I am trying to build the New Jersey Zinc Company West Plant located in Palmerton PA. The plant is so massive that I am overwhelmed with where to start. I’m having a hard time drawing up plans for scratchbuilding for several reasons.
1: There are so many little buildings that make up the complex plant, there is no way I would be able to model all of them. How can I selectively compress the massive plant while still retaining its essence and character? Has anyone built a model of the New Jersey Zinc West Plant? What have others done? Which buildings are important to include in a model?
2: Does anyone have plans or scale drawings of any of the New Jersey Zinc West Plant? Unfortunately, it was demolished in 1991 so finding plans and even pictures has been difficult.
I’m working in HO scale. I don’t have much space… only about 3x6 feet on the back side of my 4x8 layout. That’s why I am having a hard time picking and choosing which buildings to include and how to compress them so I can maximize the space and make it as interesting as possible. I think it’s okay if things are a little crammed, it just makes the model more interesting to look at.
Here is a picture of my track plan and how much space I have to work with.
The photo of the plant came through, but your track plan picture has Google wanting me to verify my existence. I don’t exist, so there’s a problem there. Please attend to it.
The plant is about a half mile long. Your layout is not. It is so big, the usual selective compression approach is ridiculous. If you “selectively compress”, you will get a toy.
If you want to include this enormous industry on your teeny tiny layout, you’ll have to do something more like selective snipping. Snip off everything that isn’t railroad. Do it again.
Then look at what is happening in those operations. You will be doing research. That is your job.
You should, if all goes well, find an area that you can fit on your railroad. It WON’T be the entire operation. It MIGHT be shipping. It MIGHT be receiving. It MIGHT be lotsa things.
You need to find something that works for you.
If you really want further advice, you should first explain why you care so much. YOU need US. Get us involved. I, for one, have trains to play with; and I don’t need to spend my time doing your research and thinking for you.
Having spent a career covering the steel industry I don’t understand why people try to actually model it. A hot strip mill is 3/4 of a mile long. To model it accurately would require an HO scale building 45.5 feet long. If I were going to model a massive industry I would copy US Steel Fairless Hills plant near Philadelphia. The receiving and shipping yard is alongside the old PRR mainline. The plant is at least one mile away. So it is possible to model 100% of the traffic with none of the buildings. Just a track leading to the mill that goes off the railroad. You could do the same thing for your major plant.
If you are determined to model a large steel making facility, why not devote the entire 4x8 layout to it and just add some track to service the facility? At least that way, even with selective compression, you can do the steel making facility justice.
I am modeling a steel mill and have split the mill in two. The north plant is the hot side, with the blast furnace, BOF, electric furnace sintering plant and ore yard. The south plant will have four mills and a couple of smaller buildings. That way I can get the feel of a large mill into limited space. It will also allow me to move hot steel to the mills from the north plant.
It will be based on the former Judson Steel plant in Emerville CA.
I do admit that it will not be a full model. That’s because I only have a “depth” for it of about 18". However. It will be about 9 feet long. That will be divided into three segments, each roughly three feet long. In the center is the electric arc furnace building. On one side is the scrap metal yard. On the other side is a shipping building for loading product onto rail and truck.
I don’t think Judson had a shipping building. It certainly didn’t have one where I am placing mine, as that was occupied by a “rebar fabricator” (don’t know what it was really called, but it was fun to watch).
The scrap yard went a LONG ways beyond 18", so I’m just showing the part near the tracks. In fact, everything went a long ways beyond 18".
The furnace building will be done pretty much full size, based on two of the Walthers kits. I expect to do it as a continuous pour operation, with the output going off-stage.
Rail input will be scrap and some chemicals. Output will be formed steel. When I studied it, I think they only made rebar. My operation just might ship plate and bar too.
I just checked a map of the area where the operation was. The full “depth” was about 500’ (between I-580 and the SP tracks). The plant was replaced by an Ikea and a parking garage (Ptui!), so it’s tough to figure the other dimension. IF it was 500’ square, that would have made it, in HO, about 6’ on a side. So my 9’ length is pretty close to a scale length.
I like what Ed said, about including only a small portion of rail-served industry. I’ll have to start scouring photos and recources to find more detailed views of this place.
The reason I am so intrigued by the New Jersey Zinc Co. is because I have always been fascinated by heavy industry. And the Chestnut Ridge Railway was built entirely to serve the zinc company which adds so much character. Short lines have so much modeling potential for interesting and unique scenes.
Here are a couple more photos if anyone is interested:
Gidday Matt, when you wrote “about 3 x 6 feet”, my initial thought was “Oh Boy!! Having taken the liberty of drawing a 1 square foot grid on your layout plan, my thoughts are now “OH BOY!!! (I like to think that I’m an optimist but there are limits!)
Having thought about it, and reading your latest replies, and seeing that you have been doing some research by collecting photos, there is hope!
Of course, Ed is dead right, there is going to have to be some very serious cropping, even just sticking to the rail operation portion of the plant.
However, your plan shows that there is a scene divider, which
The BOF I started my career at had a model on the conference room. The building was 180’ tall which scaled out to a little over 2’ in HO. The exhaust stack was 237’ high. The building filled a conference room. So don’t even try to tell me how you are going to make accurate steel or any metal facilities in selective compression. USS Gary is seven miles long. Armco Middletown was 4 miles by 5 miles. There is no way to do it. Walthers blast furnace is about 1/4 size for a world war two furnace. It is your rr and you can do what you want but you just can’t put up a two story building and call it the Sears tower with any credibility
With due respect, I’d suggest that modelling in any scale requires a suspension of creditability, the degree of which varying, depending on circumstance and available space.
Imagination and illusion help pad out the “picture”.
What car types that go to that plant are you really interested in? That plant got a lot of cars in and out. What train length do you want to run to the plant? How big is your interchange. Answering those questions. Should help you figure out what part of the plant to keep and what else to chop off. Most of the plant will have to be a backdrop
I have to agree with you there. As I mentioned earlier, I am foregoing any selective compression in my plan to build Judson Steel. I WILL be slicing off a lot of the plant that’s “too far” from the tracks, as I don’t have the width.
But what I do plan to build will pretty much be full size. About 6’ long.
The Walthers arc furnace building does look too small, so I’ll be combining two of them.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I’m taking your suggestions to heart.
The track plan shows a river flowing under the outer most curve at the bottom of the layout, but I am using that outer curve as a slag/waste dump which would be elevated. So I won’t have a river but instead I have my elevated trestle going there, with a big zinc waste dump. Essentially the track that’s leading to the proposed zinc plant site will be my ore tresstle. That was a compromize I had to make, but since I’m not too concerned with operations on a layout this small, I can live with running every train that has to go to the zinc plant over the trestle. I’ve changed the scenery a lot from what you see on the track plan. Feel free to ask more questions if there’s anything I can clarify.
I’ve been trying think how I can still retain access to those hidden tracks for cleaning and maintence while having tracks and buildings on top. I feel like makin
Yes, as you and others have pointed out, I will be relying on a backdrop and low-relief structures to sell the illusion of depth.
I realistically expect to have train lengths of 2-5 cars with all my rolling stock being in the 40’ range.
The NJZ plant saw a lot of gondola service for various materials, as well as box cars. Covered hoppers transported zinc sulfide and other raw exports. And of course difco dump cars served the waste dump trestle. So if I could get gondolas/boxcars, covered hoppers, and dump cars I would be happy. Again I’m not too concerned with operations. I’m more interested in the model building.
