A while back I had orginally Planned my layout to Be an NS in West Virginia, But that has since Changed, when I followed something I really wanted to do. So Now I model a Fictional ATSF/BNSF and NS Joint line. I have space for a large industry on my layout and I built some sidings just to store cars for now and kind of get an Idea for what I would like to do. After putting some Auto racks in one spot and some boxcars in another I started thinking that this would be an excellent space for an Auto Assembly plant. I do live by a GM Plant but its too hard to get to the interior where all the switching happens. We mostly get 86’ Boxs, Flats with Truck frames on them and Empty racks. I was wondering if there was anything else that went into them, Maybe like Tanks full of Paint? Is there any scrap that comes out of the plant? Would it make sense for there to a Stamping center on site for coil cars to come into?
You should try Google Earth and look for the Ford plant next to Cleveland Hopkins airport. There’s a huge rail yard right there. I’m sure you could see everything that goes in and out of the plant.
Back when GM had a plant in Baltimore, I mostly saw the large parts boxcars coming in, and full auto racks going out. That’s not to say there isn’t other traffic. You probably wouldn’t have much scrap coming out of an assembly plant, that would more likely come from a body panel stamping facility. I’m sure the factory rolled out a few duds, but since it’s GM, they wouldn’t tell anyone till somebody bought it! (Anyone who ever had a Chevy Citation knows what I’m talking about!)
Anyway, if you plan to model a stamping facility, you’d have coil steel cars going in, and lots of scrap coming out, plus loaded 60 and 85’ boxcars going out. An assembly plant would have to have a lot more space, since you’d want to represent the holding yard where all the vehicles are stored prior to shipment.
The plant in Baltimore was originally served by the Canton Railroad, which did the switching 24-7. At the end, CSX did the work. The relatively small yard that served it is called Penn Mary, having at one time served as an interchange between the PRR, B&O and Canton. Good idea to check the aerials. That would also serve to suggest a track plan.
At the Delmarva Model Railroad Club, I constructed a mock up for an assembly plant. It was partially completed when the plans changed and everything was removed.
The tracks to the left were the inbound yard and unloading tracks, and the outbound auto racks were loaded on the right. This was N scale, and occupied about a 3’ x 4’ right triangle and the tracks connected to the main via a short branch behind the camera. It could handle a dozen or more auto racks, and about 20 cars inbound and outbound. It’s a great source for a llot of traffic.
One of my great disappointments was the failure of Walthers to produce it’s Auto series in N scale. I always thought the buildings in HO were way too small, with the exception of the dealership building. In N, you can spread out a bit, and have room for a much more realistic facility.
They gave the usual excuse “we didn’t sell enough in HO to justify running it in N”… Apples and oranges, I say.
The Cleveland Ford plant is an engine plant complex. They have 3 main buildings there. Plants 1 and 2 are engine assembly plants. The third building is a foundry where they make the engine blocks.
If you chose to model this facility, you could include hoppers cars filled with coal for the foundry. You would still have the box cars to haul out the engines to plants elsewhere.
MR, either this month or last, had an article about auto-boxcars and auto-racks. It gives a nice history of the development of systems for transporting autos on trains.
Oh, you mean that car my wife bought before we got married? Got about 5 miles from the dealer and died. “Oh, that’s not our problem,” they said. Well, turns out they’d run the wiring harness right on top of the exhaust manifold, so it fried the first time the engine got up to temperature. The paint job was bad, and the front end wouldn’t stay in alignment, either. GM kept giving us the runaround, so she called her dad. Turns out, a call from the former Chief Engineer of Cadillac straightens things out pretty quickly. [:D]
Oh come on loathar - the Vega was one of GM’s finest!!! Except for the engine and a few other details!!! How did they take care of the problem? Crush it?!![:P]
The pervious comments are correct about a ‘final assembly’ plant, not many gons. However, an operation of that scope would have the occasional need for a gon or 2 outbound with scrap as well as tank cars for supporting fluids of the assembly etc.
I didn’t catch your scale, if your N you could expand to something like the Ford Rouge complex. You have it all from blast furnace to final assembly at one location, a large location but still one. In HO I can’t imagine doing something of that scale in less than a small building. But in either case use whatever compression works for your layout space/you can live with.
At an assembly plant how would the lube oil and hydraulic fluid(s) be delivered?
Would most loads - engines, panels, windshields - be palletised and shifted around by fork lifts?
How about a tractor plant or truck plant for a change… for a start they seem to be much easier to get models of than autos.
I worked at a factory making diggers from a mix of raw steel and brought in components. This is the best of both worlds. The H frame parts were burnt/cut from 8x20 sheets of steel up to 1.5" thick before being welded up. The scrap from this went out like skeletons with a huge amount of air in the load… they were two thick to bend/crush up easily. I think a full roll-off dumpster was pretty heavy anyway.
Occasionally a whole frame or boom went wrong somewhere in the process and was scrapped as a lump… not often!
Buckets and blades came in ready made… nice load. Cabs wer also brought in on flat trucks… part wrapped in bubble wrap where they might get scratched/dented. Sometimes the ready fitted winshields were cracked or broken.
Engines came in (from Japan) in about 4’x6’ or 6’x8’x3’high wooden bottom crates with corrugated galvanised steel sides and thin flat metal tops. The frame inside holding between 2 and 6 engines also provided support for double stacking but no more. We had an immense amount of scrap wood (mostly 3"x3" stuff that wains and shakes like crazy) from the frames and scrap metal from the sides and tops. I got pass-outs for a load of the sides to make a train shed but changed my mind… they are now fencing a dog rescue centre. The top stuff was very bendy and no use for anything I could figure. While the sides stacked on edge or flat in a scrap load the tops bent up and got squashed wherever they fitted.
