I am trying to plan a printing company for my layout. I really like the Pikestuff kits and would wonder which Pikestuff kit one could use as a beginning point for modeling a large printing company. I know that the DPM modulars would work along with the Walthers modulars as beginning points.
If you were going to model a large printing company that received multiple boxcars loads where would you begin. I am modeling from 1965 to 1977 for an era. I would value tremendously some suggestions of where one could start with the Pikestuff kits. Or am I going to have to use DPM or Walthers. Please give me your honest perspective.
I worked summers in mid 1960s in a printing plant in Houston. Building was maybe the size of the one-story section shown in the post above. It had rail access but it was not used. INCOMING: Largest shipment of paper rolls I saw brought in, by 18-wheeler, was about half a boxcar load. OUTGOING: I don’t think ever more than a panel-truck load to any one customer. Certainly not a rail shipment. Maybe 20 or 30 years earlier it would have gone by express, but nwould still have left the printing plant by truck.
Structure was a Stran-steel(r) or Butler-building(R) metal prefab, much like Pikestuff’s kits. One story tall masonry veneer wall in front for office and “art department” section. The main business of the plant was weekly grocery store circulars for about fifty suburban and small town grocers in a 150 mile radius of Houston. Original art copy for the printing was a lot of hand-drawn layouts, photo-lettering pasteups and pasteups from stock art books, preprinted with half-tone illustrations.
A printing press that would consume boxcar loads of paper would most likely be 2 to 3 stories tall. Some are installed in a pit so the building could be shorter. Some large plants store paper in old boxcars. Most outbound loads of periodicals would be in trucks. Boxcars that carry paper are special cars.
Thank you so much for your wonderful suggestions. I am a very new modeler and when I looked at your suggestions some of those Pikestuff kits looked a little daunting because it alluded that the cutting lines for the kits had been removed to increase kitbashing possibilities. It also alluded that the instructions would make your cutting easy. I sure hope so.
I am looking to build a very large printing company because I have a two yard track to store the cars in. According to the responses I received, I am going to need a large facility to justify the usage of that many boxcars. Does anyone have any thoughts about how to combine multiple Pikestuff kits that were suggested to make a larger facility? I would appreciate some thoughts on this matter.
Thank you for the wonderful help all of you have provided. I am so very grateful.
Large printing companies that would have any kind of rail service would be of a typical “modern” construction. Even a printing company of that size would not have any outbound shipments by rail - nothing is printed in that kind of volume. The only inbound shipments by rail would be finished paper products - usually in rolls for web presses. Sheet stock would most likely be delivered by truck as well.
The Pikestuff modular kits would make a good representation of a modular printing company. The picture belw is one of Quad Graphics’ large printing plants. Keep in mind that a printing company that actually requires boxcar loads of paper will cover a lot of acreage ! I’ve worked at, and been in some rather large printing companies over the years, and even they weren’t large enough to actually require a rail siding !!!
The only thing usually shipped out in boxcars from a printing plant would be bales of waste paper. Western Printing in Poughkeepsie,N.Y. used to ship several cars a week back in the 60’s/70’s.
Here’s a suggestion, depending on the era your modeling, I don’t like those modern polebarn type structures, I like the older style brick buildings as a matter of preference to each his own… BUT…
Here in Springfield, Ohio we had a publisher go out in a bad way in the 1950’s by the name of Crowell, Collier and Sons. Walthers George Robers Printing is an almost exact copy of the newer part of that building, and if you kitbashed it with the American Harware kit you’d have a near spot on match…
In their day Crowell’s was a worldwide publisher shipping their magazines all over the world and acting as a regional press for some of the largest newspapers. I don’t know if they were a book house or not, but I know that they printed millions of pounds of publications monthly and in those days it did go out both in boxcars and on trucks. The building occupies an entire city block, and in the old days they had not only that opperation but a freight house across the street. Big 4/NYC ran less than 200 feet from the factory floor and I’m certain that there was a dedicated spur, just from the lay of the land… If I was pressed I could go to the historical society and look at an old city map… btw most cities maintain an archive of old maps and directories… and if you do a little research you can come up with great information…
Nice kit bash.
To the OP, the Proto2000 Moore buildings are no longer made. You might find one on the auction site or ho yardsale. It’s a pity, because they are nice structures with good details, and potential for either re-arranging the pieces (see my L-shaped version) or kit bashing as Nick did.
Alan
Let’s back up some here. How old is your city and where is it located? If you are talking east coast corridor you are probably talking about a company that could go back to the 1700’s. Remember Ben Franklin? Most of the buildings there are brick and multistory due to lack of open land. Talking about the midwest or west and a modern facility then use the picture shown earlier. In Philadelphia the Fairfield branch north of North Philadelphia statiuon had several printing companies including Cuneo Press that printed weekly magazines like The Saturday Eveing Post and a couple of the news magazines like Time and Newsweek that were shipped in B60b baggage cars and R50b express cars (both available from Wlathers) that literally went all over the country. Where your company is located and what it produces will have a profound impact on its operation and shipments.
The Hartford Courant (large daily newspaper) is located just west of downtown Harftord CT. It has it’s own spur off of the Amtrak/CSX line (which used to be be double tracked until the Conrail era decided to save money; now plans are afoot to replace the trackage for high speed commuter; duh).
Anyway, it has it’s own spur for freight deliveries. I don’t have a picture but Goggle maps street view has one perspective. (Just click on the A and zoom to maximum satellite view - then drag the person to Broad St) The elevated I-84 interstate should be to the right of the tracks.
