Benwood Yard

Benwood Yard will be renamed as Hansmann Yard to bestow an honor on Eric, and because it will only be similar in that it has a large turntable and engine house as well as facilities to classify cars. Due to the limits of bench work size and my comfort level regarding reach the Yard will have a total of 12 tracks one of which will be a thoroughfare track allowing freedom of movement between the ends of the yard. So there will be 11 classification tracks. there will be a main and 1 passing siding for a total of 14 tracks on two inch centers. Any curves will be large so as to not impact operations.

Now this is from a survey that was made between 1914 and 1916 by the war department. The image above is for overview only and shows an unusual arrangement of reversing loops in the yard area and is prior to the construction of the large turntable and roundhouse. The bridge is still in use today but nearly every rail north of it on the WV side is gone now.

Now from the above relationship we can see that the wheeling steel plant is right next to the yards which was likely very convenient for them. Also under ground behind the mill was a major coal seam that has been mined for over a hundred years and until it's recent closing was one of the top 25 producing mines in the United States. There is still lots of coal in the mine it has just recently gone to the Ohio County line and could likely produce for another 100 years easily.

The large blue conveyor runs to the storage silo for barge loading. The large structure behind it is part of the remains of the steel mill in the area. This photo was taken  in 2014 by me when I was able to make a visit to WV. Of particular note in this photo one can see that the scenes are not very deep before a very steep hill is encountered and if one was near the river the sky would only show up after looking rather sharply up. Compared to Texas and other flat land areas the sky is very prominent in all views. Also when looking from river level toward either bank one is almost never able to see more than one hill side in any direction.

Here is an additional look from 2014. The stacks are remnants of the steel mill that is in the area of the railroad bridge, the multi span bridge on the large stone piers, and the only bridge in place in 1914 to 1916 era in which the map was made.

Benwood engine terminal likely after 1960 since the f units appear to be in the blue dip paint scheme. A simplified scheme with the black and gold striping went into effect in 1959 and in 1967 the dip job went into effect, with the sunburst at 1963. Note in a few photos from this one that smoke stack will be visible again only with steam locos.

Here the trains are on the main running by the Benwood station in the area of the yards just south of the Wheeling steel mill, notice the bridge crossing the Ohio River in the back ground.

The big tanks are to the right of the engine terminal, the passenger train is on one of the loops going to wheeling or the bridge to Ohio.

Big steam EM1 in Benwood it was also home to 2-8-2s and lots of 2-8-8-0s.

Another picture of the engine terminal area. The smoke stack is near the round house.

Folks will always tell you that it is not prototypical to have reverse loops and to loop the track around the roundhouse. Well if one looks at the track diagrams for this area one will see there are several reverse loops going around the engine terminal so it is a great time to locate the engine terminal in the space on top of a helix to staging. The tracks can descend around the loop and disappear. South of this area there was also lots of industry as well which will be represented by staging. A local can leave go to staging and then return later via a reverse loop with different freight cars and arrive back at the yard. There is no reason that more than one could not be used. Industries south of here include some chemical plants Marx toy several coal mines and Fostoria glass to name just a few. The industries are mostly large enough to have a train switch two of them and return sending them out in that fashion would be keeping with crew service times. And a realistic time to handle the number of pick ups and set outs.

So as to how this translates to building a model railroad from this batch of history. The engine terminal will be atop a helix with the track descending to a staging level. As one faces the railroad to ones left will always be North to the right South. The aisle will be either the Ohio River or Big Wheeling Creek depending on where one is along the line. From the engine terminal which will be large enough to handle super power articulateds one will go North into the yard which will be designed for at least 50 car trains.

After the yard will come the first Steel mill followed by a second and I may decide to combine the first two as they were only 4 blocks apart.

TTFN

Backdrop

Rob,

Only had a couple of free minutes to look at your new blog, but I'm already fascinated, and this is only the first post! Great job. I can tell this is really going to be an exciting venture! I'm so glad you decided to pursue it!

Thanks too for your kind recognition. Didn't know I was some inspiration for you, but it's about time I returned the favor, because you have been a big inspiration on my current layout. Which leads me to my first question...

You mentioned a little bit about what you see of the surrounding hills and skyline as one looks up at them from the river. On my last layout I wrestled with the perspective that one should show on an Appalachian railroad backdrop. It seems to me you can have your 3D scenery on the layout and paint the backdrop as if you were standing at track level and looking up as you suggest. Or you can paint the backdrop scenery as if you were in a helicopter looking down on the track scene, which in that case would let you see past the first set of hills to hills that are beyond. I'm not really sure which is better. 

If your bench work is high and your eye line of sight is right at track level, I could see painting just sky beyond the actual 3D hills on the layout. For most of us though our bench work is lower than that, and our eyes are actually at "helicopter" level, necessitating a different kind of view.

On my last layout I painted the backdrop so you could see the further hills beyond, and it seemed ok to me. On my new layout which is a multi-deck design instead of multi-level, I'm thinking something something different might be in order. Maybe a mixture of the two where you see background hills on the lower deck, and just sky background on the upper deck.

Have you given any thought as to what your plans will be for the dream layout your planning in this post? It's an interesting artistic perspective question that I'm sure many other MRH readers have had to wrestle with. 

Looking forward to your further installments. I also hope my question won't take your post in a different direction than what you intended.

