Model Railroad: Small Industries That Don't Need Lots Of Cars! Great info!

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Model Railroad: Small Industries That Don't Need Lots Of Cars! Great info!

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Күн бұрын

www.djstrains.com
Need layout ideas? Think Small and less cars.
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🕺🏻ABOUT DJ: DJ is a locomotive engineer for CSX Railroad since 1999. He has built dozens of layouts, gave presentations for model railroaders, is a KZfaqr, licensed drone pilot, and a great father.

Пікірлер: 228

@jimjohnston7688 Жыл бұрын

An old guy I knew who worked in a distillery told me this story. They would make the whiskey down in Baltimore. Load it into a tankcar and ship it to Canada. Bottle it up there and ship it back as an "imported" whiskey.😂

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Hahaha

@eottoe2001 Жыл бұрын

Mexican tomatoes get shipped to Canada then are shipped to the US as Canadian 🍅 tomatoes I was told.

@bxjibaro73 Жыл бұрын

That doesn't surprise me. The USA's "JONES ACT" is all about that SCAM.

@Milaisacat 9 ай бұрын

NAFTA whiskey!

@likesanddislikesetc Ай бұрын

😂😂😂

@jeffreygosselin7576 Жыл бұрын

“All that good stuff that I stopped eating….. “. Me too DJ! 😂

@sparky107107 Жыл бұрын

one industry going on my layout, a ma and pa furniture warehouse. they get one car of lumber at the start of the month, then it gets taken away, then a box car shows up full of fabric and stuffing material. then a couple weeks later that box car is taken away filled with custom furniture. then the process starts all over.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Brilliantly done

@Santaanacanyon Жыл бұрын

What is great about this vid is that it is the rebuttal to Model Railroader magazine which frequently reports that a model railroad must have BIG industries with entire unit trains serving them.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

I might do a video of those industries, probably in early 2023. Little ones are better for most modelers.

@mpetersen6 15 күн бұрын

@@djstrains One big industry can stand in for lots of small ones.

@jackheninger5471 Жыл бұрын

I used to do a lot of bicycle riding when I lived in MN. My favorite route paralled an old Soo Line branch and it had a small steel products industry. All cars were shoved into a building for unloading. I saw coil cars, gondolas, and the occasional flat car. It looked like the building could handle 2 cars at once. To make things more interesting on the other side of the main was a plant that serviced giant transformers. I only saw a car in there once and it was a lowboy with a transformer on it. That car was there for awhile before it got unloaded and then sat there until it was reloaded with the same transformer. I would have loved to see that car moved, but didn't.

@thomasfreeman7770 Жыл бұрын

Hi DJ, worked for 40 years I a facility like you speak of. One of my responsibilities was maintaining chemical inventory at a municipal water treatment plant. Ordering, logistics, way-billing. In the years after 9/11 all the DHS/TSA requirements for Hazmat also. We took 1 90 ton chlorine tank car each month. 1 covered hopper of calcium oxide (quick lime) a week. We also used at least one tank car per week of sodium hydroxide. In that case since we only had two spotting tracks it was easier to take that from a CSX transflo terminal about 5 miles away rather than constantly moving the hopper. The railroad was called Seaboard Cost line when I started. In the later years with the advent of shipcsx made the paperwork a lot easier. I retired in 2017.

@QuintonMurdock Жыл бұрын

3:15. tank cars can also cary solids. At PTR we sometimes Transload paraffin wax which starts as a solid and when an order comes in we have to heat the car to then pump the previously solid now liquid wax

@benbedothu Жыл бұрын

Molasses had also been transported in heated tank cars. It could be used instead of corn syrup, for distilling rum or to make brown sugar.

@beeble2003 Жыл бұрын

3:14 "Tank cars can carry everything from liquid to gas." Even solids. Some tank cars carry wax, which has to be heated until it melts before it can be pumped out of the car.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

I never knew that!

@CM-ARM Жыл бұрын

Hey Dj, I'm actually going to build a Safeway Distribution Center and a Fruit Distributor. Made me feel good about my choices. Also a Greenhouse Distribution center. All small places. Thanks again, Chris

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Sounds great!

@QuintonMurdock Жыл бұрын

I work at a very small railroad that does rail and truck transloading and services a couple small industries that get .25-3 cars a day

@jeremythompson8665 Жыл бұрын

Great video! I used to live near Sarasota, FL and the local newspaper printing facility received a hi cube box car with newsprint rolls every week or so.

@bobainsworth5057 Жыл бұрын

Transfer facilities, brilliant. Non of my industries have much room, wish I'd thought of transfer facilities. Thanks.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

