Have a look at Model Railroad Planning 1999. Page 66. “Big Industries in Small Spaces: Industrial Dominoes” by Linda Sand. She draws up track plans for 6-7 different corner industries which each has 3-5 tracks and quite a few car spots for different types of cars.
Smile,
Stein
Rather more than that. Two locomotive-hauled round trips - miners from the valley one way, schoolkids the other (no school busses on the goat trails that pass for roads in the high reaches of the Tomikawa Valley.) Four total round trips by a four-wheel diesel railbus to handle the ‘retail’ passengers, mostly women going to the ‘big city’ to shop for things the company store doesn’t carry. All strictly prototypical for the place and era I’m modeling - and it does make dispatching interesting.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
A possibility is a composite roof shingle plant. It could receive tankcars of asphalt, covered hoppers of roofing granules (I have seen 2 bay to 3 bay covered hoppers), and boxcars of glass mat (or materials to make glass in covered hoppers). It could ship boxcars of the shingles.
Also, many oil refineries produce petroleum coke that could be shipped in open top or covered hoppers (depending on the grade?). Of course there could be several types of tankcars hauling out products. Tankcars could bring ethanol and some other materials in. There could be an occasional shipment of catalysts in covered hoppers.
Some canneries will receive corn syrup by rail and ship products in boxcars.
The Tropicana plant (which is mentioned in an article in the March 2000 issue of trains) ships out by-products used a cattle feed in covered hoppers, orange juice and possibly other drinks in mechanical reefers, and types of drinks that do not need refrigeration in RBLs. It also looks like they may receive paperboard in boxcars, plastics in covered hoppers, and glass additives in covered hoppers. I did not see any short covered hoppers, so it did not look like they receive sand by rail. If you model one way out in the groves, perhaps you could add LPG tankcars.
Perhaps you could model some type of machine manufacturer. It could receive cars of coiled steel (or aluminum) sheets, flatcars and/or gondolas of structural steel, and covered hoppers for plastic pellets. It could ship tarped load on flatcars and/or loads inside of boxcars out.
The local snack food manufacturing plant receives corn in regular covered hoppers, flour in Pressureaide hoppers, potato flakes in Pressure Differential hoppers, and vegetable oil in tankcars. You could easily add sugar in Airslide (for variety) hoppers and/or corn syrup in smaller tankcars. Perhaps they could ship or receive something in mechanical reefers and RBLs.
That roofing plant will need bulk tanker loads of crushed Limestone. It generated lots of shingle loads on flatbeds with tarp and roofing rolls also on flatbeds. Come to think of it Van trailers did not do much work.
Ive run em into that Tamko Facility in Frederick years ago out of a quarry along rte 30 east of Gettysburg.
There is a facility near Finksburg (A cookie if you find it) that recieved hoppers of stone and sand. Some of which went into Road Surfacing and the rest out on trucks for various projects related to road building and other works.
The sand went out to ready mix plants that were constantly hungry for the stuff.
Out west in Dumas and other facilities there are gondolas (Hides/flies) Bulk hoppers, tank cars (Edible/non edible fats) and some of the sorriest variety of other rolling stock in the meat plants; particularly those that slaughter and render cattle hides and other goodies.
Some mines in precious metals recieved drums of hush hush chemicals which if used would result in much money being minted out of the ores that they dig up. Half the time I never knew exactly what I was hauling.
There is several Defense facilities around the east coast and other locations that cannot exist without railroad something coming and going at all hours of the day. I think the quietest work is done around the ammo/explosives cars if any.
Cynide, H2SO4, HF, HNO3 and other fun acids that are needed to break the precious metal away from the native rock. Depending on the size of the operation they may only need catalysts to make the acids. Since it was coming in in drums, it’s less likely it was the acid or Cynide itself and more likely a catalyst. All ya need is Water, Catalyst medium and any sufler bearing rocks and you can pretty much start mining Lead, Arsenic, Sulfer, Gold, Silver, Copper, Mb, Mn, and other fun metals.
So I take it you’re a railroader? They hauled animal hides in Gons? I thought those were strictly dilapidated boxcar jobs.
One can transport acids in drums, chem lab used HCL that wouldn’t go through it’s bottle. And some of it wasn’t all that diluted.
No Im not a railroader. Trucking was my game for years until I got out of it past 9-11. That was a bad day to remember.
Those gons were near the plant and I aint going to fight the flies for a peek ugh lol.
Cheers.
I am planning a steel and building material recycling plant. Loads in include just about any type of junk machinery and parts on flat cars and gondolas. Loads are put through a shredder, then the scraps are separated by material for recycling. Then the empties can be used for shipping out the shredded steel or materials. I also plan to have cubed materials shipped out in gondolas, as well as other scrap material. For the shredded steel, I have been modifying boxcars by cutting the roofs off and creating hi-side gondolas. I have also seen coalveyor hoppers with hi-sides added hauling shredded material in the Palmer,MA yard, of which I plan to make a few myself. You could also use tank cars for any leftover fluid in machines or vehicles for example, and any type of open-top car should work for hauling the shredded materials.
There is a notable exception to the ‘all reefers are iced’ rule: Canned goods. My shortline shipped a lot of evaporated milk and canned fruit, all in reefers, none were iced. It was an early (or poor man’s) insulated boxcar. Canned goods don’t like to be frozen or boiled (depending on the season)!
