This has some heavy implications griv. Can also increase traffic by having a seperate interchange, like a mostly hidden staging track with all but the last 1 or 2 cars hidden from view, so coupling onto the cut is easier. You certainly have me thinking. Of course, now after typing all that I realize you probably meant the interchange track to be used as staging, where some or all of the car traffic is generated there (inbounds on the interchange, outbounds go to the interchange) but I suppose I mix could be had, say out of 4 industires 3 get switched with cars from staging and 1 industry gets switched with cars from the interchage.
You really got me going griz. My main problem right now is the space I have for track. If I stick with the L shape the only real bet I have is for the track to be on the shorter 10 ft leg. I haven’t operated or anything so I’m in the blue hear, but I figure thats only around 8 or so modern 50’ cars. Mind you the 52 ft mill gondola’s for the scrap yard are 7.25" min and 100T covered hoppers hover around are about 7-3/8", not including coupler length. Assuming I use 22R curve and come out 2 inches from the wall, that will give me about 8’ of onlayout staging track. Now considering modern 50’ cars (lets say average, 54’ coupler-to-coupler length), no caboose, and modern locomotives (around 60’ coupled length), thats only about 10-11 cars. Of course the closer I want the track to the aisle on the long leg the fewer cars (figure 12" less track, 7 foot staging track, 9-10 cars now). Now set the train back a car length or so so it’s totally hidden from view and I’m on
You could put a log loading spur. Warehouses for box cars. manufacturing, for example… a appliance company. they would recieve inbound rolled steel coils and box car going out. also scrap cars going out. how about a parishable warehouse. Fruits, vegetables,and frozen meats. How about a sawmill, brewery, autoparts manufacturer, propane dealer, Faseners distributer. Structual Steel distributer,
Excellent Topic! My layout is only 2’ X 5’ 6". I recently bought the City Classics Carnegie Street Manufacturing Building in HO scale. Perfect for a small or odd space or to kitbash to fit. Model Railroader put out a book a few months back called How to Build Realistic Layouts: Industries you can Model. There is an article in there about a propane bulk plant which would tend to be easy to customize to fit the space needed. There is also a similar Asphalt Plant from the Model Railroader website found under the Articles Tab. Hope this helps.
Hi there - I would think 18 in. is plenty deep for realism. I can’t find it now, but there was a truly excellent article in MR (may have been a cover photo too), showing a prarie grain elevator on a shelf about 5-6" deep, in HO. It was a Canadian region, with one of those gorgeous red Canadian cylindrical grain hoppers. One point in the article was that a technique to draw attention away from the narrowness of the shelf was to make the track and/or roads along the shelf ‘curve’ gently. Actually, I think the only ‘road’ was a grade crossing, very well done.
Maybe somebody can point out the specific MR reference. Good luck - shelf layouts are cool.
My setting wouldn’t lend to well to praire grain elevators and log loading spurs. More of an industrial park setting. Blue skys, some green grass here and there, maybe (hopefully) a tree or two is generic enough to be anywhere from CA to FL to MT to MA and heck, even Canadia land. I like it that way. My railroad name will also be pretty genaric (my spelling is reaaallly off this morning), thinking H&A or A&H. My wifes first initial and the first initial of my nickname (I don’t like the J in my real one). I do have one specific though, a roster with 3 MILW SD10’s, just bought (early 1985), patched out, still in MILW paint. And I will probably end up modeling all 3. I modeled my roster after WSOR’s so at first will just get a few locomotives done to provide some diversity, but with only 10 road units, 6 switchers, 18 mainline units, and 3 executive locomotive units I could most certainly have my entire RR roster modeled, even if my little shelf would never see the FP9/F9B/FP9 executive or SD40 mainline trains.
So, I’ve narrowed it down a little bit yet again. The locomotives used (SD10, GP30, GP38, SW1200, SD40, F9), time frame (1985-early 90’s), and what the heck, setting (mid-east or mid-central). Now if I could just decide on the industries…
If you can splurge and go to a 20" layout depth, you’ve got room for this:
In the fourth picture, that’s the mainline running between the buildings to staging (on the opposite side of the aisle). While this industry is a great traffic generator, it demonstrates that you don’t need a lot of layout depth to model a good-sized industry. It could just as easily be a 19th century brick warehouse, or a modern steel or concrete plastics manufacturer or food processing plant.
My layout is railroad right-of-way 14 -18 inches wide on a shelf, so most of my industries are low relief structures or just industrial flats. The corners have room for a full size structure or two.