@mpeterll Жыл бұрын

There's lots of good information in this video, thanks for posting. Scrapyards are awesome and I include them on almost every layout design I do. They're great for fitting into odd-shaped spaces, especially aisle-side, and the loads look really cool. I'd also put pulpwood-loading facilities into this same category, although I'm not sure is that is still appropriate for a modern-day railroad because most pulpwood doesn't get moved far enough to be economical for the railroads. Tank-car loading facilities are another good aisle-side industry because all you really need is a concrete apron and a pipe leading off the edge of the fascia. Once again, it's a good industry for an odd shaped space where a large building won't fit, and the cylindrical storage tanks offer a nice contrast to the mostly straight lines of other industries. Personally, I like to add hasmat warnings to one or two tankcar moves each session because it adds a fun operational wrinkle. Produce: Any kind of warehouse structure is a good match for this category. Although the one you showed had several acres of building, we only really need a few inches. A multi-story warehouse is a good candidate for a background flat, while a single story warehouse can be modeled along the aisle, cut open to show the interior. Steel products. I was somewhat surprised to see this on your list because industries that make things out of heavy pieces of steel tend to be large industries with a high building size to operation ratio - exactly the opposite to what we want on our space-starved layouts. Transfer facilities. Another great aisle-side industry. Although the one you showed was pretty big, all we really need is an area a few inches wide by a couple of feet long. The rails can be right in a concrete driveway (or buried in the dirt & weeds), while all the structures can be assumed to be in the aisle. I hope these additional notes are useful to some of your viewers. Once again, thanks for the video.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

You are correct on the size of the steel buildings, but it’s an opportunity to make a back ground flat wide enough to squeeze that gondola in. :)

@fernandomarques5166 Жыл бұрын

Also one thing I think needs to be said is: You dont need to model a entire industry if you dont have the space for it. An example for tank cars: you can model the tank car loading and unloading pool and maybe two or three storage tanks. I did that with iron ore, my layout design has a loading abbutment and a car dumper, the spurs to those locations aren't very long either at 5 cars max and take my work on this: switching is half the fun. Specially when your train is 25-30 short ore gondolas.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

100% agree

@azyrin4661 11 ай бұрын

I have a small newspaper/print shop of my layout that takes one newsprint boxcar which i quite like

@tzor Жыл бұрын

Where I work there is a wonderful place that would be ideal to model. It starts out with a passenger station. Just east of the station there is a siding for the freight line, Further down there is another siding going backwards which I think is used for cars that have defects. Then before the siding returns to the mainline, there is a spur to a wood products supply place. Sometimes the cars are simply placed outside but sometimes the boxcars are brought into the warehouse proper. All of this is done with pairs of two axle switchers (Bo-Bo) which is really fascinating to watch. It's fascinating to see these "small" engines supply the freight demands of Long Island. (New York and Atlantic Railroad)

@mpetersen6 Жыл бұрын

Redi-Mix plant with rail access. Sand, gravel and cement in. Empties out.

@oldman975 Жыл бұрын

Ok,bear with me on this. Several years ago while delivering a load of produce to a small supplier near Minneapolis,I observed two gentleman next door try to spot a tank car using a pickup and a 20 foot long piece of chain. One was driving the pickup while the other was on the car using the hand brake. It was entertaining,but didn’t end well as you can probably imagine. Now,try modeling that.

@easternwoods4378 Жыл бұрын

Took a trailer load to the scrap yard today. they put in a siding a year ago, room for two gondolas max. Doing a lot of work on the property putting in a concrete base so no more mud

@hymichapstick Жыл бұрын

Some great info. After almost 5 years of no layout I'm building again. 11x10 around the walls in a spare room. Your videos are a great inspiration.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Great to hear!!!

@BC-fx6ud Жыл бұрын

About 40 years ago my dad worked at a produce distributor. As a kid I was excited to see them receive a whole box car of live Christmas trees.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Wow! Great modeling idea!

@HulaViking Жыл бұрын

For an early 20th century layout, a wooden grain elevator. Just a simple siding and one or two grain cars. Left empty and picked up full.

@jeffyoung1349 Жыл бұрын

Like the Transfer facility, especially the chance to model the weight scales for the trucks coming and going, thanks again for the awesome video

@conrailfan6277 Жыл бұрын

Over the last 17 years I've been an OTR Trucker I've kept notes when I've seen industry tracks into places I deliver too or the industries around where I deliver, I saw a perfect place that took 2 lumber cars and they took the lumber and pressure treated it in a 50x50 building then built pre-made roof trusses that shipped from there to a job site Via flatbed tractor trailer, when the lumber was unloaded from the train car it was stored under free standing canopies until used!! Great video DJ!!

@M22OHIO 2 ай бұрын

I know Model Railroader Magazine did do a serries on railroads and produce (food industry) and railroads and meat packing (food industry) and railroads and the automotive manufacturing industry, but besides Pixel Depot with his GM auto assembly plant and you talking about it right now and a few others I don't know why more people don't model food and automotive manufacturing, both have huge potential. I think just my opinion is some of it is just academic a lot of people just see coal trains and gravel and scrap metal trains, unless you work in the food industry (which I do) you wouldn't even think of it. But if your into operations, unlike some scrap yard that gets 1 car every so often a big frozen foods manufacturing plant could be a daily customer food places generally run 24/7 almost any major food distribution warehouse, beer/beverage distribution warehouse or food/beverage manufacturing plant is going to be a busy place. US Foods in Greensburgh runs 24 hours a day they pack trailers at night time they run double trailers at night time as well to there drop yards and they restock the warehouse and pick orders during the day and evening and during the day the trucks are making deliveries, wouldn't take them very long all the customers they have to go through a box car of produce. There own fleet of semi trucks is probably close to 100 trucks so if they run 100 truck loads a day they would need a lot of switiching out depending how fast they can get there loads. I like your approach especially when you talk about in the real world what kind of locomotive it is and all that kind of thing really isn't important they assign power to trains at central command and that's that. I mean after all model railroading and stuff is all academics in the real world there is a job to do and customers complaining get it done and get it done right no body cares about minutia there is a job to do get it done customers are complaining.

