Good eye Cajon! I have a Walthers Gantry Crane. I thought I had an idea of how I was going to set it up for the gondolas... then, I saw what member "dalebaker" did with his gantry crane and steel shop! Now, I am back to the drawing board! Thanks dale! LOL! JMS
Well, I forgot two industries on my layout. Luckily, the crews do not forget! LOL! There are two more warehouses on the siding labeled "Warehouse Row". The first one doesn't get anything by rail... but they have that choice when they want it. The second one is just a little warehouse with a small dock. They usually get one or two boxcars of loads... and usually sends out empties and the occasional loaded boxcar. The other industry is the TRANSFLO facility. TRANSFLO is the name of CSX owned trans-loading facilities. Basically, it is a big concrete lot. I have added some piping and hoses. I also added a compressor shed(Old shipping container... saw something just like it on Norfolk Southern in Tennessee) and air tank to run the facility. It gets loaded covered hoppers, empty covered hoppers, loaded tank cars, empty tank cars, loaded flat cars, empty flat cars. It is nice to have this facility on my layout. It can ship or receive almost any type of load/car. This facility is what would be used for the "team track" on my layout. I even have a hide side gondola that comes to the facility and then leaves with scrap steel. And, during the winter months(since my layout is in Western MD/ Eastern WV) tank cars with propane come in loaded and leave empty... but, only in the months of Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar). JMS PS- the TRANSFLO facility could always double as an Intermodal Ramp if I ever decide to run Intermodal.
In addition to a house track and team track there are these industries on my railroad I don't have a photo of the Valley Fruit watehouse where reefers are loaded Somehow one photo loaded twice??????????
Don't Forget coil cars & flat cars also get worked by cranes. And also gondola covers get taken off & put on by the cranes. That's what so good about team tracks just about any kind of car & loads can be worked there, especially if you like variety!
Seems like the hoppers would be outside being unloaded intro holes between the rails & the boxcars & reefers would be under cover to be loaded/unloaded.
Well let's see, I have a: Mine Saw mill Coal tipple Refinery Coop grain elevator Meat packing plant Small machine shop Brewery Fuel dealer Power plant Large grain elevator And a team track (kinda) Small mine on a narrow gauge road A small smelter still under construction Lumber company And a possible future logging camp( right now it's a train storage spot e431cafc1cd58913947d4cc88f235333.jpg[/IMG] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
I will be using car cards and waybills. I have a sample of them posted on another topic building the UR. I posted up my time table and SSI and there is a copy of them on that. In fact here is the image of what I will be using. I have them on an excel spreadsheet. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
I going to start making the car cards here soon. I just need some more ink for the printer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
I model a rather rural area, but try to tie industries together. My layout was built mainly for switching and by having industries that can supply goods to another industry on my layout generates traffic on the layout, as well as shipping goods to points beyond the layout. I have three gain elevators, all in different towns providing grain to a flour mill in a fourth town. The mill will then ship to flour to points beyond. I have a couple of towns with cattle pens supplying cattle to a slaughter house and then ship meat to points beyond the layout. I have a small lumber loading facility that sends logs to a lumber mill. The mill in turn supplies finished lumber to a lumber yard and a furniture company. Finished lumber is also sent to points beyond the layout. I model the transition era and all of the town on my layout have a freight station which were very important in that time period. There was no UPS or FedEx back then and a majority of the goods going to small communities were sent to a freight station where the Railway Express Agency would make deliveries as well as pick ups for businesses and people living in the area. I also have a few oil distributors that have tank cars supplying them. Being that I do model a more rural area, I have no large industries, but what I have is more than enough to keep a switching layout very busy.
