Excellent photographs guys I always worry that one day nobody will enter. Thanks for all your efforts.
Great photos so far but I'm going miss this one too, not much choice here close on sidings anymore inch
I guess you can now consider this a siding. This used to be a branch line up through Lafayette and Erie, CO. I am not sure when the BN stopped running it as a branchline. The branch begins in Broomfield and winds its way to the East side of Lafayette. There are 3 businesses served off of this line. A lumber company, a truss manufacturer, and this shot, a gravel loading area. The company is TXI has their main facility off Hwy 93 and is served by the UP, Moffat line. It was costing too much to interchange cars with the BNSF so they built this area just behind the shop I work where I work. TXI trucks the light weigth aggregate to this site and use the conveyor (seen in the building on the left) to load it into the covered hoppers as needed. I was hoping they would load today to make the shot more interesting, but no such luck. Where TXI loads these cars is about as far as the tracks go now, thus making it a VERY long industrial siding.
I would not have entered as I'm not close to any industrial trackage. I don't expect my pun entry to win but I do think a little levity couldn't hurt.
Boxcars Full of Mud From the folks that brought you "bottled water", here we have an unloading facility for SACKS OF MUD!!! OK, so it's really bentonite, a.k.a. "drilling mud", used for drilling oil and natural gas wells. But a very simple facility, located in a small town, that unloads boxcar after boxcar of this stuff--and has for decades.
The challenge is now closed, excellent entrants everybody. I will post the poll shortly. I have also change the poll to one vote per member to stop any confusion.
There's some nice sidings there. The track on most of these is definitely not mainline grade. You can see all the bumps and wiggles in the track.
I really liked and voted for this because it is an industry: 1) I have never seen 2) One I could model easily 3) I liked the title Doug, is this a small siding or is it a larger facility? Can I get an idea of the layout from a Google Satalite image?
Wow! I don't know which is tougher, taking the shot or voting on one. This is one tough challange to vote on. Great work all of you.
This poll will close on June 26th, 2007 at 04:57 AM It will seem like an eternity while you are ahead!!! mg::teeth:
Yes, I'd consider it a fairly small siding, although it dominates the small town in which it is located. The actual spur itself holds probably 8-10 cars max, but they store additional cars in the "yard" which is actually a single track, and at the end of the yard track they have another makeshift unloading ramp fashioned from an old flatbed trailer that allows them to unload two cars at a time. Between the spur and the yard track there are usually 6-12 cars at a time, and it seems like they get switched out weekly. I agree it is a neat little industry and I am thinking about doing an article about it. It's kinda out in the middle of nowhere, so Google doesn't have good enough resolution yet to show anything useful. I'll try to post a thread about it soon so stay tuned. :shade:
Q: How do you catch a unique industrial siding? I just wanted to add a comment (and bump) about how really cool these photos are! I wish this topic would have received more participation...maybe the "unique" part discouraged some. (actually, as I was out and about I kept thinking the topic was unusual sidings for some reason--I blame the beer*. So that didn't help my cause much!) But what you see everyday, while maybe not unique to some, can still be interesting. So, I didn't really think mine was that unique, but somebody did. (actually, I do think my subject is pretty unique, just not unusual. So again, I am my own worst enemy!) Maybe "blah, boring, everyday industrial sidings" should be a future title! :teeth: As an aside, these photos remind me of the old "Industry You Can Model" articles MR used to run. I always liked those articles and it's cool to see all the different ways cars are loaded. I know this was covered in another topic, but if you guys are looking for articles to submit, dig out an old MR and find those old Industry articles and maybe that will spawn an idea for some new version of those types of articles. They would make great one-pagers or maybe two-pagers in some cases. And now for the comic relief: Q: How do you catch a unique industrial siding? A: Unique up on it! :thumbs_down::thumbs_down: I'm here all week folks. Tip your waitresses. :zip: *Disclaimer: the beer was from the night before. I don't drink and drive, or drink and railfan.** **Disclaimer Disclaimer: I have drank and railfanned a couple of times after Dallas Stars hockey games while riding the train back home. But it was only two beers, I swear.
