I am modeling industrials right now -- in 7/8"n2. I LOVE industrials personally, and have mine tram or odd four wheel industrial stock in Sn22", On18" (both on N gauge), 3/8"n20 (on HO), and 3/4", 7/8" AND 1" scale on #1 gauge track -- I'd model stuff larger if the track and parts weren't so darned expensive. Now logging railroads are actually mostly industrial lines -- but I think we could grant them dispensation since most are more interesting operations.

I think my post should have referred more to the fact that I see folks modeling lines that are not either one are the other, but sort of a blend of industrial and common carrier aspects -- you know, a Shay pulling log trains and some odd freight....or mining railroads with the other types of shippers, typical "model railroad" stuff .... which per se' doesn't really happen a lot in the real world. In fact, by most railroad regulations, ICC and state laws, handling paying passengers on an industrial is a no-no -- but it did happen -- usually as excursions -- the Gilpin made good money for a while offering excursions.

BUT, offering a regular freight service to more than one shipper is almost always a no-no on an industrial line. I would therefore define an industrial line as a single user system, for whatever purpose it was designed for -- whether it be a plant railroad like the S. D. Warren paper plant in Maine, or a steel mill or tie treatment facility, or a logging railroad, or even an Estate railroad.

A past issue of the Gazette had an article on the lime operation in Arkansas. The actual modeling of such a line would in my mind be dull in most of the smaller scales -- in fact, downright dull. Loads from a quarry to a processing facility, the empties then returned. Gets old pretty quick; as do a lot of other industrials or loggers. Loads vary from logs to ore -- but essentially the same thing, loads out, empties back. Once the layout is done, it's out and back; out and back; out and back; forever.

Now as an opportunity to model EQUIPMENT, industrials offer so variety that simply free-lancing them doesn't even come close for the most part. Which then I ask why is there so much freelanced stuff that just looks hokey. Ore cars or log cars each have sizes and requirements that fit the design parameters of their required use. Why, cause we're having fun! I have fewer problems with the purely industrial modelers out here -- it's when we have a small shay pulling a train of ten skeleton log cars, four boxcars, a gon and a caboose, then that starts to look like John Allen, not like railroading.

Which, you can model either a common carrier or an industrial - but each has aspects that define them -- if you offer a common carrier service, your road will evolve along the lines I posted under "proportions" -- or it dies. You either offer a useful public service, at hopefully a small profit - or you go under.

If you model an industrial, then almost ANYTHING goes -- but even then, there are proportions suited to what the line does, haul logs to a sawmill, or ore to a mill, or this to that. Logging. How big is your sawmill, how much board feet can it saw per day ... what species of trees are you cutting? Those will define what size cars you use. Yes, Argent and Ely-Thomas had very small skeleton log cars, but heck, they were essentially cutting twigs even by modern standards by the time most of our photographs were taken!

Mining. How big is your Mine or Mill, how much does it produce or process daily, what type of mining and milling is it? That defines ore cars, but much less so than logging does in it's genre.

As with most problems in model railroading, we don't really have the layout space to do justice to the industries our railroads supposedly serve; much less the towns or scenery they operate around. The West Side's sawmill in On3 would fill most basements. The Gilpin milling district in Blackhawk alone would be a massive layout undertaking, if done to scale, even in HO. Thus, if we model smaller lines, with unique equipment, we are safer. That is the saving grace of an industrial operation.

Jeff Saxton