Kevin- all very nice! Mr. SP - Like the fuel distributor... whose product is that? Thanks! Montanan- switching between industries reminds me of the old 4x8 I had as a kid. My father asked about the industries... and I replied something like... "Well, this one takes plastic pellets and makes liquid styrene. And, that one takes liquid styrene and makes plastic pellets!" He then asked if I could "see" the flaw in my logic? LOL! JMS
I am building an ice plant and cold storage facility as part of an Island Seaport layout based as “my version of Galveston, Texas.” The plant has space for only two cars on the spur it shares with the “peanut butter warehouse” but it still has a number of operational advantages. The short spur comes off a track owned by the port switching railroad. However, a lead track located in the street right-of-way originally was owned by Santa Fe to reach a carfloat at the east end of the port area. Santa Fe sold that track to the port railroad, which primarily served shipside docks. But Santa Fe kept the rights to serve two customers, the ice plant and a “peanut butter warehouse” across the street from the docks. So the same track in the street is switched by two different crews, Santa Fe for the ice and peanut butter, and Port RR for everything else. A historical excuse for variety in operations. What cars go to and from the ice plant? Sanborn’s Maps show that a facility like the one modeled leased refrigerated space with Swift, which exported beef overseas through Galveston. So Swift reefers are inbound- but on a SHIP schedule, multiple carloads in a short period rather than regular small deliveries to serve consumer needs of a medium-size city. This promotes variety in scale of operations, and variety between operating sessions. Besides the multi-car beef exports, the ice plant leases refrigerated storage for local customers such as a supermarket, which receives maybe one reefer every four or five days. These cars would have a variety of private-owner names. The plant was built in the “teen” years to use ammonia-based refrigeration, which continues to be used in large-scale refrigeration. So the plant would receive an occasional carload of ammonia for refrigeration, maybe two operating sessions a year. I have a TPI tank car painted and detailed to match a prototype photo of SHPX #5763 for anhydrous ammonia, built 12-54, period of my layout. The ice plant also supports another industry, the fishing and shrimping fleet docked across the street from the plant, connected by an over-street ice conveyor. Seafood shipments originate from the fish houses, not the ice plant. Much is shipped in Santa Fe cars, including special “superinsulated” 50-foot reefers and express reefers. The cars are switched by Port RR crews at the shrimp docks- but the SFRD cars are iced in the Santa Fe yards. Adds some complication (and operating interest). According to an SFRD table of ice manufacturers who supplied ice to the railroad, 1934, reprinted as a supplement to Santa Fe Modeler 2nd Q 1989, ice manufacturers in Galveston included Galveston Ice and Cold Storage (with trackside facility). Sanborn’s maps show the ice plant as having trackside space for only two cars, not suitable to icing a long string of Santa Fe reefers. However Santa Fe had an ice STORAGE facility a mile or two away. An online catalog to Houston Metropolitan Research Center lists a document referring to a Santa Fe 14’ x 39’ ice house at Galveston, presumably in the Santa Fe yard (I did not obtain the actual document, just a reference to it.) The 14’ width would fit within the same track spacing as the 15’ icing platform at Amarillo for which plans were published in Santa Fe Modeler 2nd Quarter 1989 p.13. Would ice have been moved from the plant by truck to a railroad ice house and icing dock? Could ice have even been moved across-town on a Santa Fe ICE car? (Not to be confused with refrigerator car which used ice, but a company-service car to TRANSPORT ice. Perhaps not likely but not impossible either.) Santa Fe had a fleet of older cars converted to ice service, Santa Fe sources have photos of about 20 of them and I have 2 or 3 cars dedicated for conversion “someday.” The biggest refrigerated movement on my layout is bananas. Once a week, “like clockwork”, a shipload of bananas landed. (Bananas are among the most “scheduled” of any crops. They can be planted in the tropics any time of year in rotation, so a new crop reaches harvest every week.) The next day after the banana boat lands, a solid trainload of bananas rushes north. The banana reefers do NOT go to the ice plant for loading; they’re loaded at the banana boat dock. But approximately two cars of ice from the ice plant are needed at the railroad icing dock just before the banana boat lands each week. So that crosstown shipment needs to be scheduled, just as does the accumulation of empty reefers in the port city. Ice plants and ice storage houses typically have as few windows as possible, to avoid melting the ice. I had two European kits with fancy doors, windows, and stonework on front and back, but plain brick walls on sides. Built the ice plant from the plain sides. The ends and other parts left over from a Danish railway station provided a boilerhouse. (Oh! Boiler! Takes fuel. Oil used on Texas coast. One tank car delivery every 4 or 5 days...) The 120-foot high smokestack of the major ice plant served as a local landmark. I found a scale 85-foot stack to stand in for it.
Thanks Jim, I've been kinda busy lately to get much done to it. I'll post a few pictures soon. Thanks!!!!!
I've been working on the west end of the layout and getting more stuff in place at Word Industries steel fabricators and Hughes Lumber. I also have the dock ready at the team track. Word Industries is progressing with the installation of the gantry rails and concrete pads. There will be a second gantry crane to the right of the big one. There will also be a third building to the right of that. All of these will be built-up flats. Hughes lumber has a flat building at the fron edge of the layout, thanks Alan for the idea! It also has an open shed for lumber loads.
