Modeling Coal and Other Industries on the B&O L&S Division

Recently Walter’s came out with a stockyard slaughterhouse, which presented the opportunity for him to build the stockyard with the slaughterhouse, packing house, boiler house, and the tanning company right across from the facility. Each cattle pen is set to hold 40 to 50 heads of cattle, and there are 7 different types of cattle represented here including pigs and sheep. Ed points out a specific car that has been spotted to take the hides from the packing house over to the tannery to be processed for further usage. As one could imagine, the smell in this area would be very strong, but living in a city means getting used to these types of smells.

Ed also has modeled a land to sea coal transfer dock and Fairport. They needed another place to route coal cars, so a friend of his suggested he put in a barge loading facility. One scene depicts a police chase of a robbery suspect. The suspect entered the dock area and drove the car right through the guardrails and into the water. The pilings were made from plugs of rubber from utility poles. They used these to plug the holes after they removed the spikes. The dock, the facility and the shoots are all combined to make this scene come alive. For more on layout planning, visit the Model Railroad Academy archives.