Giving industries a realistic name and purpose

[Gordy]

Ok guys i am now building my first modern image (present day) HO layout. Its based in northern Milwaukee but totally freelanced. Many of the modern industrial park warehouses look similar so i was wondering:

 

1) how do you name industries/businesses on your layout

2) how do you decide what each industry does i.e. Imports/exports by rail. ( i am not refering here to the obvious like a grain elevator or huge chemical plant, i mean the many warehouses along the line)

 

Help appreciated as always

 

G

[Adrian Wintle]

Based on the rail-served industries along the Toronto-area line I used to commute along, you are unlikely to be able to tell the name of the industry or even what it does (unless it is blatantly obvious) from the railside. There were two lumber yards, two oil (petroleum products) terminals - these count as blatantly obvious - two anonymous buildings that usually had tank cars outside (probably ethanol cars), and one large anonymous building that had unloading facilities for a half dozen covered hoppers (probably plastic pellets). If the rail cars approach from the same direction as a road then there might be a sign with the name of the business, but it may still be anonymous (only an address).

 

In the modern day you may find that a lot of places only have inbound flows (i.e. bulk raw materials like pellets) and distribute the product (e.g. plastic widgets) by road.

 

Adrian

[Robatron86]

I name my warehouses after family members.

 

 

AJ Shipping after my son (Alexander James). I went for shipping as it was a big imposing storage building with a large loading dock, big enough for two cars.

 

 

MPB associates is named after my mother (Marion Patricia Buckley). It is not rail served and it is the back corner of a large administration building.

 

Empire Storage is in the corner. Named after my love of The Empire Strikes Back. Was once a booming business, but has lost out to AJ Shipping.

 

 

Tri State Milling is clearly not named after a family member, that name was selected off the transfer sheer included in the kit. I chose a milling company as that gives an excuse to run flat cars and gondolas.

 

 

Sherwins was named as such as that is what came printed on the Clever Models kit. Simple really!

 

I hope this is useful. (All pics courtesy of Continental Modeller)

[Talltim]

I just name them after real industries. You couldn't make up Seksui Voltek

[DelawareAndHudson]

I have an older friend that appreciates the puns and generally goofy names that used to be popular on layouts.  One of these days, I need to start work on an asphalt roofing shingle factory for his layout.  Schitt Shingle Company.  Been working on slogans for some billboards to go with the factory;

 

"If you didn't buy our shingles, then you don't have Schitt"

 

"Make sure it's Schitt on your shingles"

 

"Schitt sticks to your roof in all weather"

 

"Introducing our strongest shingle ever, the all new BULL SCHITT shingle"

 

 

For local deliveries, it's important to advertise your product on the side of your truck so the company trucks will be adorned with a catchy slogan like "Another truckload of Schitt".

 

 

On a more serious note, an asphalt shingle plant can generate quite a lot of traffic.  Inbound 2-bay covered hoppers of roofing granules, tank cars of asphalt, coal for the steam/power plant for the factory, and maybe boxcar loads of whatever backing material forms the base of the shingle.  Outbound boxcar loads of shingles, or more specifically for this factory, we're going to be shipping loads of Schitt far and wide.

 

 

For my own layout, I'll probably go with more realistic names.  As far as signage goes, quite often the back side of a building where the railroad access is has no signage.  Everything costs money and most companies aren't going to spend money to put up a fancy side where the public won't see it.

 

 

Jason C

Superserious, Indiana

[Oldddudders]

Milwaukee seems to be famous for a certain motor-cycle, and beer. A brewery makes a good low-relief structure, and lots of boxcars can come and go.

[Zomboid]

I had this idea to have the "Now is the color" paint factory, but I'm not sure that was a good one really.

I'll be picking references to other stuff I like when it's time to name industries.

No one going to suggest Industry McIndustryface?

[DavidB-AU]

I once read an article about coming up with generic but realistic names. One suggestion was to find a contemporary census or phone book from the area where the layout is set and pick out a common name. This would largely reflect late 19th/early 20th century immigration in that area. For example the Dakotas, Wisconsin and Nebraska have quite a high (40-45%) proportion of German names, whereas the south and north east have a very low proportion. In the north east you have a high proportion of Irish and to a lesser extent French names.

Cheers
David

[Fat Controller]

One from the UK, but who would believe 'Molar Products'; a false teeth manufacturer? They had not one, but two, rail-served factories; one near Wrexham in North Wales, and one in Essex. Into the mid/late 1970s, these would receive a few wagons of china-clay every week or so.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I'd decide on the industries, based on the traffic - and consequently the freight car types - I wanted to operate.

 

Longer established outfits may have come to a name leading off with American, Consolidated, Geographic feature, General, International, Local native tribe, Major, National, Region name, Standard, State Name, United;and then some description of the business they are - or once were - in, and may then have mangled it further subsequently. A good example '3M' = 'Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining'.