@djstrains 2 ай бұрын

Nailed it!

@mpetersen6 16 күн бұрын

I worked in the auto industry and at one time we had a lot of rail traffic coming in and going out. Plus the North Shore ran through the middle of the facility!

@yllekpat Жыл бұрын

Thanks for the really well done flyovers! I worked in Harmarville for 20 years and so saw that bridge many times from the underneath. The details about the derailing rails was a nice touch, and I would have never thought that that bridge only had one track on purpose.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

I’m glad you saw this!

@yllekpat Жыл бұрын

@@djstrains Hey, I watch all of your videos!

@bebopcats Жыл бұрын

I am modeling my town and the next one south which has a vinegar plant. I will be repainting a couple of tank cars with their logo and transport their vinegar by rail. Small and easy!

@kevinharris1392 Жыл бұрын

We had a creosote plant that we switched out in Goshen Pass. Brought in uncured crossties that they unloaded out of gondolas,then they reloaded with ones that had been treated. What was so neat is how they stacked up the fresh cut ones. It looked like a fort about fifty or so feet high so the air could circulate through and dry them out more.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Really cool

@neilcrawford8303 Жыл бұрын

Brilliant suggestions and examples. There are several US based layouts here in the UK that we see on the exhibition circuit. End to end or single ended switching layouts with a hidden storage yard/s of just two or three cars and a locomotive being quite common for their interest plus ease of transport and storage. Another good way to have a hidden yard or stock swapping track is the have the train disappear into an industrial facility or behind buildings where you can swap the cars for different stock. Model railroads are a bit like theatre, about creating an illusion, with the cast, trains in our case entering or exiting stage left, stage right, or from behind a stage prop or piece of scenery. Another theme I've seen modelled a few times is docks and harbors, including loading a couple of freight cars on and off of barges. Here in the UK single wagon/car loads don't happen any more. It's block trains of either intermodal trains of containers, or single commodities like aggregates. Much of our oil traffic has gone as refineries and storage facilities are fed by underground pipelines. One guy did build a UK based scrap yard layout. The heaps of scrap were very convincing. He said he'd got old plastic kits, got a cheap for blender and blitzed the parts. It killed the blender after a while, but the results was spot on. He also 3D printed kitchen appliances like washing machines to have piled up in the yard awaiting processing. Great video, I hope it gives people some inspiration.

@steveNCB7754 Ай бұрын

As modellers, we also tend to obsess about boundary features, such as brick/concrete walls, chainlink fences, etc. Your videos here though, show that often there just aren't any. Whether there ought to be, is another question.

@vernmeyerotto255 Жыл бұрын

Produce transfer facility... they are quite common. Lets you put a big "Dole" sign on the side of a warehouse, and run a big white reefer car up to it. Don't forget to put reefer trucks on the other side of the building. Don't forget to have insulate dock doors for the trucks. If you're concentrating fresh produce for shipment, bring in the product on open top dump trailers to a sorting shed - you can have open raised loading docks, and insulated loading doors for reefer trucks and rail cars. The sorting shed can be an open sided thing to show bins of produce, a roller line for boxing, and pallets with boxed product being moved with pallet Jack's or fork lifts.

@TomsTrainsandThings Жыл бұрын

Great Subject. When I worked at Papercraft in Blanox we would get a tanker once a month for the goop that goes on dryer sheets. Also boxcars for the raw paper rolls.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Below highland park bridge?

@jwrailve3615 Жыл бұрын

My previous layout was a industrial spur line, the prototype once ended at the air force base which is now the atx airport, about 30+ industries were once served on the line now it’s abandoned and piece by piece being removed. I intended to model the entire thing close to as scale as possible but 2 2 x25 lengths in modular sections took up a lot of room. My favorite industries on it were the scrap yard, and this industrial park that had like 8 different turnouts to industries look alcohol distribution, paper supplies, among many other warehouses.

@thetrainboard2772 Жыл бұрын

Wish you would do some videos on your own trainboard. Ive never seen a detailed scrao yard modeled... gary j

@user-pu7iu3qo5g 6 ай бұрын

OMG that N scale scrap yard had a bloke walking through it ---I almost feinted ahahahaha warning next time please

@djstrains 6 ай бұрын

Uhm, that’s a real place filmed with my drone

@williamj3843 Ай бұрын

In order to justify moving more cars than just the local industries I'm planning a small layout which will also operate as a bridge between a Class I and unmodeled industries on the other side of a transfer track (to an unmodeled industrial short line). That should keep the same dozen cars from showing up every operating session and give me incentive to pick up interesting rolling stock at shows. I'm hoping an interchange-yard/industries-interchange architecture will yield lots of flexibility to avoid boredom in the long term. I appreciate videos like this because they inspire a plan review before starting construction. Thank you!

@djstrains Ай бұрын

You are off to a great start!!!

@346UNCLEBOB Жыл бұрын

Another item to consider is that box cars, tank cars, covered hoppers, any car which does NOT show an open load can pass as either a load or empty. No need to add or take away modeled loads. I used to model a coal mining area and loads/empties was a major concern. Lots of (unrealistic) work in changing out loads or a lot of cars to have dedicated cars for each. Our current layout runs open topped cars in run through trains but MOST of the industries we switch get boxes, tanks or covered hoppers. See Model Railroad Planning 2013, Pages 30-35.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

absolutely

@XBOXShawn12thman 2 ай бұрын

Just came across this video .... Subscribed!!! 👍

@djstrains 2 ай бұрын

Welcome aboard!