Actually Paul that is exactly

Actually Paul that is exactly the thoughts I had considered. Having spent much of my time in this area in my younger days and working there till I was in around 40 I have a good idea on the perspective for the layout. I am right now considering two options one a single deck approach that can be designed to be operated either standing or sitting but I am leaning toward sitting at this time. I will go into reasons for that in detail after I cover all the industries and track situations. If two decks one standing and the other sitting so the same perspective can be maintained on each level.  I wish to maintain a close to eye level perspective as I feel that yields the most realism. You might find this humorous but as a 4 year old with an HO layout I discovered early that if your eye was close to the level of the track trains and structures look better and much more like the real thing. There are exceptions to this that can be seen in the photos I took. The steel mill in the distance is between 4 and 6 miles away and I was on a very high place known as the overlook when I took the photos. That would produce the helicopter view you are talking about.

Now depending on where you choose to view your layout if you are sitting and the low deck is close to eye level then the back drop should reflect that. If you are up high as I was in the photos you have a different perspective but still can not see much behind the other hills. I think the key is to make sure the backdrop matches your viewing height.

For example do you think the view of the box car above produces a more realistic view and better effect than the view below.

Now this one is not a real high view but it is clearly more than two stories high. Check out below for a couple more ideas on perspective.

This one is view from an aircraft and mostly what is seen is the top of things except for the back drop and sky, almost everything in sight is the ground.

This one puts us more in the perspective of a man on the ground. This building is in both the above pictures. In the picture above this one it is the structure at the lower right next to the stone arch bridge that is still carrying traffic of all kinds today. Incidentally this building is one I have been planning to model for a long time. When I was a youngster I watched a box car being switched into the loading area. I found it interesting because one of the model railroad magazines of the time had an article about building similar loading docks inside our modeled structures, I believe it was RMC. The time period for the first photo is 1928 the time period for the second is 2014.

Let me know what you think about the differences.

I think you...

hit the nail on the head Rob when you wrote,

I agree. If you're trying to keep your eye at track level, having a backdrop that doesn't show the distant hills keeps things in their proper perspective. A higher eye level necessitates seeing at least a little more distant hills, but not a whole lot of them. 

I think that's where I went wrong on my last layout. I liked the backdrop I painted, but something always seemed just a little out of whack to me. I couldn't put my finger on it until I read your comments. I had painted way too many background hills which goofed up the proper perspective.

Thanks for helping clarify things. That will definitely help me in the future on my new layout. Even better would be for you to kick it into high gear on your dream layout and get your backdrop done before I paint mine, then I could just look to see what you have done and follow suit! 

One other thing for me

One other thing for me regarding viewing height. It is important to be able to match your layout building and modeling to ones skills and strengths. I know what mine are and I also know what they are not. This does not mean I am against learning new things or developing new talents.

In my case painting backdrops is not it. I have seen some fantastic work on this web site and mine is not even layout worthy. Fortunately for me I can paint sky blue with a roller! I can then place a hillside flat that covers most of the back drop and is no more than an inch thick at it's base. Cover with the appropriate green foliage and the back drop is done and would look more realistic than anything I could ever paint. It also has the added effect of 3D in very little space. The hillsides can be built in sections at the work bench and placed against the back drop when finished. No bending or stretching here just as easy as possible for construction. Also if a section of steel strip is placed along the base or angle to help tie the backdrop to the bench work magnets like the ones used as cabinet door catches can be placed along the sections to hold them in place and still make them removable later.

Some things result in high frustration levels and I have found that there are lots of things in the hobby I like and that they could occupy my time completely and I can avoid things that do not. Next post will be more discussion regarding the yard and how it will operate on the layout, remember the yard is a tool for classifying trains not a parking lot at the mall so it needs to function as the former and not the later.

As always comments are always welcome and appreciated, I will do my best to answer questions as they are asked as well. The answers may not be right answers but they will be my answers and will be offered in good faith. The answers opinions and thoughts expressed reflect my opinions and experiences and may differ from those expressed by others that does not make mine right and theirs wrong just different.

Yard operation

Now to talk about the operation of the yard. This is a Terminal Yard not a Major Classification Yard. Trains coming in and going out are taking loads and empties to this location or from this location. Through trains will stop for Crew and in some cases Power changes as well as caboose changes and then be sent on their way with the consist intact. That gives me the reason to model the main engine terminal on the system as several junctions are near by and it is convenient for nearly all motive power to make an occasion trip to this terminal at least quarterly. I will also address staging requirements for the railroad and how they will affect operations.

There will also be ways for the operation to evolve as things go so one is not locked rigidly in place.

Quick review of the physical capabilities Hansmann Yard. Each track will be able to hold a 50 car train. This number is important for a couple of reasons, one is I like long trains. My steam Locomotives are mostly able to pull a 50 car train on any grade I will have with only two exceptions and I may get them to that point if not they will be double headed or will work as one pulling and one pushing. Secondly it determines the length of passing tracks and staging tracks which must be matched to train length if the railroad is to remain fluid. One real railroads the operating department would limit train length in many cases not by what could be pulled but by what would fit in the passing track.

As a humorous note on the Virginian sometimes passenger trains would go into the siding to let coal trains pass because they were too long for any siding and it was easier to stop and start a two or three car passenger train than a 200 car coal train. The Virginian knew where the money came from.

The layout can handle a maximum of 14 tracks in width. One main, one passing, eleven classification, and one thoroughfare tracks. The main is the main and will not be blocked except for a through train doing a crew change and if no others are scheduled before it's expected departure. Siding will handle some inbound trains. Out bounds will depart from the tracks they are made up on.

