The Eastborough Industrial

It's been a long slow process, but I've narrowed in on what I really want out of this layout and have finally worked out a plan which I think satisfies at least the top criteria.

(click to enlarge)

The layout represents the end of a freelanced industrial track - one of those tracks that branches off the main and winds a couple miles or so serving a few industries that seem to be more common than you might at first think.  I've selected the industries to give me a mix of car types, car flows, and switching.  The industries are all cribbed from real prototype industries in eastern Massachusetts, with varying degrees of modeler's license.

Eastborough

Eastborough is not a real town in Massachusetts, but it could be.  There is a cluster of -borough's that includes Marlborough, Northborough, Westborough, and Southborough, but no Eastborough.  So, the name Eastborough gives those familiar with the area and idea of where it's imagined to be - somewhere near where routes 495 and 95 cross.  The CSX mainline (formerly Boston & Albany) runs through Westborough, and the Fitchburg branch runs through Southborough, Marlborough, and Northborough.  The Grafton & Upton shortline is nearby.

What Railroad

You'll notice I haven't been specific about what railroad serves the industrial track.  I don't view that as particularly important, so I haven't decided yet.  I have a soft spot for switchers like MP15s, but a GP40-2 or GP38-2 is nice too.  If the industrial track is served by a shortline or terminal railroad any of those are possibilities.  If it's CSX that serves the industrial track, power will be a GP40-2 (CSX's power of choice on locals).  CSX sold all it's MP15s a few years ago - some of them ended up on the Grafton & Upton.

Operation

At the start of a session, a train is made up in staging with the engine on the front end, ready to pull the train onto the layout.  Train length can be anywhere from just a couple cars to a couple dozen cars, although somewhere around a dozen will probably be typical.  The runaround that should be mostly adequate, but which will require a couple runaround moves to deal with the largest sessions.

There are no tricks or switching puzzles, just some decent sized industries with a variety of needs.  I haven't decided on the mechanics of car routing and the form of "paperwork" to document it yet.  The mechanics may be software, or manual.  Whatever the mechanics, I'd like the resultant "paperwork" to be able to take one of several forms depending on who is going to be doing the actual switching and their skill level and preferences - any one of waybills, switch lists, PICL lists, or even tab on car.

Trans Plastics

The biggest industry in terms of car count is Trans Plastics, lifted straight off my N scale Palmer Industrial Park plan, in turn lifted pretty much straight from the prototype Palmer Industrial Park.  The prototype industry went out of business over 10 years ago unfortunately - smaller plastic transload operations seem to have difficulty.  But I like the big plastic pellet hoppers and the car flow pattern and switching that creates so I'm modeling it anyway.  Normally the industry will be mostly full, but like the prototype will only receive and release 1-4 cars a week.  Cars are emptied apparently randomly since they get emptied by demand for what grade of plastic they contain.  Spots are stuffed in wherever they fit, placement is not important.

National Lumber

National Lumber is cribbed from National Lumber on "The Chocolate" - an industrial park spur in Mansfield, MA.  I like the large warehouse with the track only along half of it, and the two door spots on the warehouse, and the fact that the centerbeam unloading area is past the warehouse.  I "improved" on reality to have 3 centerbeam spots instead of just one.  There will be times when centerbeams are cycled through at a good clip, and times when there's no center beams and only a single boxcar at the warehouse.  Cars will almost always be unloaded before the next switch, so there will rarely be respots.

Tighe

There are a three rail served Tighe warehouses in eastern Massachusetts - Mansfield, Winchester, and Woburn.  I plan on cribbing the building appearance from the Mansfield warehouse, which has 9 doors spaced on 77 foot centers.  I'll keep the spacing, but trim it to 8 spots.  There are rain diverters on the roof, which makes it easy to measure the spacing on a satellite photo, and which will make it easy to line the boxcar doors up with the warehouse doors on the model.  This warehouse will take more switching moves per car to get the job done than the other industries.  Each car will be billed to a specific door spot.  Not all cars will be unloaded by the next session, so there will be some re-spots.

