here in Milwaukee, would not be the best choice. I think a lighter colored “modern” brick, or the browner shade I see on newer structures where the brick is largely an ornamental overlay, would be a good choice. They’d also make the structure look a bit bigger.
There are many websites from brick suppliers devoted to color choices and I cannot begin to give all the links that I quickly found in a Google search. But this one is interesting because it has a commercial brick portion of the site
http://www.colorplan.com/default.aspx?pageid=4
and even more interestingly recognizes that there are definitely regional preferences!
Dave Nelson
We have a Pepsi distributor in Dickinson, I have been in there several times. Smaller than that building, but 100% functional. I guess they rented a building and simply used all of it as best they could. It is a White building.
On the outskirts of Dickinson is 'Baker Boy" a huge commercial “bakery” with all of those tanks and things. But they do not really “bake” anything. The work the product all the way through but instead of an oven it goes into a huge freezer system and then the products are wrapped, boxed and shipped frozen. Mostly to restaurants and other bakeries for finishing.
LION had a bakery on his previous layout. He called it the “Amiracle Baking Company” The sign read “If its Fresh Its a Amiracle”.
ROAR
I’d start by taking a look at present-day Pepsi Bottlers in your area. For this post, I used my hometown of Columbus, OH as an example. I just went to Bing Maps and searched for “Pepsi, Columbus, OH” and found this:
http://binged.it/AduGld
By using Birdseye images you can see a “helicopter’s eye view” and even rotate around a business - for example the link I sent is facing the south when most maps are biased with North as “up”. So this is a great way to explore what’s “behind the fence” at many industries. For example, you can see this rail-served industry’s unloading facility - but it’d require trespassing or maybe if you’re lucky, a helpful tour guide to see otherwise - and not from above as your models are likely to be viewed. 
Since Bing didn’t have “Streetside” imagery for this location (I prefer it to Google where available for it’s higer angle and better image quality) I pasted the address into Google Maps to look at their “Street View” of the front of the building:
http://www.google.com/maps?q=1241+Gibbard+Ave,+Columbus,+OH&hl=en&ll=39.983318,-82.970719&spn=0.008582,0.016512&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=70.689889,135.263672&hnear=1241+Gibbard+Ave,+Columbus,+Ohio+43219&t=m&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.983318,-82.970719&panoid=yRr3zGkk0sWvPgJ60FzwEA&cbp=12,183.48,,0,3.63
This allows you to collect good ideas for adding realism to your layout without going out in the cold or wandering around in a dangerous neighborhood.
Note the “Tour Exit” seen in the image - that indicates that you could probably get a tour an
The Pepsi facility here is not near any rail connection,does Pepsi use rail.
Only when they make deliveries to the LION!
LION denies that I am addicted to the stuff.
Having inspected a number of pop bottling/distribution plants and diary processing/distribution plants the Magic Pan Bakery kit would be quite typical with the tanks of those types of buildings.
My plan for this kit is like i stated before, a distrubition center/ botting facility. I’ve got 6 reffer cars I’ll have staged next to the building and I’d like to add some piping coming from the silos to some corn syurp cars as to give the idea they also make the soda there too. I think after looking at some photos I’m going to go with a grey color for both buildings with some Pikestuff blue panels around the top of the main warehouse, and of course with the right signage. Thanks for your input guys!
Considering my post right above yours discusses the rail-served Pepsi bottler in Columbus, OH, yes, I’d say that Pepsi uses rail.
Here is my Magic Pan Bakery with the Walthers Stamping Plant to make it bigger ( still need to do some interior detailing. Mixing a couple warehouse like building could give you more loading and unloading options.
I don’t claim to be an expert on terminology, but the original question concerned a warehouse/distribution facility. I think that there would be a difference between that type facility and a bottling facility.
I believe a bottling plant would have a different set of incoming loads, and would tend to ship in bulk to various warehouses around their geographical area. I can see how such a facility would have storage tanks, etc.
On the other hand, a warehouse/distribution facility would be a place that all those trucks you see making deliveries to your neighborhood deli and grocery go to get loaded up. I don’t see any reason for there to be any storage tanks at such a place.
I have seen buildings that were both bottling plant and distribution warehouses combines. These were regional plants. In some cases there were more than one tenant in the warehouse portion of the buildings.
One particular use, dairy products, in the 1950’s just about every city had its own dairy product processor. The products made on site were milk, cheese, ice cream, butter. The finshed products were then distributed, the area served would have been small by todays standards.
Another use, would of course be a bakery, and in the 1950’s bottling plants for the varioius cola’s were located in just about every city. Today, there are only a few plants, however they are very large.
A few of these were served by rail but the majority of goods coming and going were served by truck transport. The majority of these buildings were built in the 1950’s.
In the 1950’s the majority of goods were transported by rail, but that has changed drastically, especially in the 1970’s.
I used to get a list from the railroads of each siding they had in place serving customers, there are probably only around 15% to 20% of the sidings in place from their peak in the 1950’s.
I was a commercial appraiser for 30 years and have inspected thousands of buildings during that time frame and a lot were light industrial/processing plants.
Finished for now, just need to find final home for it and add scenery.
Front Entrance
Truck Docks
Rail docks, complete with some retro signs!
You got a lot done over the weekend, looking GOOD! It should fit in really nice on your layout. Those little vending machines are cool!
Yes i understood the original poster to be interested in a distribution factility, not a bottling operation, and his (very nicely done) modification of the kit looks very plausible to me.
A bottling plant, if large enough, can indeed be an interesting operation on a railroad. One of the more unusual side aspects of a bottling plant is the handling of cullet – the bits of broken glass that are a natural consequence of bottling, particularly with returnable bottles. The Schlitz brewery here in Milwaukee used to ship it out in hopper cars and gons. And I can recall railfanning the facility that took the cullet in bulk – due to leaks in the cars the roadbed between the rails sparkled in the sun like a bed of diamonds. The only other place I have seen that is an industrial spur that leads to a glass plant in Streator IL. And that in turn is a good reminder to wipe your shoes thoroughly before going indoors after a day of railfanning.
Dave Nelson
Does it matter? Unless the OP is attempting to create an accurate scale model of a specific area or building, he can make it a rail-served facility if he wants to.
Having worked at Coca-Cola’s Park Royal distribution center, which handles distribution of Coca-Cola products (Waaaaay more better than Pepsi! [:)] ) to Western London and its suburbs, I can tell you that a distribution center, with no bottling capacity, is just a REALLY big warehouse with lots of room for forklifts and trucks, staging areas for truck loads, and some office area where orders are taken and routes planned for the trucks. And this one was rail-served, FWIW.
The Coca-Cola plant in Charlotte NC is served by CSX two tracks running in a building,looks like three tank cars per track can be unloaded.
I assume since Russell asked, it mattered to him. 
Since he is planning to have mechanical reefers at the plant, it will definitely not be prototypical.
For those of you who are Seinfeld fans: “Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum!”