Cars spotted at The Terminal Corporation’s logistics warehouse in Baltimore on a very rainy day in May.
The photo above, taken yesterday in Baltimore, illustrates how just a single turnout and judicious industry selection can provide a platform for an interesting operating scenario. Because this is a logistics facility, you can’t just dump cars anywhere. Each car goes to a specific door. Heated phone calls would be made if the boxcar was spotted where the reefers are. Although not visible, there are two tracks here. You have the slightly elevated industry in the back. In the front, obscured by the guardrail, is a stub-ended sorting track to help with blocking and organizing the cut. If the boxcar and reefers weren’t blocked in the yard, they’d use the sorting track to get them in correct sequence. Five reefers came in, but they only had room to spot two of them at the loading bays. That means the three on the right needed to be placed “off spot” until room frees up. Once the two reefers in the back are unloaded, the switcher will pull them (and likely the boxcar), and put the two loaded offspot reefers at the doors. Tom Klimoski made some phone calls to industry insiders and they believe the reefers are probably carrying potatos. My guess is from Idaho. I have a track plan for this scene in my latest book, 8 Trackplans For Modern Era Switching Layouts.
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As work on the East Rail layout ramps up, one of the more annoying issues has been the “black hole” dark spot in the corner. The poor lighting was really taking the fun out of working on the railroad and needed to be addressed. Adding lighting that is effective and cleanly executed isn’t always that easy.
To the rescue was a Lithonia lighting 4 foot LED ceiling mount fixutre that I ordered from The Home Depot. When picking lighting, the first thing I look for is “horsepower” (brightness) which is measured in lumens. This particular product rates at 4000 lumens which certainly does the job. It also has adjustable color temperature and brightness knobs.
Electrical codes dictate that all connections must be made within a junction box that is accessible from the room (not behind a wall).
The tricky part of the install was that the ceiling above the fixture is actually a drywall boxout I built to conceal my home’s major hvac duct runs. This meant I needed to find the framing and also make sure I knew were the ducts were so I didn’t drill through them. Once I knew where everything was, it was the old story of wishing you had six foot long, one inch diameter, jointless arms to thread the wire through.
My good buddy Tom Klimoski, a career firefighter and master DIYer, is always reminding me of the importance of adhering to building codes. Codes aren’t a case of “the man” telling you what to do in your own home. Their sole purpose is to keep people from burning their homes down, killing themselves, etc…..all worthy objectives I think we can all agree.
Tom reminded me that two key wiring codes are: a) All electrical connections must be made in a junction box and b) junction boxes MUST be accessible from the room, not hidden behind drywall. In other words, some jury rigged, just twist the wires and stuff them behind the walls, deal is just downright dumb from a safety standpoint. It only takes an extra hour to do things to code and the peace of mind is worth it.
The layout room is now bathed in bright and evenly distributed lighting. Onward and upward.
A Tradepoint Rail SW1500 hauls a cut of centerbeams on a transfer run up to the north yard.
Among my peer group the 1950’s were, and still are, the holy grail when it comes to modeling subjects. It’s a favorite for good reason. When working with customers over the age 60, the overwhelming majority want to set their modeling era in the mid-1950’s. Within that age group, the age sixty plus crowd, there is also a sense of sadness from the standpoint that they feel something has been lost, that those were the gold old days, and things will never be as great as they were during that time period. I’m not so sure. Yes, things have changed but, if you really study how rail traffic moves, far less than you’d think. Different doesn’t mean worse. In fact, it can mean opportunity. The good old days are now and here’s why.
Back in the fifties, the business model was one of numerous short spurs to any small shipper that wanted to ship a crate of applesauce out the door. No doubt, there’s some modeling appeal there in in that you have a large variety of structures each with a freight car parked at the door. In addition, model railroaders, by nature, love turnouts…the more the better. Lot’s of small industries, each with a short spur, lots of turnouts, that’s been the model railroad design model for almost a century.