We will address merchandise trains first which will arrive early in the am and depart after midnight. I will go into this in more detail as we go. There will be eight of these trains and I will list them by railroad and destination. Since I am modeling a short section of railroad and have no desire to run a fast clock we will go real time. The time to get from the yard to the designated staging track will be around 15 minutes or less real time. Trains will depart on 15 minute headway.

1200 am start

Virginian and Lake Erie Railroad

50 cars Wheeling to Kenova

50 cars Wheeling to Toledo

50 Cars Wheeling to Cleveland

50 Cars Wheeling to Pittsburgh

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

50 cars Wheeling to Pittsburgh

50 cars Wheeling to Columbus/Cincinnati

Pennsylvania Railroad

50 cars Wheeling to Pittsburgh

50 cars Wheeling to Columbus

As can be seen 400 cars in eight trains will leave and go to eight staging tracks and the previous eight filled Yard tracks will be empty by 0200 hours. They will be ready to receive and classify in bound trains of a like number which will be broken down into eight local trains.

Starting at 0215 Trains will begin arriving and will begin to be broken up by two switch crews working at each end of the yard. The in bounds will as they arrive and each crew will have around 30 minutes to break the train down into its new train.

Virginian and Lake Erie Railroad

50 cars Kenova to Wheeling

50 cars Toledo to Wheeling

50 cars Cleveland to Wheeling

50 cars Pittsburgh to Wheeling

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

50 cars Pittsburgh to Wheeling

50 cars Columbus/Cincinnati to Wheeling

Pennsylvania Railroad

50 cars Pittsburgh to Wheeling

50 cars Columbus to Wheeling

By 0500 all inbound trains should be switched into the required trains and the locals can begin to depart for their respective destinations. Four locals (200 cars) will go to off layout destinations and end up on staging tracks. These locals cars will be used in the next days session as returns. Four locals (200 cars) will go to on layout destinations and be exchanged for pick ups to be delivered to other destinations that will return to the yard at the end of business day. There will be some exceptions to this the grocery and freight house districts will be drops in the am and will be picked up after 5 pm. This will get them into the yard on time for the same day departure. Locomotives will leave drop and return light and later in the day leave light and return with a train. Two of the locals will be more in the normal mode of operation and will take longer to complete their runs.

While the local trains are in a slower level of activity the mill switchers can access trackage rights to make runs between plants and to access the mineral yard. This activity has three windows about 8 hours apart. During the night when the activity is limited to switching and out bound and inbound main line trains the mill switchers have an easy time of it and during the time after most of the locals have completed their work in the afternoon and evening most activity will be in the yard. During the day after the early morning and before the late afternoon rush from the locals they will also have time for intrer-plant moves. In plant switching can go on all day independent of activity on the rest of the railroad.

Four locals will arrive from staging to be made up into out bound trains. These trains will likely begin arriving after 3pm and all be in the yard by 6pm.  The four locals from staging will switch to a different consist form what the departed with as their will be two tracks in staging for each train one from and one two the terminal. The trains will then be different each time from and two the yard. From 6 pm till midnight 2 crews will switch the returning locals into the eight out bound trains for each railroad.

Now in light of the yard activity being mostly after three pm and before seven am the seven to three time period would be a good time to have through trains and mineral trains arriving at the yard. Through trains will often have power changed and cabooses and will go from staging track to staging track. The actual train cars can be reused and can become different trains as they are not switched on the modeled portion of the railroad. Just a power and caboose change in staging results in a new train and really multiplies the freight car roster.

We addressed eight merchandise trains and the locals that would be made up from them. Now lets look to the mineral trains. One each as needed will be run, coal, ore, limestone to the tracks in the yard. Trains will be in 50 car lengths and can be loaded or unloaded to depict the proper aspect by using removable loads. One staging track will be needed to load the empty train so it can return as a load. Three trains in the Hansmann yard will take turns using two staging tracks.

Through trains will only have to change crews and or power/caboose and crews and run from staging to staging. Because of this we can reuse the freight cars and only change the power and caboose for it to represent multiple trains. They can be run at any time during a session that has more operators than trains or on occasion to force other trains to clear a path for them and add to the operating session.

Good times for this would be during the arrival and departure times of the merchandise trains. If for example the yard is getting behind working in a through train could slow down the arrival of the next in bound for a few minutes and keep the yard fluid while providing a reason to hold a main line train.

Through trains to run, can happen when ever the traffic permits or when activity is below what is needed:

Piggy back that can run between Pittsburgh/Kenova, Toledo/Kenova, Cleveland/Kenova, and returns so one through train can actually become six different trains.

Merchandise train that can run between Pittsburgh/Kenova, Toledo/Kenova, Cleveland/Kenova, and returns so one through train can actually become six different trains.

Now there will also be mineral trains that are through trains and will allow me to run some 100 car trains since they need not be switched or even unloaded. They will run from staging to staging and will represent trains going to the following destinations. Coal will go from Kenova to All destinations. Limestone to Pittsburgh and Cleveland from Kenova or South of Wheeling. Ore from Toledo and Cleveland to Pittsburgh and Kenova. Empties from Pittsburgh to all locations. Coal can run from North of Wheeling South to Kenova.

So by using 4 100 car hopper trains I can run all kinds of long mineral traffic to run through the modeled portion with nothing more than a crew change and power and caboose change. These mineral trains will force all other trains into the sidings so that they may clear the railroad. They can represent as many trains as needed because they will not be switched on the modeled portion of the line.

That will also help with my need for long trains and they will be available to run when ever.

