Can you ever have enough (or too much) rolling stock / locos?

A recent purchase of several pieces of rolling stock from an estate sale got me thinking about how much rolling stock and/or engines do we really need for a layout, especially if you have a limited basement or layout space and have come to the realization that you're never going to build the mega-layout that you commonly see in publications.  I freely admit that I have a lot of "stuff."  Boxes worth neatly stacked and identified under the layout.  Some of it will ultimately be placed on the layout, while others seem to stay in their storage boxes, only to be brought out every few years and then placed back into storage. I open the box for some reason or another, but the "stuff" never stays on the layout.  That got me to thinking that maybe I need to sell off some of these pieces. 

If you have followed this blog, you'll remember that the KLR is a modular layout, point to point, which spans about a 12 ft by 23 ft area within my basement.  While that seems like a large size, it really isn’t when you try to model several large industries such as a paper mill or lumber mill. The other consideration is that I was really focused on operations and switching when I designed the layout, so long trains and runs are just not within scope of my layout.  That’s important to remember, since I don’t need a large number of engines, as there only a few daily trains which run on the layout and even fewer run throughs.

I don't consider myself a "collector" (whatever that is). My idea of a collector is someone who has a lot stuff that he/she never "uses". OK maybe from the above I have inadvertently collected stuff. But I really mean to use it, honestly. I have never been one to have to have, for example, a convention car just because I attended the convention. I sort of equate that as a collection.  Rather I like to think that my purchases have been more towards what the local industries need to move their products or receive raw materials.  I tend to think that Collectors accumulate stuff they don't use (which may or may not have any significant monetary value) while avid hobbyists purchase the best items in their area of interest, especially since manufacturers have gone to limited runs, hoping or thinking that in the long run the item will spend time on the layout. 

With all of this as background, I decided this winter to make a serious evaluation of my rolling stock to see if my core industries on the layout really supported all of this traffic.  My criteria was simple, look at the number of car spots on my layout and take 2.5 times the number of spots in order to establish what I need for rolling stock.  I’m not sure where I first heard about using this sort of formula to determine the amount of cars needed for a layout, but it’s a good starting point, especially for operations on a home layout.  Undoubtedly, modelers who run on a club layout or others layout may want to have a different criteria or even an entire set of cars and engines dedicated for that purpose and separate from home operations.  

The KLR currently has a total of 62 locations for spotting rolling stock.  So using the equation of 2.5 x total number of spots, I should only need 155 pieces of rolling stock.  I use the Easy Model Railroad Inventory software to track my layout, and a quick report showed that I had a total of 176 pieces of rolling stock.  Oh oh, it already looks like my fleet is too large. But maybe not as bad as I had originally thought.  No matter how good a deal I may have gotten on a past purchase or whether I wanted to have a certain road name, my thoughts were that if I exceeded my criteria, the piece needed to go into the For Sale box. 

Let's try another approach by looking at the number of spots needed for each of the industries versus the number of individual classes of cars.  After all, I might have 66 boxcars, however, with 20+ spots at the paper mill, maybe my fleet isn't isn't so bloated as I imagine.  The first rolling stock I looked at were boxcars.  Now for my own layout, I need a fairly sizable number of boxcars to service the paper mill, with nine active loading spots and two dedicated storage tracks.  I don't make any distinction whether they are single doors, double doors, wide doors, hi-cube, etc., although at some point in the future I'm sure that I will.  My inventory list shows that I have 66 available boxcars, however, that number is really 56, as I already put 10 cars up for sale.  OK so this method suggests that I have a nice distribution of cars, although maybe a little heavy on the boxcars.  But then again, there are several industries which may utilize boxcars on a random basis, so let's do some more analysis by breaking down individual spots by the typical type of car to be spotted there.

Now remember I'm looking at typical requirements, knowing that some businesses will get the odd load which requires a car that they don't typically handle in a day to day operation.  For example, on the KLR we typically see the following:

Boxcars - Husky Plywood; Spruce Creek Mill; Algonquin Timber

Centerbeam Flatcars - Niagara Distribution; Muskoka Timber

Covered Hoppers - Quaker; Canada Bread; Cantal; UCM; Unimin

Tank cars - Spruce Creek Mill; Sherwin Williams

The maximum number of centerbeam flatcars I may need on the layout is five, since only the Niagara Distribution and Muskoka Timber businesses use this type of car.  When I look at my inventory, I only have 8 of this type of car, which is actually less than what my car accounting model would suggest that I have.