@pathvalleyrailroad9277 Жыл бұрын

I have a tool maker on my layout that gets a boxcar of materials (maybe steel, maybe packaging materials) and an empty gondola for scrap in and a full gondola of scrap and a boxcar full of products out.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

excellent

@michaelwest4325 Жыл бұрын

Insulated boxcars for things like canned goods to mostly protect from freezing. A large distributor or printing plant takes high cube boxcars for roll paper. A slitter takes coil cars, usually inside but could use a gantry crane coming out the side of a building, they resize coil steel, I suggest to reload on new empty coil cars so sometimes they have covers off. A lumber distributor near me has a curve of track off the line behind chainlink, they unload sheet goods by forklift to the concrete pad and either go inside or on to trucks. A flyash tower, its added to concrete, took one or two covered hoppers at a time, a place that bagged fertilizer or lime or something had a track along the back wall. Took one full covered hopper, unloaded in a pit between rails, conveyored up and bagged inside the simple boxy building. If you go back in time, an LCL siding can literally take a carload of anything imaginable to transload to truck and vice versa. Plenty of switching daily possible.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Lots of activities! Nice

@SteveH-TN Жыл бұрын

In Murfreesboro TN General Mills makes Yogurt & has a siding for 3 or 4 cars

@Santaanacanyon Жыл бұрын

I would like to see a video dedicated to those transfer facilities. That is an interesting concept.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Make one: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rtt3n5R_rsvaYYk.html

@mikemissel7785 Жыл бұрын

The Cumberland Mine Railroad goes from hopper to barge in Greene County

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

its so neat! Love the color of their engine too.

@Bigbuddyandblue Жыл бұрын

The tank facility gave me an idea to have actual smoke coming from a model building smoke stack or a house chimney. Probably easy to adapt a locomotive smoke generator for the job.

@richardsobieck9660 Жыл бұрын

Very nice. But you missed an easy and universal "industry", the team track. Doesn't even need a building. Just a siding that anything can be delivered to. A flat car with equipmentm or even a box car, any thing for local industry. Your transfer station comes close, but the team track doesn't need any facilities.

@ruffian2952 Жыл бұрын

On the New Haven "team" tracks were everywhere. Bigger terminals had the luxury of many teams. Called team tracks because early on teams of horses pulling wagons would come to get their lading. Here on Cape Cod the New Haven had teams at every station. Some had platforms.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

So I’m other words, my video which I describe a team track but more commonly used and labeled as a transfer facility wasn’t good enough? Noted

@richardsobieck9660 Жыл бұрын

@@djstrains Not necessarily. A Team track as described is just a track where cars were spotted to be unloaded or loaded as needed and no facility is necessary. The FEC has at least one about 2 miles from here. A Transfer facility is generally a track or siding where goods are transfered from rail to trucks or vice-versa and generally does have a building or a platfom so one can use a forklift or a manual pallet jack to move items. One can load certian items from the ground, I used to load Fiberglass home insulation into box cars and trucks from the ground, Its pretty physical.

@neiloflongbeck5705 Жыл бұрын

As a British railway modeller I never realised that US railways had freight services that were made up of only a handful vehicles, like you used to see in the UK until quite recently.

@daar1113 Жыл бұрын

In my city there's an 84 Lumber store that has a small spur that goes into their property that has just enough room for two centerbeams. A lot of times they just get one.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

it was on my list, but I had to narrow to 5, lol.

@thetrainboard2772 Жыл бұрын

Those drone views with great fly over detail are so infrequent for us modelers...much appreciated. Shows landscape layout views badly needed. Where to put trees, hills, roads..thanks. gary j

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it

@thetrainboard2772 Жыл бұрын

Bottles of woodland scenics cinders , at $14 to $18 a bottle, cost prohibitive amount to cover a large trainboard area. Gotta do some searching, we have very few manufacturing or train yards accessible here in nj. 20 years ago my dad took me to pittston, pa where he grew up in 1930's and we picked up decades old coal around long abandoned steam engine yards. Any suggestions in nj would be much appreciated. Gary j

@B-and-O-Operator-Fairmont Жыл бұрын

Very well done. I have always preferred smaller industries that only handle a car or two at a time. I knew about most of these you described (and have them on my layout), but I never heard of a "transfer" facility in this context. I will have to work one in on the home layout, and perhaps the club. Item: as a Seinfeld fan, I have a larger plant called Vandelay Industries. It gets tank cars of liquified latex as well as covered hoppers and occasional boxcars. No, George Costanza does not work there.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

I know that episode very well, lol

@realn_c 6 ай бұрын

I just wanted to say thanks for making this. I was trying to plan out my first layout and wasn't sure what to do to provide areas of interest despite being limited on space. Thanks to this video I now know just what I want to do. Thanks again!

@djstrains 6 ай бұрын

Glad I could help!

@abpsd73 Жыл бұрын

I used to work down the street from a cement transfer facility, they usually handled up 2 or 3 hoppers at a time (one in the unloading area and one or two on a spur,) offloaded into the silos, then reloaded into hopper trucks to be transported to various batch plants. Beauty is it can be a very small footprint on a layout where there is an unused corner or gap between other industries.