All this activity will require a total of 28 staging tracks which can be fitted in under the visible portion of the layout.

By using real time the operating session can be started and stopped where ever it ends and the clock just has a start time adjusted to reflect the time on the railroad. If a 4 hour session is used it will actually take 6 sessions to compete an entire day of work and the repetitive nature of some of the cars will be forgotten.

Not all of the trains will need to be run for a functional railroad or even exist but can be adopted as rolling stock is amassed. Once about 600 to 800 cars are in service very interesting sessions can be put into service. And much less will actually provide enjoyment and fun. I would think 400 cars could provide lots of fun and I already have more than that.

The sessions and layout should be able to keep one to eight guys busy on an operating session and the jobs can be tailored to how many folks arrive. For example if one figures a normal session would have more than six folks and be 4 hours long and only two show up you could break the session down into several one hour sessions and stop the trains one is working on after a shorter interval and move on to other trains that should be in the same interval and run them performing the task that they would do according to their schedule.

Another option would be to run the through trains or the steel mill switchers. It should be quite easy to fit the trains to the number of guys that show up weather it is one or eight.

Sorry no pictures to look at for this one but there will be more in later posts.

The layout will be able to handle more than 1200 cars before being clogged and will have the ability to operate with much less.

Next up the first steel mills along the line.

On to the Steel Mills

Interestingly enough there is lots of info to be found from the Ohio county Library, several books about the industries which are free and google e books and pictures from what can be called institutional advertising. I bring in some cut and paste from some sources and quote or paraphrase others as the situation warrants. I have just recently discovered lots of this info in some cases again.

I would recommend down loading this to a couple of locations and if possible printing the pages you want when ever possible. I will include some pictures but keep in mind Steel Mills are too large to fit in most model railroad environments with out lots of compression. With that in mind realize that through the use of the walthers kits, plastistruct, and some scratch building with foam core it is possible to have a good representation of various mills and their operations.

In my model railroad I may combine the Riverside Tube Works and The Wheeling Steel and Iron mill in Benwood. In 1914 Wheeling Steel was formed and began acquiring a great many more mills along the Ohio River for a length of about 30 miles by the mid 1950s. In Wheeling there were Blast Furnaces in Center Wheeling, between the modeled Rail Yard (Hansmann Yard) and in North Wheeling along the river front. The bridge for the Wheeling Terminal Railway passed by this mill and crossed the river into Martinsferry Ohio where Wheeling Steel owned more furnaces on that side of the river.

The images above are from the plaststruct catalog and they have been used on layouts for quite a while the structures are False fronts and if one added to them with gatorboard and placed a few details full size of non flat structures could be made. From an earlier photo I suspect the spherical tank might look familiar. Below are some of the walthers structures which go in and out of production like many things. I bought my batch last time they were available and on sale. They are still on sale on the catalog page.

As can be seen there were several models available for modeling the mills also a refinery kit might be in order to model the recovery and byproducts operation of the coke operation. The books I listed above are both excellent sources of modeling information and I highly recommend them.

Now as to the links I have listed at the beginning of the blog there are lots mor pictures available from different periods of operation. One just needs to be willing to look and the internet is your friend.

Now as to modeling this operation on my future layout I believe I will allow between 20 and 30 actual feet to model these two mills that I will combine into one. I will have several coke batteries, some rolling mills, one blast furnace and an open hearth furnace in keeping with my era. I will have another Blast furnace located at the mill in center Wheeling and will consider what other aspects to model there.

I suspect that rather than build a second open hearth or old converter operation it might be easier to run a hot metal car to the other mill since it would not go more than about 20 city blocks. For half the time the second mill could provide Iron for castings as there were several foundries around the area. I am still considering the second furnace.

TTFN

Wow!

Rob,

I hesitated to add another post because I didn't want to monopolize the discussion on your thread, but the info your providing here has much in common with things I've had to think through on my own layout.

While I won't have any steel mills on my layout, I really enjoyed the discussion about your yard and how the various trains will run in and out from there. I might just take some of your discussion tidbits and incorporate them into my own running scheme.

I did have a question though. You mentioned the 8 50 car trains leaving the yard, then being replaced by some inbound 50 car trains that would be broken down to form local trains. If 8 of the 11 classification tracks are filled with trains, that doesn't seem to leave much left over for classifying cars into the local trains to be delivered to industries. Am I missing something here? I'm wondering if you will run into some yard congestion. 

I also can't help but ask, just exactly how much room do you have for this layout? With 14 yard tracks that can hold 50 car trains, and 28 staging tracks able to hold the same size trains or even more (your 100 car trains), I'm adding up the linear feet need for such an endeavor and realizing your layout is going to be absolutely huge! My whole basement wouldn't be near big enough to tackle the task. When I put the track down for my staging yard which only has 6 tracks that will hold 30 cars each, I remember being amazed at how quickly the boxes of track were emptied. I can't imagine the supplies that you will need to accomplish your task. But hey, what's wrong with dreaming big, right?

Paul, I am answering your

Paul, I am answering your question via my phone. Please excuse resources available to me right now.

I am planing for a space of about 1000 sq feet think of 24 x 40 to 50 feet about the size of 2 2 car garages end to end. Spaces of that size are fairly common for out buildings in Texas. To add that on to a garage is not that expensive. 

30 feet or ten sections of flex will hold a 50 car train.

switching trains inbound arrive every 15 min 2 switchers working at one each end will have 30 min before the next train takes the siding should be plenty of time if not I will add time between trains.

no worries about posting do so as often as you like I will post better answers when at computer.

