While on a recent trip to McMinnville Oregon, my wife indulged my railroad interests with a digital camera. One trackside business I caught on “film” was the McMinnville Gas Co just outside of town near St Joseph Rd. Remembering an article I read about in an MR special issue titled Industries You Can Model, this industry greatly interested me. It’s gated with a siding and has plenty of large tanks all in white. To me, it’s an industry that has lasted a while and is still going strong as propane is still used today. According to the website and lettering on the side of one of the tanks, the business has been around since 1946 so it may be well worth modeling. I would have liked to post pictures but am unsure how to do so, so any suggestions would be helpful.
Propane dealerships make excellent models. There are several in my nearby industrial area, rail-served, so there are always a couple of those white weenies on wheels parked along the edge of the small yard that serves them. A few tanks of various sizes, a few racks of retail (barbecue grill size) tanks, a couple of appropriate trucks and a small office and you’re in the propane business. Interestingly, the predominant color for everything is white.
Unfortunately, they don’t always make good neighbors. One of them put on a good simulation of Vesuvius a few years ago. There was a precautionary evacuation of the nearest houses, but, fortunately, the BLEVEs were small. No major tanks (or rail cars) exploded. Still, we had a midnight sunrise for a few hours that night.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with a very different-looking propane dealer)
Hi!
Propane “sellers” come in all shapes and sizes, which makes it ideal for an MR industry/business. And, they have been around since the popular MR “transition period”, so most anyone can use them on their layout.
Size wise, on the smaller size would be the Mom & Pop seller of “propane and propane accessories” with one or two RR car size tanks and a lot of smaller ones and a small office. On the larger size, you could model one like Mobil Oil owned (since sold) years ago in Hattiesburg, MS. This business resided on a beautiful piece of country property, with two RR sidings for loading and unloading, a hook up to the major pipeline running from Texas to the Northeast US, and several large vertical and horizontal “bullet” tanks. Oh, it was sitting on several salt dome storages beneath the surface, and had fresh water and brine storage ponds to facilitate moving propane in and out of the domes.
Lastly, it also had a truck loading & unloading facility as well, and a large one story office building.
Speaking of salt caverns, you could model this underground storage facility at Bumstead, AZ.