An outstanding sample of turn-of-the-century industrial architecture, the Southern Railway machine and erecting shops in Spencer, North Carolina would be perfect for a long, narrow space on your model railroad layout. And, the repeating brick masonry lends itself to selective compression to fit the space you have.
With a nearly eight block continuous facade, the Front Avenue Industrial District in Columbus Georgia offers a range of buildings featuring late 19th Century commercial and industrial architecture. Constructed between 1867 and 1902, the buildings feature a similarity of scale and consistent use of material and detailing that create a sense of belonging often missing in industrial scenery created over a longer span of time. This offers a palette of buildings for the model railroader to choose from for a cohesive industrial background. Check out the massive collection of 13 plans.
St. Elizabeth’s Hospital Building 12 is of interest to model railroaders of the 20th Century in part to its modular nature. It could be selectively compressed, or even enlarged, without destroying the architectural qualities of the building. It would also be an opportunity to work with mold-making, since the repetitive architectural patterns lend themselves to multiple plaster cast reproductions assembled together after casting. Check out the plans.
Built in 1908, the Live Oak Creamery was the first butter factory in the Gilroy area, at the center of Santa Clara county’s dairy industry in the early 20th Century. Before this, farmer had to ship their products to other areas to be turned into butter.
This is a great small industry that offers plenty of opportunity to customize it for a unique location on your railroad.
To maintain a hobbyist’s interest, a model railroad layout must be about more than watching a toy train chasing its tail around an oval of track. Prototype railroads exist for a purpose: to move freight and passengers from one point to another. A model railroad designed to simulate the same purpose will be much more interesting, and more likely to remain an active part of a hobbyist’s leisure time activities. To simulate the movement of freight, a model railroad must have freight producers and freight consumers; in other words: Industry. But how do you decide what industry to model on your layout? Grain elevators can fit in just about any model railroad theme. Anywhere there is a flat patch of land, farmers will try to grow crops on it. And every region of the country is in need of a constant source of grain to feed its citizens. And when it comes to grain elevators, Armour’s Warehouse in Seneca, Illinois, the largest and oldest of the remaining grain elevators on the Illinois and Michigan Canal, provides an unmistakable silhouette. Grain elevators such as this one served as an “intermediary industry” between producers and consumers. They were storage facilities for grain brought by local farmers for shipment to large “terminal” elevators in major cities, which shipped to bakeries or packagers for smaller wholesale or retail quantities. Our Armour’s Warehouse Free Plans page offers high-resolution downloadable plans that can be printed out to any scale, giving the model railroader everything he needs for a scratch-building project that will make his or her model railroad layout stand out from the crowd.