Now we have had lots of

Now we have had lots of discussion about how the yard works in a general way and how the layout will operate again in a general way. These are helpful concepts that will be refined as the layout idea becomes a track plan right now they are concepts with out a specific track plan. Actual track planning and track by track design will come later. At this point we will just cover the industries along the line and in a general way discuss track at the industry. This is not meant as a reprimand for questions about track planning just a quick mention of why track planning with out the entire volume of information could be a bit premature.

These industries will be covered in varying degrees of detail based on what information is available. They will also be listed in consecutive order or as close to it as possible under the circumstances. We are traveling generally in a Northern direction from the Southern most modeled point on the layout. Points North and South of the modeled portion, which may represent approximately six miles of main line will be represented by staging. Fast clocks will not be needed nor will an elaborate signal system since the actual area is so small. I hope this helps folks stay up with the idea of covering the real world and then going to the model world.

Wheeling Can Company

The Wheeling Can Company started around 1902 and made cans of many different types through out its life. I have limited information on this industry but I believe it is enough to do a decent job of modeling it on a layout. Over the time period of its existence the can changed a great deal as did the industry that made them. I have an article dealing with this in depth and will post it in its entirety, as it is available for use in such a way that permits this use. I also have read some of the ordinances of the city of Wheeling that address the rail service and blocking of streets by the can company. I cannot publish those but the main value is the fact that it covers rail access to the industry. I also have a railroad map that can be used and published that shows the structure footprint and tracks that served it in the 1914 to 1916 time period. I have a limited number of photographs that I can post. Again they are under fair use types of a deal and they were provided by one of the descendants of an employee. In addition to photographic information and other sources like old maps I have some personal recollections of this place from decades ago. Now like all old memories that are only of a passing nature they may not be as accurate as we would like. In my case I watched from a distance a fire that destroyed the structure in 1978 or 1979 and will share my recollections from that time period regarding the structure. It was used as a warehouse to store paint at the time and I recall it being a 2 story brick structure.

Now from the map above we can tell that the structure was about 2 blocks in length and spanned what would normally have been an alley. We can also surmise it was likely that the property from 45th to 48th between Eoff and Chapline street was owned by the can company. The building had 2 tracks for a siding.

One thing that you might find interesting in this photo is the children. They were employees. One of the boys managed to do quite well for himself and his story is tied very closely with that of the can company and is shared with us via his descendants in the article below. The text covers quite a bit of information regarding him and the can company and other industries down the line which will be modeling subjects later.

This is a picture of the office staff and it looks like the factory is behind them. It was not uncommon to convert a house that was purchased for the property into an office Bloch Brothers Tobacco did the same thing and the house still held the personnel office as late as 1977.

Here is that 10 year old boy that was working in a factory all grown up and in the corporate plane of Continental Can. He appears to have done alright for himself and his family.

Next up Bloch Brothers tobacco factory.

Can Do!

Rob,

Yet again I find the thoughts about our layouts paralleling one another. Do great minds think alike or what!!!??? I was considering a can factory for the industry that goes along the backdrop on the main deck of my layout. I needed something fairly compact that could be served by a single long siding track, and a can factory seemed to fit the bill.

As you work your way along your layout describing the various industries that will be on your layout, could you share some of your knowledge as to: 1) What kind of railroad cars the industry would need? 2) How many cars would service the industry in say a weeks time? 3) What materials would be received and shipped from the industry?

Trying to answer my own questions I would assume for the can company: 1) Box cars. Perhaps a tank car and a gondola. 2) Maybe a gondola every other week. A tank car every month. Numerous box cars each week. 3) Received: Metal for making cans. Chemicals for sanitizing and/or lubrication as the metal is being worked. Shipped: Scrap metal. Finished can products. Does that sound about right? 

Paul, in the letter I quoted

Paul, in the letter I quoted here is one excerpt,

There is more. Tin would arrive and be cut into blanks for the various machines. Scrap would leave. Cardboard boxes would arrive. I have a video to share from a you tube channel. This guy has lots of information on cans as well as other things on his channel.

I actually worked there in

I actually worked there in the seventies. Big buildings lots of history. Per Paul's suggestions freight cars that could unload and load at the tobacco factory. Box cars, Tank Cars, and in some instances flats or gondolas when it was time to update a product line or large machine. When I was there most things traveled by truck but it was still possible to buy car loads of licorice, sugar and molasses as well as the chemicals used as preservatives. To this day  I remember if you walked in to the menthol room you sinuses would immediately turn into snot fountains and once you left your head would be completely emptied of all mucus.

A typical daily run of tobacco from one line in the manufacturing process would be 40,000 to 80,000 pounds depending on what line was being made. There were lots of steps in the process of making mail pouch, sweet scrap, Kentucky club, and other products.

There was also a stemmery that removed stems from the leaf and then blew the leaf over to the processing building. It was hot in the place year round summers one was walking through a steam cloud most of the day in the winter with the windows open it could get down around 90 on the cold days.

I believe the folks that benefited the most from the industry were the various branches of the government as they taxed everything all along the way. It was my understanding that 1/2 of the retail price went to taxes, the other half was split between the growers, processors, retailers, brokers, and transporters of the product. The only folks that did nothing to add to the product made the most from it. Even so during one year I was there the plant had a net income of 10 million dollars.

Now we actually have two different maps showing different tracks that served the company. Above an official B&O map. And below one that shows some other details prepared by the government.