Let's try this again for bulkhead flatcars.  Businesses that use this type of car include Bailey Timber, Muskoka Timber, and Niagara Distribution, with a total number of 6 spots available.  My current inventory shows that there are 17 bulkhead flatcars on the roster, which just about supports the car accounting model.

I used the car accounting model for the remainder of my rolling stock and came up with the following summary:

                                                                 Available      Loading Spots

Boxcars                                                        56                  20
Boxcars, all door                                          21                    7               

Bulkhead Flatcars                                        15                    8

Centerbeam Flatcars                                     8                    6

Flatcars                                                        12                    8                 

Pulpwood Flatcars                                         3                    6

Gondolas                                                     16 *                  0   

Hoppers / Cylindrical Covered Hoppers      29                   22              

Tank cars                                                     32                   14

Notes: * interestingly enough, I never designed the layout with any industries which would require gondolas. The closest thing I can think of is that at one time I wanted to include a wood treating site on the layout, but never seriously designed for it. So how did I get so many gondolas?

So after all of my analysis, I think I have just about the correct number of rolling stock so that I can have operating sessions that the same is not showing up.  I think I'll keep a few gondolas for use in a through freight but the rest can be sold.  Any buyers ???

Modeling a Paper Mill - Part 4.3 New Warehouse Addition

In the last post, I talked about how I added another building within the cellulose portion of the mill.  I had another project on my to-do list, which was to expand the Walthers stock kit warehouse building so that I could load more boxcars with finished product.  When I initially designed the paper mill, the warehouse was to be two Walthers kits joined together, which would allow at least five (5) 50-foot boxcars to be stored for general rail loading and leaving the truck bays intact.  However, two buildings took up a large amount of space, and the paper mill modules were going to be restricted to a 12 linear foot area.  So after running with a warehouse which could only accommodate 3 boxcars, something had to be done.  After all, the paper mill can only survive by increasing it's outflow whenever demand is present.  Remember, it's 1985 on the layout, so consumers are still reading their daily newspaper and the paper mill is constantly busy meeting the demand for paper rolls.  While business has started to see a slight decline in big city newspaper demand, small local and regional papers continue to flourish and demand has increased.

Accordingly, two new tracks were laid into a portion of the grounds which was being used for storage of miscellaneous items and equipment, including a small transformer yard.  The plant manager, after presenting a capital investment plan to the bean counters, was able to procure the funds to add track and place it under roof to avoid those harsh northern Ontario winters.  This meant that the electrical substation had to be moved onto the roof of the warehouse, which while a little bit of a stretch, is not too obvious or out of place.

I had purchased several pieces of laser-scribed basswood several years ago from  Monster Modelworks, but never got around to using them for a project that I had intended to scratch build in N scale.  While maybe the sheets and brickwork are the wrong scale for the purist, I opted to use the three sheets that had been purchased rather than buying sheets in HO scale. After all, the main purpose was to house boxcars, and I wasn't looking to model something exactly like a building that doesn't actually exist on the prototype.

Several weekends ago, I started to take measurements and started to draft what my addition would look like.  As I was doing so, I realized that the addition would likely have to cover the existing windows on the Walthers papermill kit, so I decided to remove the windows and make the addition high enough to accommodate the tallest of boxcars while at the same time covering the windows.  Removing the windows without breaking them took some finessing the plastic from its glue, but everything came out without any significant damage. So after joining the three sections of wood, a little cutting was in order to re-install the plastic windows into the new addition.  

Structure is complete and it's time to think about finishing the roof as well as the area by the doors. I'll add a circular tube at the top of each door to simulate an overhead door.

While I originally was going to install a platform at door height of the boxcars, I opted to install a concrete walkway at ground level and only finish a small portion of the doorways.  Some drums and workers were added, but since you can't see very far into the building, I decided to forego and real detail. Again, the building was built to house boxcars and really meant to be a storage space for loading and unloading purposes.

View from the other side. Tracks in foreground are yard storage of empty boxcars waiting to be loaded and excess tank cars ready for other parts of the Mill.