Got a preiser Beer Barrel & Crates scenery kit a while back on sale (This one), and while the kegs & the bottle/boxes are quite useful for modern era, not sure about the wooden barrels - I haven’t seen barrels at any local distributor since…, well forever (excluding advertising gimmicks - hence the ‘Decoration’ part of my topic).
So, besides Alcohol production & transport (Wine, as seen on ‘Dirty Jobs’, and Beer, Whiskey, etc.) and Decoration (Garden planters, rustic tables, advertising displays) are Wooden Barrels used in any great number for their original purpose (storage and transport) - I pick 1990 because I used to work in a Bolt/Fastener distributor during the mid-1980s, and we used to have a few wooden kegs of Bethlemham Steel bolts, but I think those were leftovers from decades before because even then most stock came either in cartons or in metal or fibeboard drums.
when i worked for NYCTA we used to get track bolts, nuts ,spikes and other material in barrels. these barrels were small, looked crude and fell apart if dropped. after about 1995 they started getting these materials in plastic drywall buckets and wooden barrels disapeared. they did make good planters, and were made of oak but weren’t watertight. i guess except for the liquor industry barrels have been replaced by 55 gal drums and drywall buckets.
Sure…Why not model a barrel manufacturer? You can ship the barrels to distilleries.After all bourbon is aged in wooden barrels.
Right on. And when the Jack Daniels or Jim Beam has been decanted, the used barrels are transported to Scotland and used to age Scotch. Can’t help but wonder whether they are shipped assembled or disassembled.
I seem to recall that Jack Daniels manufactures their own barrels.
Chuck (modeling Cemtral Japan in September, 1964 - where all the beverages arrived in bottles)
Really haven’t seen `em used much of anywhere other than as a historical display or for alcohol making. For the most part it seems just about anything that would have used the old wooden barrels is now in either 55 gallon metal or plastic drums or these things made of hard cardboard like material known as fiber drums.
Don’t forget wine!
Wolfgang
Thanks guys - from people’s insights, and what I’ve seen on the web, it does seem that wooden barrels have been marginalized into alcohol production and decorative uses like planters, and little else (indeed, the wooden barrel segments on “How Its Made” and “Dirty Jobs” clearly indicated the barrels were to be used for Wine production) - on the bright side, the US is nowadays producing a lot of wood barrels for alcohol production, and a big export segment exists too - I’m sure they’re just shoved into containers for that transport. Alas, no cooperages are to exist on my railroad.
So, taking retsignalmtr suggestion of a barrel or two of track bolts & spikes (SEPTA hid 'em in the shops and forgot about 'em for 2 decades - that’s my story & I’m sticking with it), then 2 or so cut in half and made into planters to reside on someone’s patio, and then 1 for a display at the distributorship… leaves me w/ about 30 I have no use for - OTOH, these barrels are not Preiser’s finest effort, as they really do not have a well defined bowing out in the middle - maybe tney’re good German wood barrels, but certainly not good American models (the metal kegs and glass bottles in the kit are pretty good, though).
Who, may I ask, would want to drink whisky or wine that rendered a taste that reminded one of a Jones and Laughlin steel mill?
Isn’t alcohol aged in 55gallon drums so that it acquires a lovely metallic taste otherwise known as ‘Budweiser’? (I have a friend who, when I bring up brands like Bud or Miller High Life, comments “Why did you mention them, I thought we were talking about beer?”)
Actually during the mid-20th century, weren’t there herds of not-all-that-great beers around like Bud, Miller High Life, Balletine, Schaefer, Pabst Blue Ribbon (now reborn as a hipster beer - ugh), Schlitz and so on - I remember these brands rotating through our refridgerator as Dad brought whatever was on sale at the supermarket or the distributor. Dad always gave his pre-teen son - er, me - a sip of his beer because that what men did during the '70s, dangit! However, those beers tasted so cr@ppy to me, that I was turned off beer thoughout my later years until I discoverd (and could afford) Sam Adams, Killean’s, and Heineken - so no teenage drunk-driving problems for me [:D] !
Now I know Anheuser-Busch & Miller also brew specialty beers that are very good, so I always envision their breweries working like a fractional distillation column for petroluem, where the good, premium beers are taken off the top like Gasoline or Diesel, and regular Buds & Miller HL comes from the bottom (like the crudy tar-like bunker c).
Speaking of beers, about a year or so ago I picked up a billboard for Piels Beer(NYC area local). They used 2 characters for all their advertising, Bert & Harry. They had the world’s best commercials - and the worlds crappiest beer!!![:P]
Best commercials 'cause they used one of the top comedy duos of the time - Bob & Ray!
Don’t forget to make some wood boxes, crates & pallets. They are still widely used. This gives your factory a diverse product line.
Got Trestles? Some barrels are used on the bridge to put fires out. You might use them there, or have a MoW train heading fro one with a few
These would be carrying plain water, not “fire-water”.
Nowadays those bridge barrels would most likely be made of metal. In cold areas, the water was treated with salt to prevent freezing. The barrels might contain sand instead of water.
Mark
Aha, I guess you got the October 2008 issue of Rail Model Craftsman too, which talks about that very topic (‘Fire Protection for Open Deck Bridges’) - besides different methods such as metal coverings (or ballast) for the trestle ties, fire barrels are definitely discussed as methods of combating fire (including the fact that barrels were supposed to have pails with them to scoop water out onto the fire - I always wondered how the barrel fire fighting system worked - but, alas, the nicer metal pails often found their way to neighboring farms so the railroads had to use cheap wooden buckets instead so they wouldn’t get stolen.)
Anyway, although the diagrams include wooden barrels, the two photos in the article where the barrel are clearly visible show…ta-da! Steel Drums [:D]
And sorry Wdlgln005, but as I said no Cooperages on my layout - the woodshop guys will use their Greenway shop power tools to produce cabinets and fine furniture, althought will all these barrel floating around they may get confused and produce this 
(I could not find any dang TVs in barrels, although I swear I saw one…maybe it was on a cartoon)
True, I was just trying to turn up another use for a barrel for him. Maybe the trick then is to have a low sided gon coming back from a trestle from changing barrels to drums.
I’ve got the same set of kegs and barrels. Last night, I was just painting up a bunch of them to use as a load for a flatbed truck. Of course, the truck is a 1923 Ford.
I would use them on trucks, platforms and loading docks. They’re still nice renditions of barrels, and who knows what people are shipping in them. If you’ve got a freight house, team track or other non-specific shipping industry, then by all means use them.
I’m also working on a seaside bar and restaurant. I plan to have a few of these barrels around on the deck, perhaps even with some patrons sitting on them.
I have a clyde and dale’s barrel from WS and they create regular barrels, hogshead barrels for maritime and farm, and ball bearing tumbling barrels of different sizes and capacity.
Barrels aint all there is, you can make metal drums too in the modern era.
You may find an answer to how the railroads tried to limit the theft problem at an antique store. The pails that some railroads used were cone shaped so that you could not put them down on the ground without spilling out all the water. Therefore, they were only practical when put to continuous use such as scooping water from barrels and throwing the water at a fire. I found examples of these conical pales in an antique store near Columbia Tennessee and at the Little Riv