One view of the factory. Interestingly enough the family that owned the Bloch Brothers factory housed a great many of the residents of south wheeling during the flood of 1936 and I suspect several others. I remember seeing pictures of that when I worked there.

Above is a much earlier time period, notice the horse and buggy this would likely have been during thee time the company owned its own river boat. The whistle from that boat blew at lunch time and at quitting time as well as 10:00 pm and all kids had to be home then.

The photo above I took. Below one from 1936 I believe from the state archives and the ones that follow I took in 2014

The large brick building took in the leaf or bales of tobacco removed stems and performed some initial cutting. The shorter brick building with the metal roof is the boiler house. the building that looks like a house is the personnel office. The tan brick houses office space.

Below another shot of the first steps in the process.

Next we will look north toward the processing department from Chapline Street the Ohio River is on our left the grass and walking path was once home to railroad tracks.

Another shot of the interesting art deco office building entrance. The silver pipes carry tobacco via compressed air from the first structure to the processing buildings 5th floor.

The processing buildings and packing buildings along with warehouse space is next.

Now if I am not mistaken the structure on the left is a bar know as the IOLA club which stands for international order of lazy asses, no I did not make that up.

This is the other side of the structures note the metal pipes for transporting product.

Pipes entering the processing buildings.

Alley view looking north, I crossed that alley and then went up several flights of stairs to get to the area I worked in.

Some overall views of the Jacob street side of the processing department.

Another look.

Now there you have lots of photos of a business that used to employ a large number of employees more than 1000 I believe that now employs about 150. The business in the late seventies made 10 million dollars net profit in a year. It was started prior to 1900 and is still going not many can say that.

This photo I added to show the depth from the hillside to the river. The Bloch Brothers plant is right next to the riverbank. The photo was taken from an elevated section of Route 2 which is against the hillside and in fact had some of it excavated to make room for the road. The large white structure to the right of the photo is the top of a Quonset hut that Bloch Brothers owned when I worked there. It was used to store different things for something other than immediate needs. I am not sure if it is still owned by them.  The lateness of the addition is tied to me just discovering the photo.

Now to model the Bloch

Now to model the Bloch Brothers facility and the can factory with out doing a brick by brick model one could use DPM components over top of a foam core or styrene core. There are lots of kits in the Walthers catalog that could yield detailed parts from kits as well. Now one can tell that over the years structures have changed and been added on to so it might be just as well that an exact model is not needed.

If these industries are to be modeled as being rail served one would need to keep in mind the massive amounts of product that would be coming in and going out in a given day. For Bloch Brothers it would not be out of the question to have 4 to 6 box cars of leaf come in three days a week, for a total of 18 cars. A tank car of molasses once a week, 2 box cars of sugar, two or three box cars of various chemicals used to treat packaging lubricants etc. 6 boxcars full of packaging materials that would include tins for pipe tobacco, pouches for various chew, and cartons to hold the packaged product. Clean box cars for shipping packaged product to sell to consumers, and one car to ship waste tobacco products to cigar makers that would use it as cigar filler.

The can factory would need cars to ship in flat sheets of tin likely unloaded by fork lift. Cans and lids would go out but being empty would fill many cars by volume before they got to the weight limit of the cars due to them (the cans) being empty. We know the cans were typically made in lots of 180,000 per day and for our purposes lets say they took up a space equivalent to 4x4x4 each. Not all cans would have been the same size but this seems like a good average size to use for a volume guess.

Now we will get into math again for those that are not happy with that it is what it is. Those cans would occupy a space of 11,520,000 cubic inches every day, which when divided by 1728 the number of cubic inches in a cubic foot turns into 6667 cubic feet. Figure an inside volume of a 40 foot car at 40 x 10 x 10 and you are looking at about 1 and 1/2 cars per day not counting lids.It would be easy to round up to two cars a day counting lids. Now they could likely get 3 box cars of flat tin sheet, a gon for scrap, a box car of chemicals in drums, a box car full of packaging materials and ten per week going out with finished product. Hope that helps with car requirements for the industries. Now if cans being made were the larger cans that held 5 gallons or lard cans one might wish to double the number of out bound cars due to the much larger size of the cans. And don't forget brown paint if it was during Prohibition.

Next up I think we will look

Next up I think we will look at the LaBelle Nail factory. I'll post pictures of that and then we will go to the Wheeling Tile plant. I will also have to mention some other structures I did not photograph very much of Kenedy's hardware and a paper plate maker as well as Coey Bentz a large furniture store. I know at Christmas time nearly all the larger stores sold HO scale trains when I was a kid and Coey Bentz was no exception I bought an AHM E-8 from them and possibly another locomotive. Back in the good old days one could usually find model trains for sale in department stores as well as hobby shops. After I marshall the needed photos I will begin.

TTFN

The Labelle nail factory

Now I have discovered that I have lots of info on the LaBelle Nail Plant thanks to some interesting things. My friend Eric just sent me some more pictures he found since I was getting ready to write about this factory, and he has also sent the best map of the area I have. In this case however this is not a case of too little information but loads of information. I still have photos to down load and save and will likely have more than 100 photos of both the inside and outside of the place. I actually saw railroad cars being switched into the place, at the time they were all gondolas and it was being switched by The B&O with GP 40s in the 80s, I was watching this from inside a police car. No I was not under arrest I was driving it.

