One track, two industries.

Rick,

I've done plenty of operating sessions, and although each industry will generally have it's own siding, in trying to save space, one siding serving two industries is common. One example I've seen many times is a long loading dock with multible doors, each door serves a differant business. Example, furniture store is served by the door at dock #1, the parts distributor has door #2 and so on.

Thanks David,

How about two tracks in a steel mill open hearth furnace recieving three cars? One bottle car for hot metal, one scrap steel gondola and one slag pot! Could the slag pot and scrap gon share one track (operation wise)?

Rick.

There is never enough room on a layout and I certainly think it is permissible if its what you want; your RR, your rules and all. 

I've done this too.  In the real world it is not done, but then, alot of things on our layouts aren't done in the real world.

My son is an engineer on the CN and I asked him the same question awhile back. Yes, they have two or more industries on one siding but the railroads don't like it because of the extra work involved. I have a siding with a couple of industries on one siding on my layout.

As Lee just said, in our model world anything goes. 

Paul,

I can see how it would be an issue for the real railroads. I would like to "operate" my trains as well as just run them around the layout. Wanting the best of two worlds in a small space I guess!!

Rick.

It does happen in the real world and as someone posted the railroads aren't especially pleased with the work involved in cutting in/out cars to make delivery/pickups.  The local freight through our town would have to make deliveries/pickups and these meant breaking down the local, pulling/pushing cars, sometimes running a mile or so down the track to find a passing pocket.  As kids we enjoyed watching the gyrations as the engine would be sandwiched between cars pushing/pulling to get one car out of a siding and trying to put another one in.  Trying to do this in the minimum number of moves can be quite a challenge and there are layouts based on this that are popular in the HO world.

Prototypically, yes. Our N&S line a few miles up the road is a siding/spur line that services 5 inductries, 2 different chemcial companies, 2 manufacturing indictries, and a refinery. It even has a little yard off of it to store extra cars for the refinery.

Gandy

Yet, Mr. Bivins' question regarding a steelmiil seems to require an industry-specific response. Each of those cars would have a different purpose for an Open-hearth, wouldn't they. The "bottle car" transports a liguid product to a specific site in the production cycle. For example, such a movement of those cars was done (1950's) between National Tube, U.S. Steel Mill, in Mckeesport, PA and Duquesne Works, in Duquesne, PA. A train of such cars was so heavy, a special bridge spanning the Monongahela River was built to withstand the immense weight .

The slag car takes a waste (slag) to a deposit site.

The gondola has a contents destined for melting down.

If I recall correctly (it's been 50 yrs, since I had first-hand experience w/ such a place,) those three types of RR cars would be traveling in different directions; in fact, even in opposite directions, to different aspects of the steelmaking process.

I would consider modeling them on the same track if they were there for storage, even though mills preferred to keep the same cars on the same track, I believe, but I do not recall ever having actually seen that, not that I memorized the entirety of those two steelmills.

On my layout, I have had heavily weathered bottlecars and slag cars as part of the same train, pretendng they were headed for the scrap yard (see photos); yet, I still got (good-natured) "heat" (pun intended) for putting them together in the same consist.

Oh, and also, I learned (from Allan Miller) that a real train of hot bottle cars or loaded slag buckets would have had an empty flat-car or gondola separating the consist from the engine, due to the great heat.

I offer this for your consideration.

Frank M.

P.S. One more thing: I am positive that loaded (hot) trains of those cars would never have gone into the community for a train ride. They were intra-industry transportation, far, far too dangerous ever to be out among people in towns and viilages.

P.P.S. You may want to refer to: OGR, Run230, pp.81-84, "Hot and Heavy Cars..." 

There was a switch job in Downtown Los Angeles decades ago that had several industries along one track with only a couple of spurs. The track ran down one of the "alleys" (can't remember if it was part of the SP Los Angeles "Rat Hole" or the ATSF "Patch.) The switch job was almost full day job as some cars that weren't necessarily listed for pick-up had to be picked up anyway along with the rest, separated and mixed in with the cars to be set out so that they could all be dropped in the right order.

So, three industries could sit on one long spur; you just have a more involved switch job.

By the way, there's a switching puzzle that illustrates the technique well called the "Inglenook Sidings" puzzle. You have three spurs -- two that hold three cars each and one that holds five. The puzzle has 8 cars and no run-around. The "tail" has space for a locomotive and three cars. The object is to get five cars into the five-car spur in the right order based on a random draw. You have to be able to shuffle the cars around. It's quite a challenge.

Here's the original: http://www.wymann.info/Shuntin...enook-trackplan.html

And in case you'd like to play along at home here's one you can play in your browser (preferrably when your supposed to be working):  http://precisionlabels.com/shunt/jpage330.html

Depending on what type of layout you are building, this might be desirable.  

I want a lot of switching action on my small layout, so one of my sidings have 2 industries, plus an area on my wye where my RR stores its 3 passenger coaches when they are not in use.  I also will have a small unloading area on the wye to unload some automobiles from their boxcars when they arrive too the local dealership.   Makes for some challenging switching, and keeps me from being bored from the trains just going around and around on the outside loop.

N&W (EX WABASH) IN HOMER ILL. HAS A SIDING THAT SERVES A LARGE GRAIN ELEVATOR , A SMALL FUEL DEPOT (STANDARD OIL) , AND A LUMBER YARD.