[adriancr]

Hi All.
My layout is a fictitious preservation railway (so that I can run just about anything), but my idea is to have the preservation centre share a branch line with one or more industries still served by rail to allow for extra operating potential.

Ideally I'd like to include an industry that would realistically receive different items (like raw materials) arriving in different types of freight stock and then dispatch other items (like finished products, by-products, waste etc) hopefully in other different types of freight stock.

Also I'd prefer to use closed or covered freight stock so that there is no need to visibly "unload" or "load anything at the industry. For example, delivering wagons filled with coal and then taking the same wagons away later still filled with coal spoils the illusion.

Any ideas and suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[barrymx5]

You could do worse than emulate the origins of Horsted Keynes on the Bluebell Railway. Because mid Sussex was so productive in soft fruit (the gooseberry capital of the world in American terms!) a jam producer (Hartleys I believe) established a jam making plant there. Sugar cane and glass jars, plus labels?, were brought in by rail, local fruit added and the resulting jam in jars despatched by rail. It is likely some non-Sussex fruit was also brought in, probably by rail.
My own layout is based in the Mendips and includes a large scale forge and wagon repair shop, both of which existed near Radstock. Open wagons probably predominated here though.
Hope this helps.

 

[John Webb]

Most industries still linked with rail tend to have 'block' trains ie Merry-go-round with coal for power generation, anhydite and gypsum traffic, oil tankers, stone trains from quarries, container trains and so on.

The Wensleydale line and the Mid-Norfolk both have occasional military traffic.

Great Central and others often have railway infrastructure companies training/trying out/demonstrating rail-mounted equipment to the mutual benefit of both.

Regards,
John Webb

 

[34C]

If it is a rural location agricultural related industry might make sense. Fertilisers and other agricultural chemicals, or animal pellet feed manufacture, would see tankers, covered hoppers and vans in, mostly covered hoppers and vans for the finished product traffic.

 

[Doug]

I was thinking of modelling a foundry. You could have loads of scrap metal arriving. Then a nice electro-magnetic crane to unload wagons and then perhaps some loads of forged metal, rails or other goods coming out. You can also have slag wagons to get rid of the hot slag.

Around where I live, near an old line that was closed in the early 70's, there is evidence of the railway servicing a local sawmill - also grain silos with sidings and a sugar beet factory that probably had beet delivered and the finished goods and waste removed. There are also tracks around the factory, I suppose to move the loads in hand or horse-pulled carts.

 

[Lord Castellan Creed]

A dock would be good for a lot of goods, from cattle (Cows/Sheep) to Containers to pasangers, if you have enough space you could squeeze in something smaller on the side like a Brewery or Refinery.

 

[adriancr]

Thanks for the replies so far!

I'll look into the suggestings given. Any other new ideas will still be welcome.

Thanks again.

 

[adriancr]

After some further online searching I found this website (http://www.igg.org.uk/gansg/) with lots of Freight model information.

 

[Thunder]

There was a branch line in Hertfordshire, called the nikky (or nicky) line, not sure why it was called that, but it run from Harpenden to Hemel Hempstead, this had trains that ran fron the thermalite factry, thermalite was a company that produced light weight building blockd fpr the construction industry, that were transported along this line and onto the midland rly, could be an intresting project.

 

[ben1]

Breweries are definitely good: grain can come in, the produce can be taken away in tankers to a bottling plant.
You could do a wagon servicing area where wagons are driven in along with wood and other materials.
Hope this helps,
Ben

 

[Lord Castellan Creed]

Also you would need a goods train with food to come, if you have space this would be good, in a railway magazine there was a big one of these.

 

[Fireline]

I actually have two industrial yards in the process of being built. One is simply a factory, which means it could be pretty much anything. The other yard, though, took a lot of thought. On entering the yard, there are three routes inside. The one to the right goes to a brewery (Metcalfe buildings), the middle road goes past this and through to a cattle dock and yard, and the left hand road will go through a security fence and into a military camp. As a result, I can run pretty much anything into and out of there. I am not keen on MGR trains, and similar, but small local freights look just right to me.

 

[Lord Castellan Creed]

I have a mainly industrial line, there is a large port, so I can have any thing going as well as a Steel refinery at the end, there is a sawmill and mine in anouther corner, and I am making the last half of the board, I have to much space

 

[upnick]

Sounds good you will have to take some pics and post them.

 

[bluey robinson]

QUOTE Ideally I'd like to include an industry that would realistically receive different items (like raw materials) arriving in different types of freight stock and then dispatch other items (like finished products, by-products, waste etc) hopefully in other different types of freight stock.

Hi, are you still taking ideas?

Would a pet food processor be too gruesome? You could certainly have a variety of products to export. Pet food obviously, bone meal (or whatever is processed from the carcasses also I can recall seeing a place where skins are left to hang), waste steel from the cannery, pig feed, horse feed, etc. Thus you would have a demand for the inwards goods.

Cheers, Bluey

 

[Lord Castellan Creed]

I will be starting a thread but I have to go up there again, as it is round my grandads house