If you have been following along so far you will realize the south end of the plant is near 33rd street and the north end near 29th street. The city of Wheeling began at 48th street and already we have covered several large industries and only traveled 15 blocks. We will also look at our next industry which is at the same general location and it will be covered in another entry. There are also other industries that have not been covered such as a large glass plant, and a paper dish factory. I have not mentioned a large hardware company yet that we will cover later or the large brewery that was shut down due to prohibition, there were others in town as well.

This is a section from the huge B&O map my friend Eric sent to me. This area had some really interesting track work in that just to the left of the nail works two separate lines through the city connected with each other. Further to the left the line became the Wheeling Terminal Railway. We will see more of that line soon. Also to the left of the nail plant and across 29th street the line went through a tunnel under what is often referred to as Chapline street Hill or 29th street hill depending on the place one is looking at the hill.

The second map does not provide as much detail as the first but does a better job with the streets in the area and was prepared by the war department and documented the OHIO River flood plain from Pittsburgh to it's mouth. I suspect if one could get a hold of the entire map there would be a fantastic amount of information that could be learned from it of a historical nature.

My attempts to get views of it from Google earth have not been successful. There are some nice images there of what is left from an aerial view. They can be found easily by going to Wheeling WV and looking at the area depicted on the maps above.

However using the nice maps program that comes with the Apple computer I was successful. 

I have just posted the present property as much as possible from this map program so one can see the layout of the buildings that remain.

Here is one reason that there is so much history and info regarding this particular company, it had been working for more than a century. It was part of Wheeling Corrugating Company and like many of these industries became part of Wheeling Steel through merger after merger. I believe there was approximately 30 miles worth of steel mills belonging to Wheeling Steel at one time, not bad for a bunch of folks in WV that often get referred to as Hillbillies by some. To put in perspective the amount of business this industry used to amount to around 1900 the Monongahela River (one of the tributaries of the Ohio) in Pittsburgh PA. handled more tonnage in a year than the Atlantic Ocean between the United States and Europe. Definitely lots of traffic and only 50 miles from Wheeling.

The initial photos were found on the following sites HAER, Ohio County Public Library, and WV archives. Some were also hosted on Flicker accounts and allowed to be shared for educational and research such as we are doing here. All photos are allowed to be used in the manner I am using them according to the websites I have found them on. There will also be some that I took in 2014 and I will mention them separately when I get to them.

The photo above is of the southern end of the plant.

This should look familiar see the photo above, quite a difference a few decades makes.

This should give you folks an idea of what a cut nail is if you have never seen them before. Also in addition to nails the company also lists some of the other items it manufactures. Again that is a very small and general listing of the products Wheeling Steel made.

The photos below are some outside shots of the structure I took in 2014. Also I was just getting to figure out the camera, it was days old at the time of the photos.

This is the northern side of the plant with the photo taken from the west or river side of the structure.

Now that is all for the outside right now my next entry will cover some of the things that were on the inside of the plant and that was very interesting indeed. Now I'm not going to dump hundreds of photos of nail machines on everyone but there will be enough to stir your interest in old machinery and mass production.

At the risk of making things that were already long longer I thought I would post an additional  photo of the South end of the plant that could be helpful in determining how the ends of the plant looked. The two above are of the North side.

TTFN

Thank You

For posting this information. The can industry information was fascinating to read.

Thanks again,

Espee over Donner

Your welcome Patrick.

Your welcome Patrick. Comments are always welcome and I am glad you are enjoying it. I suspect a similar study could be conducted just about anywhere and in many cases would yield much more information than I have been able to turn up so far. Thanks for reading and commenting it is nice to know the effort is appreciated by others than myself.

Fascinating !

Rob, your research and fastidious attention to details is amazing. I wish I had half the determination you have to document any ONE of my industries. You have inspired me to do more investigation into what is actually involved in the how and why any industry deserves a rail spur, as well as what cars are needed to support that industry. I am thoroughly enjoying this blog and your continued information. Keep up the great work !

Michael

Thanks for your kind words

Thanks for your kind words Michael. I decided to model this area decades ago while my modeling efforts were on hold for various reasons. I was originally going to free lance a railroad and have it be very generic and not based on anything prototypical. Then the idea came to try and model the place based on what might have been had some things gone differently. The idea went from a railroad like the V&O which was full of made up places to one about a real place that would handle changed events. So the WLE merged with the Virginian and was joined via the OHIO River Railway. This was a reasonable outcome as the lines were part of mergers and acquisitions anyway. The fictitious line would also have the presence of the B&O and the Pennsy.

Now with the idea for the railroad finalized what part of this fiction should be considered to make it believable? My former home town came to mind. Also to figure out what kind of trains to run instead of just trying to duplicate old train numbers from time tables I thought it might be an interesting to do what so many modelers of the strict prototype vein were doing and model what was likely to take place at any given time. Well the research into things that are no longer there became more interesting than I imagined. Thanks to the internet and internet friends I have made and folks that provided the inspiration to do better than I was in the past the research really turned into an enjoyable aspect for me. It might also help that I have always wondered how things work and that I have always enjoyed learning.

Doing research like this would have been more difficult prior to the web. I now live some 1500 miles from the focus of my modeling area and time has taken many of the things away. I find that this research has been very enjoyable and that sharing it is also quite enjoyable and serves the added benefit of documenting it for myself much like a journal would.

Michael thanks again for your kind comments and feel free to do so again. Also I find it enjoyable to "hear" from the folks following along with the blog. If questions regarding any of the different industries come up feel free to ask, if I don't know maybe someone else will and we will all have our knowledge expanded.