Paint to modern assemby plants doesn’t come in tank cars. (Not sure it ever did, but maybe someone else remembers.) It comes in large square/rectangular (square base, but height dimension maybe 20-25 percent more than sides of base) stainless steel containers called totes. These are brought in in boxcars, and taken into pump rooms by fork lift lifting through the open frame base of the tote. Empty totes then hauled out by boxcar. Gasoline, motor oil, grease delivered by semi-trailer. (Maybe once by tank car…maybe someone else remembers.) Lots of hi cube 86 foot boxcars for metal stampings, engines, transmissions, with 50 foot cars for the thousands of miscellaneous parts that go into cars and trucks. Tires come in semi-trailer loads or boxcars.
Finished products sit in huge parking lots awaiting shipment by two or three level auto racks. Pickup trucks on two level racks, cars on three. Once these were open, now all closed due to vandalism. Loaded circus style from an end ramp. (Walthers has/had good model of the loading ramp.)
The auto plant where I worked had two tracks that ran all the way through the building, engine pulled out from one end twice a shift, and reloaded from the opposite end. The plant was between a quarter and a half a mile from end to end. A switching yard was at one end of the plant on railroad property.
Hope this information helps with your project.
A little editing (thanks to dti406’s contribution). As he says below, 86 foot cars are used primarily for metal stampings. And, as I recalled after reading that, there would be more 60 foot cars for engines, transmissions, and such. Very few 50 foot. Engines, transmissions, windshields all shipped in specially designed racks which are then reloaded empty into the same cars for shipment back to source factory. For that matter, sheet metal is handled the same way. The only time I
In the old days, paint came in drums as did most of the lubicants and such. Gasoline was supplied by tank truck. Subassemblies would come by rail or truck, depending on how far from the plant the supplier was located. I have a hunch the same is true today, considering assembly plants are located in many areas of the country.
One of the things in favor of increased rail traffic is the fact more and more components have been outsourced in the past 10-15 years. With “just-in-time” scheduling of deliveries, a modern auto assembly plant could justify lots of car movements.
Well, for a reasonable prototype, I would research the huge Ford plant located south of the Louisville International Airport in Louisville, Ky. They always have a long string of autoracks lining the spur leading from CSX’s Osbourn Yard.
As for the flats with truck frames on them, I’m willing to bet that those came from my neck of the woods. DANA has an assembly plant here in Hopkinsville, KY.
A slight correction, many of the heavy items such as engines, transmissions, bumpers, auto glass, batteries, etc come in by 60’ box cars rather than the 86’ box cars. If you filled up an 86’ with engines the load limits would be exceeded. the 86’ box cars were mainly used for the large stampings such as hoods, trucks, quarter panels and roofs which don’t weigh a lot but take up a lot of room.
Hello I live by Twinsburg chrysler stamping plant go past on way to work. They have a yard that brings stuff in and out 90% is boxcars cannot see any prats (doors,hoods,decklids,ect). Do see some gons with scrap once in a while. The yards has 6 or so lines looks like 4 for them and 2 for the lime stone place on other side of yard. Can not see back of plant to whats on line back there. There is a ford stamping plant in Northfield and there yard is the same with out the stone plant they are both off of the ns line that goes from Cleveland and alliance. hope this helps Frank
How far is that from Berea? (I was up there in 2005, but I don’t remember now.) If it’s not too far, the tower area might be a great thing to model. Lots of traffic around there.
Hey guys, I’ll chime in a little. I am not an expert, but I have been into several Auto plants here in the Detroit area and I also work for Dow Chemical in the Automotive group.
Most brakefluids and antifreeze products and other fluids are now being delivered in tanker trucks, not rail cars. In some cases these fluids would arrive in large 330 gallon magna drums(Totes).
The Ford, GM and DCX plants around here all have several spurs fed into the plant that Box cars will pushed into. These cars usually sit for a day or two as they get unloaded and then a switcher comes in to get them and builds a train in a siding outside the plant. Most frames, engines, doors and other large items that are common to every car being built at that plant are sent in by train. A lot of the smaller stuff like steering wheels and other trim items that determine the exact model of a car will be sent in by truck just in time, usually based on customer orders. JIT and trying to reduce inventories has really impacted the use of railroads at the auto plants. I suspect, though, that as the cost of gas increases, we will see a lot more use of railroads.
All the plants around here that I have visited seem to have one or two sidings feeding into the property and then quickly branching out all over so that cars can be delivered to different parts of the plant. There will also be a large yard area that is filled with autoracks waiting to be loaded. Another large yard will have all the loaded and empty box cars waiting to be delivered or taken away.
Some of the largest plants like Ford Rouge that make everything acually have thier own railroad.
I’m not sure what era you want to model.However here is a older plant that dates back to the 1930’s and was closed around 1984(?)It started out as a Fisher Body plant making car bodies and later it made interior car parts.If you have google earth.Type in 20001 Euclid Ave,Euclid Ohio.The building is still in use.Now it houses a company that specializing in storage and another business that sells industrial surplus.About 10 years ago I had a chance to go into the building.Pretty neat.It still has all of the rails in place and the building quite large.
Berea tower is down the road form the Ford Brookpark plant
The Rouge plant is an annomally to all the auto plants everywhere else. They make their own steel and at one time their own glass. They receive iron ore, coal and limestone by boat to feed their blast furnace and have hot metal cars to transport the molton steel to the rollers to make their own sheet steel.
I attended the 1978 convention and we were given the opportunity for a special tour and were allowed to take our cameras into the plant to take pictures of the in-plant railroad engines and hot metal cars, but due to union rules we were not allowed to take pictures of the plant and workers within.
Many parts were produced at this plant that were shipped to assembly plants all over the United States. Parts that were shipped west went via the DTI-Wabash with connections west from Kansas City.