@rhikdavis Жыл бұрын

Rabbit(?) at 5:16, probably thought the drone was a hawk.

@williamsquires3070 Жыл бұрын

Another industry that you can model in a small “footprint” is a rural grain elevator. It can take a stub-end spur with loading/unloading space for a single covered hopper. They can also be quite large, or anything in between. Not only that, but you can occasionally park a boxcar of “miscellaneous” supplies there from time to time. They would often have a space for a truck to pull up and unload grain products straight from the farmer’s fields, so they kind of acted like a trans-load facility.

@ryans413 Жыл бұрын

These industry are great for someone that has a small layout and might not have all the room for a big industry

@ellisjackson3355 10 ай бұрын

I grew up with a scrap yard in the next town, several railroads in the area. It always felt so industrial, i loved it

@AFmedic 4 ай бұрын

Back in the late 70's - early 80's I worked at Red Arrow Products in Manitowoc, WI. They made Liquid Smoke & Powdered Smoke. We received the majority of sawdust via semi trailers but we would get a box car of sawdust about once a week. No tankers because they shipped 55 gal drums via trucks, but on my layout I added a spot where I pick up a loaded tanker and drop off an empty one.

@dannymacnevin3939 Жыл бұрын

Some cool ideas there. I grew up in PEI Canada in the 70's and 80's and we had trains back then. Unfortunately they got rid of them in 1989. We now have a very nice trail system, so from Google Maps, you can still see where the rails "used" to be. But it's channels like this one, that helps me find things I can model, and how things actually work. Thanks for sharing!

@bradleyogden5688 Жыл бұрын

On my future layout, I'm planning on having to transfer tracks that run beside the single interchange track. I'm planning on having a ramp at one end of those tracks made from a retired flat car. I plan on using it for unloading former woodchip cars that now haul cottonseed that will be off loaded by a skid steer. I'll also have a dock for off loading big gondolas like woodchip size that will come in full of trash and off loaded into trash trailers to be hauled off to the landfill. To load gondolas with scrap metal, and also to off load cars carrying different types of metals, lumber products, miscellaneous types of other loads. I'll set up equiipment to unload frac sand to be trucked to the drilling sites. Then a load out for loading both types of hoppers open or covered with raw salt. Then a large open area for unloading center beam flats, pipe, utility poles, to load tank cars with magnesium chloride. High / wide and other odd size loads, to load sugarbeets. More equipment to unload fertilizer for the farmers and ranchers for better crops. Now leaving that area the next businesses I plan on modeling is a shop for rail car repairs, then a ware house with a dock along the side of it. Numerous possibilities of materials being off loaded there. Once cleared the switch to the warehouse / car shop area, we'll shove the train up a 3.5% to a large concrete / cement industry. On one of those tracks will have a trestle for unloading coal and aggregate products. Then the last industry past the concrete industry will be a industry that receives plastic pellets for making large storage tanks and flat cars to ship out their finished products. The train crew, the crews that that unload / load the cars and the truck drivers that haul the loads to their final destination are employed by the Bonneville Industrial Terminal and Transfer Co.

@fogdan Жыл бұрын

Great Ideas, Thanks for posting!

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Glad you like them!

@mitchbarber3468 11 ай бұрын

There is a smaller tank car labeled Kosher Product Only, easy to make the car cutting the car to half it's size

@georgiasunbelt Жыл бұрын

Great informative video on small industry ideas DJ

@georgeronn1263 Жыл бұрын

When I lived in NJ, One of the small industries I always wanted to model was a facility on the CSX mainline in Chester PA. You could see it from I-95. They received covered hoppers and I believe they transferred plastic pellets to/from tractor trailers. Of course you can’t just stop on I-95 to take pictures, and you cannot see much from the front of the property. As I remember they had two tracks and generally 3 or 4 covered hoppers at the site.

@TheTrainFreak Жыл бұрын

Great ideas DJ! I agree with you that not a lot of people model the food and beverage industries and one of the reasons I am doing both a meat packing plant and a brewery. I'm also doing a scrap yard as well as a sawmill and other various industries whether they take 1 to 6 six cars at a time. Thanks for the info and footage! - Jason

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Right on!

@thetrainboard2772 Жыл бұрын

Show us some videos of your trainboard, please. Just getting wiring and trackwork on my 18 by 24 ft o gauge has taken years longer than expected. gary j

@petesilcox4102 Жыл бұрын

❤water works use chlorine To make drinking water for cities. a tank car once a week or longer, some are enclosed in a separate building for safety To unload

@StormySkyRailProductions Жыл бұрын

Very cool info and ideas DJ! (Dave).

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Thanks 👍

@thomasboese3793 Жыл бұрын

The Wisconsin Centeral from the late 90s until the merger with CN would transload utility poles in a small space next to the old Waukesha, WI engine facilities yard. One to two cars, two to three times a year. If you saw it, great. If you didn't, you would never have known it happened. No signs, no fancy building, just a muddy space showing the scars of use.

