One of the industries I am planning on my layout will be a steelmill which supplies plate steel shipped on flatcars to a company who rolls those sheets into a cylinder and welds the seam. The cylinders are then shipped out on flatcars. At the company in my hometown that I am basing this industry on, the receiving and shipping tracks are all outdoors. I am wondering how to represent this on my layout from an operations standpoint. Would most modelers have 2 cars with the same road #, one loaded with the sheet steel, and one loaded with the final product, and physically replace them by hand to represent incoming and outgoing shipments? Obviously this is something that is much easier to handle with enclosed cars. My question would also apply to the coal fired power plant I would like to include. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Have a great day and happy railroading!!:ru-biggrin:
I prefer removable loads. In one session the car is spotted - in the next session this car is picked up. The load is changed between sessions. That's the way I operate my layout. Wolfgang
However you want to do it. Swapping the car or having a removable load are both good options. Sometimes it is easier to model two different cars - but sometimes you can easily load swap. With coal it is much simpler. I prefer to use foam for the base for my coal loads and glue a thin metal strip on the top of the foam, then glue to coal on top of that. Simply drop the load in to "load" the car, then use a magnet to "unload" the car.
If space is available...have 2 sepearte tracks. maybe one on one side of the building with incoming sheets of steel. The otherside...flats with finished product to go out...JustMyOpinion .
I'd go with swapping cars between sessions, that would also simulate the time taken to load or unload the car. Something to add variety is the fact that railroads try to route cars back towards their owning railroad when they are unloaded so your industry might not always reload the car that comes in with the plate steel. For example if the raw material comes in from the east on a Conrail car but they have an outwards shipment bound for California the railroad would try get a BNSF or UP empty for them to load if one was available so you may still have the odd empty going in or out.