Broco Oil

Broco oil is inspired by the prototype Broco Oil in Haverhill MA which just started receiving biodiesel heating oil about a year ago and has been ramping up considerably, adding track, a trackmobile, new storage tanks, etc.  My representation of it will need to make do with a single shorter track, but it's long enough to give a good feel of an active business.  Since they only receive only B99.9 biodiesel tank cars are simply unloaded sequentially.  The empties will always be at one end of the track, the respots (if any) at the other.  Broco Oil will be easy to switch, but should allow for moving nice long cuts of tank cars in the process.  Biodiesel tank cars are hazardous, with a 1202 placard.

Broco also advertises transloading services.  From what I can tell they've only had one customer for that so far, transloaded a few gondolas of rebar to flatbed trucks.  That will allow for a very occasional bit of variety from the usual.

NYS&W New York Mills Industrial

I should say up front that this is not the model railroad I am going to build.  I'll explain why below.  But it was a strong contender and I came close to building it, so I think it's worth writing about.

When I discovered the New York, Susquehanna, and Western's Utica area industries earlier this year I became pretty interested.  A number of relatively small industries, mostly on a separate industrial track with a fairly interesting track arrangement.  I wrote up some information on the prototype on a separate page on this blog here.

There is a very photogenic crossing tender's tower, street running, and a brewery spur with a switch in the middle of the street on the Utica branch mainline.  But the part that intrigues me more is the New York Mills industrial track (technically it's actually two tracks - the New Hartford industrial track, and the New York Mills industrial track).  The prototype is a deceptively simple switching puzzle.  I decided to focus on the industrial tracks for their operating interest, and ignore the street running section.

Things that make the combination of the New Hartford and New York Mills industrial tracks an interesting switching problem:

• A relatively short runaround at the very start of the industrial track.
• A branch to a switchback leading to one of the industries (Oneida Warehouse).
• An industry literally on the end of the line - no switch, that's it.

See the the prototype page for maps, more details on industries, and prototype vides.

The first attempt

Even though it's a relatively small industrial track, there is still a total of almost 6 miles of track.  So the question is, how to squeeze that into the available space.  Here's my first reasonable attempt.

(Click to enlarge)

The New Hartford switchback and Oneida Warehouse are left off entirely.  The remaining four industries are compressed and slide considerably closer together than on the prototype, but that's inevitable if you're trying to squeeze 3 to 4 miles of prototype track onto a shelf well under a scale mile long.  The industries are all in the right relative positions on the prototypical side of the track.  A staging area could be added on the other side of the bulkhead door at the bottom, or the train could just be sitting on French Rd runaround at the start of the session with the engine in the lead.  The Di Highway section would be a fold down section to allow freer use of the basement for other non-railroad purposes.

Things that bothered me about this plan was having an industry on a fold down section, a bit more industry compression than I was hoping for, and no chance of adding the New Hartford section.

The second attempt

The breakthrough came with the realization that if I mirror imaged the industries I could solve all those problems.

(Click to enlarge)

In this plan, the drop down section is just the lead off the Utica branch mainline.  The industries are a bit less compressed (although mirror imaged), and there's a bit more space between them.  And there is the option of tunneling through the wall to put the New Hartford section in the next room, with the switchback (which adds an element of intrigue when you're at the runaround out of sight of it trying to get the cars on the right end of the engine).  There is an additional drop down section across the bulkhead door to get to Di Highway, but that wouldn't need to be use much and it's only scenery, so no problem there.

So why not build it?

I spent a month or so wanting to build this track plan but feeling unconvinced that it was the right one for me.  Finally I took a step back and thought about what industrial switching I like watching on the prototype most.  Any prototype switching is interesting to watch, but what really ticks both the industrial interest and gut feel of railroading boxes for me is not one or two car industries, it's bigger industries.  Industries where a full spot is half a dozen cars or more.

So that's why I'm not going to build this layout.  It would be a nice layout I would enjoy operating on, but it's not quite exactly what I want for a layout.