@ATrainGames Жыл бұрын

Great stuff, DJ! I would make mention of a couple of other things off the top of my head that allow folks to scale down or alter things "everyone" seems to model: 1. Mom and pop coal tipple. You will see these along the lines in coal country and feature a spot for a car under a hopper where dump trucks empty coal from mines into the rail cars for transport. 2. Team track. I've seen these used to transload corn syrup from rail cars to trucks. And really corn syrup facilities can host 1-4 cars - making them easy to model in any space. One thing I would point out is using a "flat" or end pieces of building kits (or print and adhere to foam-core board or even scratch-build them) to create realistic-looking scenes without tons of work. @2:27 your flyover shows two tracks (though only one need be modeled) of a chemical off-load facility. If you place yourself on the road to the right of the tracks and look at the buildings, they would make a great backdrop to represent the industry, and the off-loading could be as simple as a pit, some hoses, or a gantry structure as seen (though I would add a magnetic uncoupler or space to allow an operator to uncouple cars to keep hands away from the somewhat fragile-looking structure). Something built like this for 1-6 (or more, depending on space available and scale), placed in front of a large printed backdrop of a chemical plant, would allow fantastic, simple, and realistic modeling possibilities in minimal depth, and add terrific operations to a railroad. Thanks for sharing!

@meatloafwarrior Жыл бұрын

As 30 year old guy who's just finished some bench work for my first layout, I want to say I really appreciate your videos. Trying to decide on a layout for my 8x4 is proving challenging.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

When you make it a 4x8 you are forced to walk around it. Any chance you can redesign the layout as a around the room instead?

@meatloafwarrior Жыл бұрын

@@djstrains Unfortunately no. It's actually on a winch and pulley system in my garage because of the lack of space. I'm about 90% sure I'm going with N scale. Ive bought a few eBay N scale lots to test and feel how I like the scale vs HO.

@coolruehle Жыл бұрын

Great video!!! Especially for Free-Mo (modular) model railroaders. Model a cardboard box company. Rolls of paper coming in by boxcar, cardboard boxes going out in "box" cars (no pun intended). Don't forget the parking lot, office, tracks that are so sunken all you see is rails, parking lots paved over all except the rails, chain link fences and gates that can span a rail line into the scene, power poles, power meters, gas meters, drainage ditches, trees/grass/scrub, etc.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Great point!

@1babysag Жыл бұрын

Love the fall foliage. This is a creative use of the green screen. I really like the ideas they are good choices and do not require a huge footprint on the layout that is not related to rail. Besides, I could never build a steel plant. I am also modeling the west coast and we don’t have such industries here in So Cal.

@duanesforkandspoonrr10 Жыл бұрын

Another great video of information....

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Appreciated

@avelkhemchan6640 Жыл бұрын

Thanks for making these videos. I don't know how you have enough energy to make these videos & work. Thank you.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

It’s a labor of love

@colnagocowboy Жыл бұрын

I used to live near a company that received 1 helium tank car every few weeks.

@sernajrlouis Жыл бұрын

I have a cold storage facility on my layout. And 4 other industries. I just got a few of my favorite industries at the Port of Corpus Christi and put it on my n scale layout. Lots of variety. Even the cargo dock has almost every rolling stock you've seen. Especially dodx cars. Great video DJ

@titusrider7948 Жыл бұрын

You have gotten really good at producing these videos, great content!

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

I appreciate that!

@yvesduranceau123 Жыл бұрын

Tanks DJ. Taking notes for my next layout.

@kelvintorrence5994 4 ай бұрын

you must live aroundn pittsburg, becuase I drive flatbed trucks and have been too all those places, great videos

@djstrains 4 ай бұрын

Yup! Thanks for watching and enjoy my nearly 400 videos with scenes from around western Pennsylvania

@DruSteel69 Жыл бұрын

Thank you for that info, DJ. I appreciate you explaining each of them. Have a great day!

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Thanks, you too!

@jeffwhite3679 Жыл бұрын

Effingham Equity, the small grain elevator and feed mill a few hundred yards from my house gets one or two covered hoppers every couple months. Probably not enough traffic to keep a model railroader happy. It sits on the CN main line in Southern Illinois.

@tulsatrash Жыл бұрын

Cool video idea. Thank you for covering it.

@mpetersen6 16 күн бұрын

The short branch line l would like to model has a variety of industries as customers along it. They range in size from a large automotive plant that featured everything from engine manufacturing and stamping to finished cars. Down to one or two car industries. All in a mostly urban setting. Depending on the date it could include unit trains. Coal for Wisconsin Energy. Stone products for a Vulcan Stone distribution yard. The same unit trains were solid WE and Vulcan owned cars. Concrete products plant. Municipal sewer drains, manholes etc. A juice processing plant. The automotive plant, the power plant and the Vulcan yard are all gone now. Plus there was a small yard in between the two wyes that connected to former CNW north south lines now part of the UP system. Plus on the east end of the branch line Metra runs commuter trains into Chicago. Plus it is a terminus for Metra that sees overnight staging of Metra trains. Lots of opportunities for opperations. The problem I'm having is condensing the auto plant down to the required. Only most people have no idea just how much would go in and out on a daily basis. Loads coming in. Depending on time frame. Iron ingots, castings, steel coils for stampings, automotive interior parts, glass, tank cars for gasoline and paint solvents, tires, wheels and steel bar stock. Loads outgoing. Stampings and sub-assemblies for another facility, engines for two other facilities, rear end assemblies, scrap (stamping scraps that are baled, machining scrap, steel and cast iron, seperate loads). All this withoutgetting into finished vehicles and auto racks which shipped from their own shipping yard. Plus part of the track in the auto plant was former North Shore Line main line. With all that it gives the crew enough to do and offers the chance for continous running for any guests. Prototype the KD Line between the Kenosha station and Bain Station in SE Wisconsin. Less than 7 kilometers from wye to wye.