The conventional thinking is that the old way of “railroading” is entirely gone. Only partly true. No railroad today is going to run a spur to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. What a lot of modelers don’t realize though, is that many of these small shippers are still served, just under a different and more efficient business model. The small shipper can, and still frequently does, receive rail cars today. They have a few options. One, is they can rent out space in what is called a logistics warehouse. These are large structures served by a single spur that have multiple loading bays rented out to small tenants. The other option is to have the railroad spot the customer’s small shipment on a team track and they can then send a truck over to pick it up. So, you still have a lot of small shippers it’s just a case of the railroads saying, if you want us to handle something small we will, but you have to come to us to pick it up.
Back in the 1950’s almost every small town had at least a few small spurs. In modern times, it’s more of a feast or famine situation. Some cities are loaded with activity, others have virtually none. In the Washington, DC area where I live, the fifth largest metro area in the country, there are virtually zero freight spurs. A half hour drive north to Baltimore and the rail environment is so dense and intense it’s overwhelming. There’s so much it’s hard to take in at once. If you don’t live near a modern rail hotspot,it’s understandable to see why you’d think the entire country is nothing but container trains going from coast to coast. It’s not.
Modern railroads have gotten creative when it comes to revenue streams. Storage is one such example. Let’s say a massive chemical industry doesn’t have enough storage space at their facility. The solution? Put the liquid in tank cars, store them in a rail yard, and get the cars as you need them. Rail yards also have lots of open real estate for storing bulk commodities such as pipe, beams, piles of aggregate, etc.
Ace Logistics off of Boston Street in Baltimore (Canton RR) houses multiple small shippers under one roof. The city was kind enough to put a comfy Starbucks next to it so as to minimize any discomfort to the railfan community.
Directly across Boston Street from Ace Logistic is the Boston Street Bulk Terminal. Notice the “odd-man-out” hopper.
At first glance you’d think this was a typical classification yard (Tradepoint Rail in Baltimore). In reality most of the cars are used for storage. Oh, and Tradepoint does NOT do this for free! It’s part of their revenue model.
Something just happened or is about to happen as far this tank car unloading scenario is concerned at a Tradepoint Rail team track lead. Note the pump and hose at the bottom of the ladder.
Knowledge creates opportunity for better and more creative themes, better layout designs, and more interesting operating sessions. The 1950’s were great but it’s time to move on and embrace the opportunities that are right in front of us, and right in front of us now. It’s time to move beyond the 1950’s in terms of model railroad design practices and it’s time to move on in terms of how we handle model railroad operations.
Progress on the East Rail throwback replica is rolling along at a deliberately slow and relaxing pace. All of the track is down. Trains are running. At this point it’s time to slow down and enjoy the ride. The canal leg, shown above, will be identical to the original version. Track is Micro Engineering flex with the ties spaced out, rail bars added, oil wash coloring for the ties, and airbrushed rail. Soil is Polyblend grout, an ideal product for our needs. It’s cheap, easy to use, and of most importance, comes in perfect earth tones for scenery use. I like to keep bench work fairly narrow, sixteen to eighteen inches or so, where possible. Even so there will be locations, such as near foreground structures, where you need more space. In these cases I add width with bumpouts.
One of my favorite industries, and a focal point for East Rail, are team tracks. Shown above is an example on a lightly used, out-of-the way, track at Tradepoint in Baltimore. On this day it was plastic pellets. Tomorrow it could be a centerbeam, a tank car, a boxcar of bricks, and on and on. Note the details such as derails on both sides, blue flag protection, weeds, and spillage between the rails.
Murphy’s law of publishing 107a reads….”The week after you publish a book, you’ll find a better photo to illustrate a key point. It’s never the week BEFORE. That’s the law”. On the Canton Railroad design in the book, one of the key industries is The Terminal Corporation (top of the drawing), a car spot dependent logistics warehouse. At the bottom of page 33 is photo of it on a day with no cars. Well, driving by today, there it was with three reefers spotted in front of it. I knew they took reefers but didn’t realize it was that many at once. At any rate, if you have the book, do the old right click/save to capture the image above, print it out, and put it in your book.
In case you’re wondering, Murphy’s Law of publishing 107b reads, “Whenever you take a prized shot on a cloudy day, the moment you get on the interstate heading home the sun comes out” 🙁
