Modeling Interest 2 - Industry

In Layout Design Process 4 - Railroad Modeling I identified that the layout design process can be broken down into three primary functional areas: Concept, Structure and Layout Detail.

Concept identifies the: Who,What,Where, When and Why aspects of the layout development process. In this blog we will discuss the second of the five elements of Concept 2) Specific modeling interests - Industries
 

Industry

Freight cars are loaded and unloaded on four classes of track: industry, freight stations, team and intermodal. This includes heavy industry, light industry and urban industrial areas that allows switching operations. fIn previous blogs we discussed my interest in modeling 1950's Pacific Northwest, particularly Grays Harbor County, WA. Railroads in the County were primarily focused on moving natural resources.   

Lumber. My interest in logging suggests a logging camp and reload facility. Logging industry activities include sawmills, planing mills, chip mills, pulp and paper mills, veneer and plywood mills, pole and wood product preservation companies.

Coal Mining. My interest in coal mining suggests a coal breaker, a sizing tipple, a coal washing plant, and a loading area for multiple sizes of coal.

Sand and Gravel Processing. My interest in sand and gravel processing suggests a processing area for sizing and processing gravel, a second area for sizing and drying sand, and outdoor and silo storage areas for sand and gravel, and a loading area for both products.


For my purposes, I am going to define industry in three types based on the square footage I am going to allot the industry on my railroad: heavy, medium and local switching.

• Heavy Industry will consist of:1) the logging camp, the reload facility, sawmill planing mill and chip mill, and in a separate location, 2) a pulp and paper mill. 

• Medium Industry will consist of 3) a coal mine with coal breaker sizing tipple and a loading area, and 4) a sand and gravel processing area with a processing area for sizing and drying sand and outdoor and silo storage areas for sand and a loading area for gravel.

•  Light Industry will consist of 5) a creosote plant and 6) wood pole distributor.

•  Light Switching will consist of common small town distributors of coal,lumber, natural gas, fuel and oil.

Freight Stations. 

Freight stations are the railroad owned depots at which less-than-carload (LCL) traffic was received and delivered. While I do not anticipate large amounts of LCL traffic, freight stations are the admin locations of station agents /car distributors who are responsible for car waybilling and customer service.The Northern Pacific maintained a freight station at Montesano, so I would anticipate that any LCL freight for WWSL customers would end up there for delivery. I anticipate having one freight station, primarily for freight administrative operations. As a 'exception to the rule' operation, the station could be used for large shipments transloaded or transferred to the WWLS freight station by truck or interchange.

Team Track. 

Team tracks serve industries which either are not located on the railroad or which receive and dispatch carload shipments too rarely to justify having their own siding. The Northern Pacific had three industry spur tracks and a team track in Montesano and had 6 companies identified as using the track:

I anticipate having one team track associated with the WWSL freight station. This team track could be used for unusual loads that may be transported to the woods, although i suspect that it would primarily be used by the WWSL for the loading of Christmas trees during the late fall, a seasonal activity done by quite a few railroads serving forest production companies. There would be no overlap of services with the NP team track. 

Intermodal (TOFC/COFC).

TOFC/COFC became a major source of freight traffic around 1960. I have not found any indication of TOFC/COFC operations in the Gray's Harbor region, and do not plan on having said on the WWSL.