@djstrains 16 күн бұрын

Sounds like a lot of possibilities and fun

@mpetersen6 15 күн бұрын

@@djstrains Two problems. The temptation to squeeze too much in. And knowing when enough is enough.

@andrewpalm2103 Жыл бұрын

Thanks for this great video, DJ. I have a very small (1 x 6) HO switching layout. The primary industry is a food company. There are two loading doors with small docks plus small areas around these for unloading a single covered hopper (Airslides because it's 1962) and a single tank car. The company receives shipments of fruit in insulated plug door boxcars, sugar or flour in covered hoppers, and vegetable oil in tank cars. Regular boxcars deliver packaging materials. There can also be outbound loads of product in insulated boxcars. This is all done in about 2 and a half feet of track. And another siding can hold off-spots if too many cars show up at the same time. In addition there is a single car team track, a one spot warehouse, and a generic industry with a loading dock for two cars. An operating session takes about an hour with 7 or 8 cars involved (3 in and 3 out with a hold or two). So you can see, this video is right up my alley. Thanks again!

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

You are doing great!

@andrewtesta5944 Жыл бұрын

Do you have a interchange track on your layout? I am planning something similar to what you have..

@andrewpalm2103 Жыл бұрын

@@andrewtesta5944 The track plan is based on the Inglenook Sidings Puzzle. The longest siding serves as the interchange track and the food company siding. Typically I have three cars on the interchange section on the end and one car spotted at the food company at the start and end of a session. I move the cars to and from the interchange section by hand using a rerailer. The two shorter sidings have the small warehouse and a generic factory, respectively. The switching lead has the team track and a small enginehouse on the end. Good luck!

@andrewtesta5944 Жыл бұрын

@@andrewpalm2103 cool thx for the info

@Stussmeister Жыл бұрын

A very interesting and informative video. I have plans for a medium-sized (10 x 6.67') layout, yet while I want to have industries on my layout, I have to keep them within the 4 x 10 main oval, and each industry can only accommodate one siding. With that in mind, I've opted for smaller-scale industries, which are: a small coal-mining complex with a vertical shaft mine, a grain elevator, a small lumber mill, a paper mill, a wire/cable factory, and a freight depot. I also have room for two additional sidings on my layout, but I wanted to use these for locomotive maintenance, and as such, they will feature an ash pit and small engine shop, respectively.

@danielfantino1714 4 ай бұрын

The transfer spot is the most polyvalent. You serve a customer...off the layout. Almost anything can be received/shipped by train on any type of cars. Judt a loading dock and gravel pad for trucks. Load of hydro pole, regtigetated boxcar with grape for wine making, machinery, steel etc... So many different industries in a very small location. Scrap dealer. Don´t forget they can scrap old railcars too. May be an old box somewhere for storing tools, why not z pile of old flats for sale. They can be reuse as bridge on your farm road. Old boxcar sides use as fencing. Unusual also exist. Why not an old steam loco, oil fired without tender to make steam to your industry. In 1998 ice rain storm, Montreal and all around had no electricity. A CN M420 was dragged off rail, on paved road about half a mile and produced electricity for about 2 weeks. For decades CP in Smith Falls rail weld plant used a batch of former FM covered wagon locos. Their body was used for rail welding. Don´t forget, if your building is smaller than its railcar....something is wrong there, except if you store outside. Thanks for that smart subject.

@djstrains 4 ай бұрын

Thank you for your well crafted list of ideas

@danielfantino1714 4 ай бұрын

@@djstrains my pleasure, hope it´s helpful. For "youngster", the best tool isn´t the railyard. Nor books. It´s Google Earth and street view. I never been in Porto Rico. No train there right ? Well aerial métro. I learned something. Or how long is Wolcott covered bridge, the last one that was in use on a US railroad, on defunct Lamoille Valley in VT ? Can measure it with Earth (roughly 103 feet) at 6330 road 15 VT. Or how cuty is that former Rutland station on defunct roadbed with ex D&H caboose ( 109 Maple street, Moers, NY) May be you think all your structures should be quite the same, to get a family look ? Well yes and/or no. Proof. All the followings on same CP track not in service in Minnesota. South and north portion are active. Not the middle one. We all have seen flashing lights at railroad crossing. One pole with 2 lights with/without gate. OK, what do you think of that style. Only 2 on that track. This one is the most complete at 1597, 155 th street west, Burnsville, Minnesota Bridges, so cool. All layouts have them. Don´t tell me you won´t fall in love with that 1924 art deco modular concrete one, with 2 different abutments at each end, central pillar in middle of the road and bike path. Tons of little details for a super tiny bridge lost in the bush at 12 915 Lynn St, Savage, Minnesota. Not far from it, is that old wood truss with S curve road with solar flashing stop signs and detail, details at 12 714 Quentin, Savage, Minnesota. You can ever go under, for the rivets counter. That almost brand new unpainted with self rust protection old wood pile style, with long extension over highway and à railroad track close to 12329 Xenwood av, Savage, Minnesota. It´s on "T" road on 123 street (no address) If you continue toward Minnesota river, you even got a fourth bridge, a rotating bridge to let ships and sand barges pass. You even got 2 blue dots to click on and see aerial power line is still there. That bridge is probably the main reason, to cut on manpower expenses to shut down the line. No customers ! The line is active not far from that bridge. All that, thousands miles away, sitting on my couch ! So, go there, take a look. In doing so my research time and writting it won´t be a lost one. Oh by the way, NASA have announced this week research plan for a railway on the moon. What a challenge for futuristic modeler sleeping in you. Forget diesel power .... 🤪🙃😁😆🤣😅

@Skibike69 Жыл бұрын

Nice ideas DJ. Always enjoy your videos, Keep up the good work!