Also, most canneries didn’t make their own cans. I think they would come inbound in bulk in boxcars. Cans stacked on their sides from floor to ceiling, with plywood bulkheads on either side of the doors. Unloaded with ‘hand racks’ and put on rolling conveyors that could be positioned in the cars.
Andy
Hi Flashwave,
Could you please let me know where I can get a copy of “Classic Railroads You Can Model”?
Is it a single volume, if not which issue has the brewery article?
Thanks,
John
Single book, around 18 bucks. Or you can read this webpage
Since you mentioned a grain MILL (I’m assuming “cars” was a mistype)…let’s explore that option. Let me preface my comments with the fact that I am a locomotive engineer for Norfolk Southern, so I am getting my information direct from the source.
<>In decades prior, often grains were shipped in box cars, however all grain mills today receive product in covered hoppers. Typical commodities to a grain mill/feed mill will include covered hoppers of soybean, corn, wheat midds, etc. And I recently discovered that sometimes even meat scraps are loaded into hopper cars. They are marked as “inedible”, and I’m not totally sure what the grain mills do with such product, but they do get it. It is listed as “blood” on the commodity code. The only mills I’ve seen get this are pet food mills. Also these mills sometimes receive lime or ammonium nitrate or other such product in covered hoppers. One mill we serve is a cargill mill that also receives a lot of tank cars in addition to covered hoppers. The tank cars contain such products as vegetable oils, soybean oil, corn syrup, a product they call “soap” which I’m not 100% sure what is, molasses, etc.
This particular cargill mill sometimes reloads hoppers and ships out. I’m not totally sure what they reload, I’m assuming processed soybean, since that is the bulk of what they receive in hoppers.
<>Some of the steel and metal works businesses we serve receive bulkhead
A trick I’ve always liked is to give your industries a nondescript name such as “John Doe Manufacturing” or “XYZ Industries”, then you can spot any kind of car there because no one knows exactly what they make (or do) in that bulding.
Thanks for the information re: Classic RR’s You Can Build. Just bought a copy.
Any ideas where I can get information as to the types and ownership of cars used (deliveries and shipments), ie: railroad hoppers, box cars,tank cars vs bewery owned, also brewery owned reefers (did they use “billboard” cars as MicroTrain and Con Cor offer) vs. railroad owned?
Thanks,
John
Another trick is to have the ability to process most if not all car types. Some in the industry and the rest in town nearby. That way you can, combined with generic names; change the matrix to suit your mood at the moment. Appliances one day, Paper the next for example.
Here’s an interesting one from an actual railroad situation. The Denver & Salt Lake, otherwise known as the Moffat Road, was substantially a coal hauler going eastbound to Denver from the mines on the west side of the continental divide. It was chronically short of the heavy gondolas it built to handle this traffic. When the mines ran out of these cars for loading, they had to shut down, not profitable for the mines or the railroad. This happened often because the railroad (before the construction of the Moffat Tunnel) operated over Rollins Pass where winter lasted nine months of the year and snow was possible in any month.
When no gondolas were available because of snow blocking the road, the railroad provided just about anything. Boxcars, stock cars, refrigerator cars, flats with side boards, hopper cars from other roads. If it had a place to put coal, it would be used at some time or another. Many of these cars would arrive on westbound trains loaded with who-knows-what, but they went east with coal. So it would be perfectly proper to use these cars in a situation like this. I am sure there are other similar examples in other places and times and on other railroads. You can come up with your own story and have some fun with it.
If you are modeling a rural setting, you might consider a “farmer owned cooperative”. Typically these businesses purchase the grain of their farmer-owners, and in turn supply them with feed & fertilizer products.
Modern era rail cars that would be involved include:
From limited knowledge, most modern tank cars and hoppers are privately owned. if it was a large buisness, such as Schlitz, they might own their own reefers. Billboards went away around '37, since any bum could figure out what was in it, and if he wanted a nice cold brew. They also proved to not be very cost effective for the RRs, since they couldn’t really haul anything else in them. Gons are usually RR owned, and modern flats are frequently owned by a third party such as TTX. From there, I start wading into unknowns
Hi Flashwave,
Thanks for the help, the era(s) I that chose to model is variable, roughly from the transition era into the BN era (up through the 80’s).
It seems reasonable to assume that the ownership of the various types of cars wouldn’t change drastically from that period to the present.
FW:
Most modern tanks and hoppers are owned by leasing companies like Union Tank Car (UTLX) and leased to shippers, who may or may not have their own graphics on the car. The reporting marks will be for the lessor: UTLX, GATX, SHPX, ACFX, etc.
Plain ol’ black tank cars with UTLX etc. are (obnoxiously) harder to come by in the model RR world than the real one. This is annoying, but at least it’s not as bad as it used to be, and at least there’s steam era cars that look good now.
The billboard cars were banned in 1934, for reasons more related to securities than security. You were still allowed to put your name on the car, just not bigger than 12", and although there were lots of hoboes on the road back then, and prohibition had just ended, there doesn’t seem to have been a rash of beer thefts. (You Decepticons are so stuck on that hydrocarbon-theft thing!)
Apparently this was the issue: the ICC considered the ad revenue generate