# Industry planning.



## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Hello all,

New guy questions. I am in the development stage of my layout and have a couple of questions regarding industries, specifically multiple industries that would use a common resource on the layout.

I am planning on having two maybe three industries that would all require refer cars to be iced. I am modeling the mid 40's to mid 50's. Do you normally have an icing facility at each industry that requires it, or do you consolidate them into a shared resource and have one large ice facility in the main yard?

I would imagine that industries would pool resources for such a facility if it was logistically feasible, but you would not want beef, pork etc. sitting in an un-iced refer for very long. 

Fish seems to be kind of a special commodity. With the research so far that I have done, fish was often transported in crates with ice in the individual crates and shipped via express car. I plan on incorporating express freight into my passenger train service. Did they use express refer cars or express box cars since the product was packed in individual crates? Did the operation go something like this; car is loaded at fish industry, then transported to a passenger car terminal, then unloaded by the customer at the passenger terminal closest to the customer?

Sorry if these questions are a bit odd, trying to get a grasp of the amount and type of cars that I will be operating while I am in the early development of my track plan. That way the yard and industry sidings will be the correct size (maybe). Plus, I enjoy doing the research.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

I suppose some large meat packing plants or
produce packing facilities could have their own
icing platform. However, some railroads installed
their own at various points in the U.S. This made
possible re-icing long haul cars as well as icing for
smaller shippers who needed reefers.

I only have 2 businesses on my layout that could
use the icing facility but my platform can service
the cars in transit through the area.

Creating a scratch built ice platform can be an
interesting challenge.

I built my own using some hobby shop beams and
wood but it is mainly a collection of parts and pieces
I had been saving.

Mine has the small ice making building with the
cooling tower on the roof along with access stairway.
The actual icing is done by a 'trolley' on rails that
can move to put it's boom over the reefer hatches.
Other parts in the trolley are the machine that grinds
the block ice then a blower to move it to the car.









Don


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Get "Track Planning for Realistic Operations" by John Armstrong (Model Railroader or half.com). He has lots of tip for industry operations.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Thanks for the information so far,

I have the "Track Planning for Realistic Operations" and some other material and have read them several times lol. It is a great read and is probably the driving factor in why I am trying to figure some of this out before I lay any track.

I know I cannot model all things that happen in a process, but I would like to be mindful and model key items of a process as best I can.
With additional reading and thought I think the fish process chain may look something like this.

Boats come into port with fish. Some of the catch is sold to local fish market. Some fish is transported a short distance by truck to processing plant.  Fish is processed and comes out in two categories, frozen and fresh chilled. Frozen fish is loaded into refrigerator cars and put into trains with possibly other refrigerator cars containing other perishable items (Beef, Pork, fruit).

Train of refrigerator cars pull through a top icing facility on a through siding owned by the rail road, then hauled to the final destination.

The chilled fresh fish that the processer produced, will be loaded onto express freight cars and put into a passenger car consist. These cars will go to passenger car terminals and be off loaded to customers, then be placed in the passenger car yard to until returned.

Sounds somewhat feasible, maybe.


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## sliderule01 (Dec 3, 2016)

Depending on the time frame, you might be able to find insurance maps of the area you are trying to simulate. For instance, I was looking at Pottstown PA steel industries around 1920 and found the insurance maps that gave a great deal of information.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

That is pretty neat. I am not modeling a particular real world place, but it is helpful for me to take ideas from different places and incorporate them into my fantasy world.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

One thing you should probably consider is staging tracks. In addition to being an on-layout storage location, they are also a generic industry that can generate any type and amount of traffic desired, since they represent "everywhere else in the world that could ship something to a place on my layout".

On my layout, for instance, the only soup to nuts industry chain I have is lumber -- there is a logging operation, a sawmill, a lumber yard, and a piano factory. Each of these also takes shipments from and ships to "off layout" locations (represented by Cedar Hill Yard -- the New Haven's major classification yard just north of it's namesake city). The rest of my industries (winery, feed and seed store, brownstone quarry, dairy farm, creamery, Middletown freight depot) all do most of their shipping to or receiving from off-layout locations.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

I am planning on use a rail car float/barge to help with shipping and receiving stuff outside of the layout. I have thought heavily about a below level staging yard. I think I will use it to feed the removable car float, like using a cassette.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

FzCruzer said:


> I am planning on use a rail car float/barge to help with shipping and receiving stuff outside of the layout. I have thought heavily about a below level staging yard. I think I will use it to feed the removable car float, like using a cassette.


That works, too. A little more fiddly to manage, but nothing wrong with that.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

I have a couple more evenings worth of messing around with Anyrail and will post up my plan for advice soon.


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## time warp (Apr 28, 2016)

Now I'm curious. I don't believe the express reefers would have made it as far as the passenger terminal, but would have been set out en route. Switching moves and set outs, or adding coaches, diners , or sleepers wasn't uncommon. Remember there were milk cars involved many times as well. The reefers would have been routed according to priority, so would have been handled as such.
Most likely the reefers would have been picked up by a through train instead of being handled through a yard. Interesting topic.


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## 1905dave (Sep 18, 2016)

FzCruzer said:


> Hello all,
> I am planning on having two maybe three industries that would all require refer cars to be iced. I am modeling the mid 40's to mid 50's. Do you normally have an icing facility at each industry that requires it, or do you consolidate them into a shared resource and have one large ice facility in the main yard?


 Normally the railroads did the icing. A major facility might have their own ice plants. The railroads would have a facility at the yard in the area where loaders were located. One ice dock would support multiple industries.

Reefers to be loaded would be iced before they are loaded so they would be pre-cooled.

Depending on the commodity they might be top ices (crushed ice put over the top of the load) or the ice might be topped off in the bunkers.

Then there were icing racks a couple days or so away from the loading area to re-ice the cars enroute.



> Fish seems to be kind of a special commodity. With the research so far that I have done, fish was often transported in crates with ice in the individual crates and shipped via express car.
> 
> Did they use express refer cars or express box cars since the product was packed in individual crates?


Fish were also shipped in regular reefers. Express boxcars have no cooling.

Express would have been carried to the express facility and loaded there. Also loaded in the express reefers, fruit and flowers.


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## FzCruzer (Dec 24, 2016)

Thanks for the information. Was getting ready to upload the track plan and notice a grade that is toooo steep. Not Sure how I missed it, going to take some re-engineering to get it under control lol.


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