@mpetersen6 Жыл бұрын

Not only are scrap yards an industry. There are also industries that generate scrap. Several examples. A stamping facility producing sheet metal parts for various industries. Automotive, appliances etc. Rolls of steel in. Scrap going out. The scrap typically will be compressed into cubes two to three feet on a side. Heavy industry producing any number of items. Raw castings in, scrap out in the form of chips or scrap parts mixed in. The two preceding ones could also be combined with tank cars in one industry. A combined automotive plant with Press Room, machining and assembly. The tank cars would be needed for paint solvents and gasoline. Switching can be handled as different trips as not everything is going to be coming in or going out at the same time.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Excellent point

@mpetersen6 Жыл бұрын

@@djstrains The structures for these can be little more than flats. A stamping facility will normally off road steel coils inside. Plus such an industry can also receive occasional loads of machinery or stamping dies.

@hangarflying Жыл бұрын

Is a transfer facility essentially a modern team track?

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Yes

@jasonlescalleet5611 Жыл бұрын

What’s scary is that I recognized two of the industries (the scrap yard and the weight factory) from when I was in Pittsburgh last year to ride the GAP trail. I’d only seen them from the ground, but they were still recognizable. Thanks for the drone imagery. I like to see places like that from the air. Also, Kennywood in the background across the river from the transfer facility is something else I rode past, and stopped to look at the industry across the river. I remember seeing more stuff on that side of the river than just the big steel mill, and it’s nice to know what one of them was. I’m the sort of person who sees a nondescript factory and wonders “what do they make there.”

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

I have 400 videos, all from this area.

@robjames6959 Жыл бұрын

Awesome DJ. Just bought a lot of used boxcars and tank cars, I have a very small n scale layout that I'm building so these ideas are really great and I can easily incorporate some of those.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Sounds great!

@timwright3592 Жыл бұрын

I'm modeling an industrial park in a limited space. Great ideas! Thanks!

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Have fun!

@averageguy7136 7 ай бұрын

Another easy industry to model is a newspaper. They regularly receive normal box cars of rolled paper for the printing press.

@djstrains 7 ай бұрын

Yes! We used to serve two places that could only hold one car at its spot.

@PelhamExpress Жыл бұрын

Thanks. O scale in a limited space, so this helps

@railwayjade Жыл бұрын

Here in South Africa we have tank cars with wine. Heard a story from as you would call them - 'oldhead'. When shunting one night, they side-swiped the side of one of the cars and all those in the yard went to find empty bottles and container to fill up with the now spilling wine. He says that night cars were flying up and down and they 'shunted very nicely'

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

HA!!!

@mpetersen6 Жыл бұрын

Reminds me of the old New Yorker cartoon. A gentleman and his bride are driving own the highway and the pass a semi tractor with a trailer labeled Cheap Red Wine.

@keithmoore5306 Жыл бұрын

hey DJ you asked for ideas on the last one how about drag layout like how oil and alcohol tank drags have to have buffers and how high and wides have to wait at narrow spots and such!

@garychestnut6380 Жыл бұрын

Hey DJ thanks for the great video and info. I wanted to thank you for interduce me to Mudd Creek Models.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Great stuff!

@andrewlaverghetta715 11 ай бұрын

This is really cool! I’m looking for industries to model but I’m not looking for something huge either. It’s interesting with the way a shelf layout works, you don’t have all the space where You don’t need to make the whole industry, but also want to make sure you do it justice. I’m trying to find some industries to add to a 2x4’ n scale module as that’s how I seem to be building my n scale layout for the time being in the space I have.

@djstrains 11 ай бұрын

On my KZfaq homepage is PLAYLISTS from there, look for playlist: prototype operations. I have so many videos in that category which show a variety of industries from the drone you can model.

@bruceboyer8187 Жыл бұрын

A lot of great ideas. Thanks.

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

@zonegamma8197 Жыл бұрын

cool videos, good idess

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Thanks!

@robadams5799 Жыл бұрын

8:32 - I noticed a large puddle in the parking lot of this transfer facility. It might be interesting to model that.

@M22OHIO 2 ай бұрын

Coal and Gravel boring food industry is way more fun. Box cars, covered hoppers, tank cars, refrigerator cars. Places can be busy too.

@chadportenga7858 Жыл бұрын

I'd like to see how RRs handle spurs and sidings that merge into the main from one direction.... as in, how do you pick up or drop cars when the train is pointed in the opposite direction and there's no wye to reverse direction?

@djstrains Жыл бұрын

Industries are served primarily from locals. Locals leave yard in one direction and service industries with trailing point switches. If it is a facing point, they can shove the car from the yard (depending on distance, use a caboose, or conductor rides side of car). Or they go to the nearest runaround and then work in opposite direction back to yard. Sometimes they put an engine at each end of their train and work that way.