How important would it be to have industries that serve each other actually located on a layout? For example, to have both a coal mine and a power plant or a lumber mill and a paper factory. Right now I plan on having a coal mine, stock yard, passenger station, and 2 or 3 other industries. I plan on having a hidden staging where my loads come from and go. So when my coal cars are full, they are taken to the hidden staging and return empty and same for the other industries.
Thanks,
Aaron
It is not critically important for complimentary industries to be on the layout together. It would be rather unusual to find one industry shipping by rail to another industry that is close by unless the freight itself was unusual.
More prototypical is an online industry that ships off the layout (into staging) and other industries that receive goods shipped from somewhere off layout (from staging). With enclosed railcars (boxcars, covered hoppers, tankers), what goes into or comes out of staging can easily be reused for the same industries over and over again. You can’t see inside those cars so they could be either loaded or empty, whatever you say it is. Open cars (hoppers, gondolas) have to be manipulated. If loaded on layout, they should return to the layout without a load and vice versa.
Most operations-oriented layouts will have hidden staging. Cars are routed in and out of staging as needed and rarely travel from one on-layout industry to another on-layout industry. Also, to foster the illusion of distance traveled, cars from an on-line industry can be sent to staging and then return from staging to be delivered to another on-line industry at a later time.
It depends on just how close to prototypical you want to be and if your operations are dependant on cars having different numbers, different loads, etc.
Hope this helps.
Darrell, quiet…for now
As I mentioned on another thread, I have a sawmill at my main junction that ships mine timbers (about 10% of its rail-handled output) to the coal mine at the end of the branch. The coal mine, in turn, ships coal (a fraction of 1% of its output) to the loco servicing facility at the junction. Everything else that originates on-line goes to staging - “The rest of Japan” - and everything delivered on the modeled portion of the layout originates in staging. I’ve arranged things so that I can ‘fiddle’ open top carloads, so the carload of logs doesn’t come back to the wood transfer facility.
In the real world, most of what we buy in local stores is shipped in from halfway across the country - or halfway around the world. The only things that regularly move comparatively short distances are bulk raw materials - logs to a sawmill, ore to a concentrator, coal to a central cleaning facility. Semifinished and finished goods tend to travel to and from distant points. Short hauls move by truck.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Since it is impossible that any industry on your layout get everything it needs from the other industries, it is even more impossible that you have a closed system in which every industry is suppled by the other industries.
At some point you have to give up. It is better to have a plan to create shipping to the rest of the world, than to try to ship locally.
[#ditto] This is why one of my favorite “industries” is an interchange with another railroad.
I agree with the responses sent so far. It seems rather rediculous to me to send a shipment to the next town by rail. There are exceptions depending upon era and other circumstances. The farther one goes back in time, the more important short-distance shipments become. And particularly for industrial railroads such as in logging, it is common for both the source (logging area) and destination (sawmill) to be logically represented on the layout. Thinking beyond your immediate railroad for sources and destinations for industry you are modeling makes operations more interesting and varied. And don’t forget team tracks and freight houses serving off-line industries not modeled on the layout. Also, I think it is more satisfying to have fewer but larger (multi-track) industries than more smaller industries. Many large industries receive a variety of car types, and larger industries are more convincing as needing the large volume of goods a railroad can economically provide. Interchange tracks between railroads also provide varied and high-volume traffic with no investment or space spent on structures.
Mark
If you have a large layout, it makes sense to have both a sender and receiver on the same layout. For example. My plan is for a milk train to collect milk cars in route to the main dairy complex in the major city. One of these on line dairies is on my mainline and the other on a the branchline which is still in the planning stage. In th e period I model, trucks had begun taking over the shipping of milk but my operation is still a holdout for rail shipment of dairy products. The branch will also have a large sawmill and one of its customers will be a lumber yard on the mainline. Theoretically, these to points would be dozens of miles apart but compression that is necessary on a model railroad has reduced it to a few dozen feet. Occasionally LCL freight will ship from points on opposite ends of the modeled portion of my railroad. Again, trucks were taking over this type of shipping but for now, it is being shipped via rail.
I agree with the posters who pointed out that railroads rarely shipped short distances, leaving that to the trucks so it isn’t necessary to have shipments originate and terminate on your layout but if there is a logical reason for it to be done, then include it in your plan.
Up here in God’s country we’ve got a short line RR (St Maries River RR) that runs on former Milw track. One of the 2 road jobs makes a turn to a log reload yard about 40 miles south of town and brings back 30 or 40 cars of logs for the Potlatch mill. The train tends to arrive in the same car order they set out the day before. The only visible diference is that the cars are empty leaving and loads on return. The finished product from the Potlach mill and a local stud mill go out as loads, most pretty much across country. That would be the normal traffic pattern, loads going hundreds of miles except for some local (rare)eccentricity as the logs/mill arrangement. The loads go west (or will once they get a damaged bridge fixed) 15 miles where they’re handed over to UP (staging) for the bulk of the trip.
Your coal traffic would typically leave the mine, get emptied in staging (try gluing some 16d finish nails or steel car wieghts inside you coal loads so they can be lifted out w/ a magnet w/o handling the car) and sent back empty for reloading
I forgot to mention in my previous post that I have a large paper mill on my mainline that will receive regular shipments of wood chips and pulpwood from the branchline sawmill. Just another example of a shipper and receiver on the same layout.
Also, don’t forget that mail is another example of cargo that could be shipped and received on the same layout. This could be done on either a special mail train or on regular passenger service. It could be just a bag of mail being dropped at the depot or a car(s) being set out or picked up at larger towns. Most of your mail of course would be going offsite but there would be some traffic sent to towns on your layout.
Just ask yourself if it makes sense to ship and receive within the confines of your layout. This could be determined by the size of your layout and the time and locale you are modeling. As the highway system improved, more and more small and short distance shipments went to the trucking industry. Today, most railroading is large shipments over long distances.
A coal mine/power plant is a excellent way to use the loads in/empties out operation.
However,your general industries should be independent of each other.