Here are three pics of the packing plant complex that I am working on. The first shows the stockyard on the left with the packing plant behind it. The structures are more or less where they will be when I finish scenicing this area. I have used Arizona Rock and MInerals-Earth for the bottom of and around the stock yard, and what I am interested in is opinions about scenicing that area between the spur on the right and the back of the stock yard.
The second pic is of the same area from above.
I am thinking of continuing the dirt scene but I am not sure if a couple of trees or some underbrush would look reasonable. The overall theme is 1950’s and the desert southwest just south of where I live in Phoenix.
I would continue the dirt, but just slightly lighter in color. The reason behind this is that it would not be as trampled up as the dirt in the pens. And yes, add some foliage in that area in keeping with the desert theme. (Lighter greens and spread out. Darker green where there is a source of water.)
Same with me, but you could also add some scrap lumber that would have been used in the construction of the stockyards and repairs that would have been performed.
Haven’t been back to Arizona in awhile, but don’t forget about that sage or tumbleweed scrub that is often along fencelines, along foundations, or around the bottom of power poles. A little application of ground foam to represent that will also help cover some of the rough spots once you have more dirt down.
I put small, shallow ditches next to tracks like that when I can’t think of anything better to do. I model “somewhere in the upper midwest,” so I put a small amount of “dirty water” in the ditches with tinted Envirotex, and add some tall grass around it.
Some runoff from the stockyard could justify a small pool of water, even in the Southwest.
Another option is some small rock castings, with dirt built up to them. This helps explain why the industry isn’t “using” that space.
Adapting Mr Beasley’s idea to central Arizona, put down something that will shrink and crack as it dries. Then sprinkle some `well-creamed coffee’ dust on it. Typical drainage ditch north of Phoenix before the area became wall-to-wall developments.
You might put a Saguaro against the backdrop. No Cholla between the tracks, please!
Chuck (Occasional Arizona visitor modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
just a thought. Would an icing area be appropriate for your time period or perhaps extending the meat loading dock for another reefer and perhaps a truck to give the appearances of more production.? Very nice meat plant, just my 2 cents LOL
Glad to see that you have the ramps to unload the cattle from the stock cars. I have to add that detail. My stock yard is in a more lush area of Northern Penn. One comment that modelers made with regard to my photo was that the cattle have to have a water trough and feed in each pen. I also plan to substitute beef cattle for the dairy cattle in the pens. Click on photo to enlarge it. The click on “Previous”, or “Next” to see other views of my layout. Bob Hahn
There is going to be an ice house and icing platform to the right of that spur which runs alongside the loading dock of the packing plant. There will be room for two reefers that can be loaded off the icing platform and one reefer at the loading cock. I did some research and ice houses would have been used as late as 1970. Since i am looking at the 1950’s I believe that I can use the ice house and be on target.
I googled stockyards images and much to my surprise there appear to be no water trough or feeding areas in the stock yard that serves the packing plant. It appears to me that the future T-bones were unloaded into the holding pens and then were sent into the packing plant in such a short period of time that food and water was not necessary. I was also struck by how tidy (relatively speaking) the holding pens were, just some dirt or straw on the bottom and that was it. Because of space considerations, and wanting to get that Ice house on the layout, I cut the holding pens in half.
There will be a couple of saguaros along the back drop to the left of the far left track, that is the main line and only sand, dirt and a little bit of greenery in between the track. Most of the saguaros will be located in a modest saguaro forest on the other side of the layout where I have three stock pens which will produce the T-bones for this part of the layout. Those pens will have water and feed.
The packing plant is Walthers Champion Packing, the holding pens is Walthers Stockyards and on the other side the three stock pens will be Life-Like.
Actually, you may not have to do the substitution. Dairymen have been known to sell off their herds to packing houses if the price of milk is too low and the cost of feed is too high. I checked out your photos, nice layout.
Mmmmm. I went with hogs because I have a couple of double-deck stock cars, which would be inappropriate for cattle. I wanted to do sheep, but there aren’t many HO-scale sheep available, and they’re expensive models.
There was an Australian Model Railway Mag article about a guy who rasped up foam blocks and painted them in a sheep’s wool colour and planted them inside his sheep vans which incidentally are a relatively unique vehicle here in Australia… there were a lot of them on all system.
Think about what you are seeing in these vehicles and it is usually a mass of wool and not much else as they do not stand all that tall. The rasped up foam is a reasonable representation of what you would see and it certainly it would save on the expensive models of sheep…