TTFN

LaBelle interior

I doubt that many modelers would want to try and model an interior of a large factory complex Like Labelle but it is handy to have some knowledge of the inside of a place to model the outside. Again the sources of my photos are the Ohio County Library archives, State Archives, folks that post on Flikr, I have none of my own regarding the inside of the plant.

sheets of nail plate being prepared.

the racks will go to the big device in the back to be treated so they can then be cut.

the big device is a lifting device that dips and rotates several sheets at a time for chemical treatment.

I am glossing over some of this as there are lots of photos of nearly every step of the way but it can become tedious going through them all.

This furnace heat treats the previously seen sheets after they have been sheared into blanks. Note the thin stacks of material behind the doors

notice how much smaller the steel is getting after being cut to a size for the nail making machines

This guy got to replace the mule who went on to have a career in movies as Francis the Talking Mule....just kidding about the last part.

Now we will begin to see a few nail making machines

we have action

 the old means of power was by subterranean belt most of which if not all was replaced by electric motors

here one can see the big drive belts and what looks like the outside wall of a structure behind the machines. In many cases where business grew from a very old time period a new structure would be built next to an existing structure to save money. In some cases 2 walls and a roof could be built to get an entire structure. Imagine the changes that took place in the more than 100 years this factory operated.

Notice the steel being feed into the machine and the box at the bottom full of nails

Stacks of material waiting to be fed into the machine

this guy is making BIG nails

grinding away 

the other side of the underground drive

treatment of nails after being cut

quality testing for strength and failure

packaging boxes hold 50 pounds of nails

the black smith shop

I hope this was somewhat informative. The original sites had lots of info about the pictures and there are lots more than I presented here. This was one of several nail plants in the city of Wheeling and one reason why it was known as the nail city in years gone by. I believe at one time more than 1/3 of all nails used in the United States came from Wheeling.

Date ?

Rob, do you have a timeframe for these pictures ? I am trying to guess based on the baseball hats, safety glasses, earplugs, printed T shirts, and steel toe shoes. Also, the guy making the " tall " nails is in a very precarious position if there is any kickback from that machine....LOL. So what is that machine doing ?

Michael

Michael, good to hear from

Michael, good to hear from you again.

Michael the date on those pictures with out going to the HAER website to look is after 1970 to be sure and possibly much later. The machine as I understand does not kick material back. The operator has to manually rotate the stock between cuts. If you look closely at the perch he is on you will see it looks to be anchored to the floor and the supports are very heavy gauge tubes. The one reason I am confident that it is stable is it has likely been there for several decades. I checked on the web site and it says material compiled after 1968. Just how much after I do not know. One other point on other machines that produce smaller nails they rotate the plate and one employee will feed 4 or more machines putting the stock in and leaving the machine on it's own while attending another machine.

Ok, I must admit I love a challenge. I just read through a 54 page history of the plant on the HAER site and the project had a date of 1990 see below.

"PROJECT INFORMATION"
"The Historic Wheeling Recording Project was undertaken during the summer of 1990 by the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER), Robert J. Kapsch, chief, Division of the National Park service.  The funding was supplied by West Virginia University through the Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archeology, Emory L. Kemp, director. Local sponsorship was provided by and the Victorian Wheeling Landmarks Foundation, Betty Nutting, Bill Fields and Frances Williams, principals. The project was supervised by Paul Dolinsky, chief of HABS, Joseph Balachowski, architect and Catherine c. Lavoie, historian.  For West Virginia University, the principals were Emory L. Kemp, director and Billy Joe Peyton, historian. The large format photography was the work of HABS photographer, Jack E. Boucher."
"The documentation was produced in the HABS/HAER Field Office, Wheeling, West Virginia in 1990 by Professor John P. White, supervisory Architect, Texas Tech University; Architectural Technicians Joelynn Barclay, University of Texas at Arlington; Titiana Begelman, Columbia University; Steven c. Byington, Texas Tech University; Lazlo A. Darago, Technical University of Budapest (US-ICOMOS, Hungary); Harold E. Phelps III, University of Southern California; Mark A. Radven, Texas Tech University; Historians"
"Arlene R. Kriv, Rutgers University; and Lee R. Maddex,"

Modeling the structure and

Modeling the structure and the traffic it would generate. This is a large conglomeration of buildings and could easily have a stand-in model put together with foam core covered by corrugated siding for some of the larger parts of the structure and DPM wall castings could be used to model the brick portions.

As in a lot of the early industries in Wheeling they mined coal on their own property and consumed it for fuel, natural gas was abundant and also put to use in many cases being cheaper than coal or cleaner. Depending on your time period as you could go pre civil war to the 1990s with this industry.

Steel sheets were brought in from other mills to feed the nail machines and typically arrived via gondolas. Likely after the 1960s steel coils were brought in and cut into nail plate. This plant could have inbound sheets, blooms or bar stock depending on how much work was being done at the plant itself. It wood also depending on era have kegs sent in for shipping nails as well as card board cartons when the time period was right. Card board after the 1940s and likely some kegs still available for a while. Goods would be shipped out in box cars.

A covered hopper or box car with bagged lime would come in as well as a tanker for sulfuric acid that was used in the pickling process. One other thing to consider is the grassy area to the south of the plant was once mostly covered by a Tin mill that was torn down in the 1920s I believe. So it would not strain reality too much if one wanted to keep the tin mill operating a bit longer and it could be included as well. Much the same material would be needed with the exception instead of nail plate a coating of tin would be applied and tin plate could be produced.