By the way, a large proportion of contemporay published layout plans and layout photos consist of shelf-width scenes, so there are countless examples included in monthly MR magazines, the annual MR planning magazine, etc.
MR ran an article two or three months ago (had a train coming out of a powerplant on the cover) that included a decnt building flat.Also, you can try a city trick. Go woder than 18" in a spot, and build a factory,a brewery, almost anythhing that straddles the track. You might look at soemthing like the Budweiser plant in St. Louis, but anythign witha conveyor or that can utilize an over the street/track gerbil tube can do it. Just for flavor.
Feb. '01 issue Flash. I actually didn’t like it. It looked real nice and stuff, but honestly, it was obvious MR built it just to fill a spot. A power plant with an unloading spot big enough to handle one car at a time. I think if they would have modeled it a little differently so MR could have extended the unloading track throught the rotory unloader building into a siding or spur would have been better. Would take a crew forever to unload even the dozen or so loaded gon’s they show the BN U-boats hauling on the issues cover shot. But still, it was a really nice structure.
This has some heavy implications griv. Can also increase traffic by having a seperate interchange, like a mostly hidden staging track with all but the last 1 or 2 cars hidden from view, so coupling onto the cut is easier. You certainly have me thinking. Of course, now after typing all that I realize you probably meant the interchange track to be used as staging, where some or all of the car traffic is generated there (inbounds on the interchange, outbounds go to the interchange) but I suppose I mix could be had, say out of 4 industires 3 get switched with cars from staging and 1 industry gets switched with cars from the interchage.
You really got me going griz. My main problem right now is the space I have for track. If I stick with the L shape the only real bet I have is for the track to be on the shorter 10 ft leg. I haven’t operated or anything so I’m in the blue hear, but I figure thats only around 8 or so modern 50’ cars. Mind you the 52 ft mill gondola’s for the scrap yard are 7.25" min and 100T covered hoppers hover around are about 7-3/8", not including coupler length. Assuming I use 22R curve and come out 2 inches from the wall, that will give me about 8’ of onlayout staging track. Now considering modern 50’ cars (lets say average, 54’ coupler-to-coupler length), no caboose, and modern locomotives (around 60’ coupled length), thats only about 10-11 cars. Of course the closer I want the track to the aisle on the long leg the fewer cars (figure 12" less track, 7 foot staging track, 9-10 cars now). Now set the train back a car length or so so it’s tota
Some smaller power plants unload maybe a dozen cars a day when busy. There are two in MADison of that general size. Both use normal hoppers, not busy enough to need a rotary unloader.
MG+E has an enclosed building that they use to thaw the cars out in winter, and to unload. They use a car mover to move the cars around.
The UW just has a pit that they unload over. Full spot for them is 4 in the plant, 2 more above, and 6 down below. They use a front-end loader to bash the cars around. In winter, unloading slows down a bit when the coal is frozen into the cars.
Shot of the plant. The 2 cars closet to the engine will get spotted between the road and the main. The sixth car in is over the pit.
No you got it Flash, Feb '10 issue. My fingers must not have been working at the same pace as my head that day. Simple typo.
Looks like one their 38-2’s in them pics. The WSOR site has a few 38-2’s on their roster that were builing rebuilt other units, did they rebuild them yet? I’m still lacking lots of information in teh modeling world so when I think of power plants the big boys recieving ` or 2 unit trains of coal everyday come to mind, not the little ones like the UW plant shown. This is really getting to me now, it brings enough traffic to be worth while and it brings some variety in rail cars, whether it’s older hoppers or newer gondolas. We found out the new owner of the apartment is a slum lord so we’re looking at moving as soon as possible, hopefully by April 1, so the railroad is on hiatus, AGAIN. Not only that but now the modeled scale is up in the sky again, don’t even know if I’ll have room for anything. We’re looking at 1 bedrooms but I already got a h*&% no! on building a layout in the living area, so now I won’t know what to do. Keep with HO and an around-the-room shelf competeing with bed space dresser space and a little over 6 foot tall armour? Or slump back down to N scale with a little fold away hollow core door layout that can be set in a closet or slid under the bed when not used. That would probably kill my interest quickly, having to pull it out from whereever, set up the table legs, set up all the buildings, drag out all my locos and cars where ever they may be stored and then finally be able to pick out what I want and operate, then do the opposite once I’m done putting away all
It is a SD40-2 in the pictures. Not really sure how it stays on the rails. Lots of groaning and squealing through the turns. About all I can figure is that the rails in the concrete can’t move, otherwise the rails would spread and I’d be on the ground.