 

Terminals: Assoc(iates). , Corp(oration). , Inc(orporated). , Partners, abound

 

The abundance of family names drawn from all over the world, some of them mangled on entry by immigration officials, some adjusted to better conform to American English usage, some just as they could best be transliterated, makes almost nothing out of bounds.For example, I knew a wonderful guy whose handle was Fileshifter (from German, Pfeilschafter = Arrowsmith) and his wasn't the most extreme example.

 

And of course you can just make up a name. Kodak was a good one, complete invention, meant nothing at all and no clue that the business was fine chemicals and photographic.

 

Green Falls Industries, International Swamp Dominator, Qumpbo Inc., 4A (American Agricultural Assets Associates), Stroot and Fung, are all looking for premises...

[shortliner]

One of these days I really must build one that has been kicking round in my head for a while, " Shershorns Cannery" - Our name is our bond.  Gives a really good choice of inbound and outbound traffic. I'll probably never get around to it - so if anyone wants to use it, feel free

[dave1905]

I generally use actual industry names (gleaned from railroad information, books on the history of the area and Sanborn fire insurance maps). If I have to make up a name then I pick local names (for SE Pennsylvania : Keystone, Delaware, Eagle) or names of local towns or local areas, or well know industries that might have been in the area.

 

For minor industries or background stuff I make up some names : Bemis-Epscotti, Mohs Scale Co., Hiesenberg Maps, Brinell Hard Candy or name stuff after friends or family.

[PhilH]

On Bodge I've used a mixture of real names, such as Smiths Transfer and Storage, and generic, such as Multon Industries (no idea where that came from).

The point about something as vague as 'Industries' is that you can run virtually any traffic you like to there, it can even change from session to session.

Also a lot of business names can be gleaned from sites such as Shorpy

 

[Gordy]

Thanks guys some really good ideas here. I suppose being modern units they can always go bump and close down. That would create alot of chaos when the cars loads arrive and the business is no longer there!

 

p.s. i dont want to put signs on the building but i need somewhere to ship cars to/from and my crews therefore need to know at least what the industries name is.

 

As for Breweries, theres a craft brewery on the front of the layout. there will be a larger brewery but on site research at Millers last year reveiled that they have stopped loads of grain and now only send out spent grain for animal feed by rail, all the beer is distributed by road. Oh and yes theres definatley going to be a Harley spares distribution warehouse.

[Mike Kieran]

If you're freelancing the industrial park, you can freelance the names.

 

I'm going to have the Uranus-Hertz Chair Company, E. D. Ibble Foods, R. U. Ready Mix, Lotza Gas Co., Civilized Salvage, and Arrowmatic Fish Co. on my layout.

 

When you freelance 100%, YOU decide what traffic goes in and out, how much, and how often.

[shortliner]

One that is slightly different

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155060829784778&set=a.10154228684529778.1073741857.809259777&type=3

[mog]

Had always thought to have a 'Kanurich' industry (I think Chris Gilbert suggested a ladder manufacturer as Petar used to describe his name as 'Can You reach?' ).. also got to have an Arendt Micro something at some point too. Fitting tributes I reckon?

[Talltim]

I probably go too far with researching my industries, although sometimes it does pay off, one company had a photo of the inside of their covered (rail) loading bay on their website and I did find photos of the company tennis court (with rail loading facilities in the background) on the Facebook page of one of another company's employees!

[Nearholmer]

When I was modelling a location on the coast of Maine c1960s in H0, I did a fair bit of delving into what local inbound and outbound traffics were, which was quite hard work in pre-worthwhile-internet days, but should be a lot simpler now.

 

I came up with a paintbrush factory, for which I stole the name and slogan of one next to the WCML on the way into Euston: "Is yours a Hamilton paint brush?", which seemed to fit with names in NE.

 

A poultry food business (the area is a centre for poultry raising and egg production), which had the corny (!) slogan "Our business is chicken feed" emblazoned on its silos.

 

And, the 7Cs company, which was a fish cannery that began as "Central Camden Consolidated Clam Chowder Canning Company" (the location was Camden).

 

There was Deepwater Towing & Salvage, which ran a couple of battered tugs to deal with ships in distress off the rocky coast, but also had a slipway for general boat repairs, plus a fuel merchant for inbound coal and oil, which I think I named after one run by the uncle of a friend, his name sounding find in NE.

 

It's quite a good way to understand a local economy; I certainly never new that Maine was big on chickens!

 

 

Kevin

[steve1]

Not on my US layouts but on UK and German ones I have used the names of members of my favourite bands. Heavy Traffic (and by association, Starker Verkehr = Heavy Traffic in German) was named after a Status Quo album and contained industries called Rossi's Fender Works, Parfitt's Piledrivers, etc. Starker has most of its 'industries' named after members of Rammstein, eg Lindemann's Feurwerker. There are also 3 building ends showing the company name of Beckenbauer, Klinsmann and Lowe...

 

steve

[F-UnitMad]

I copied this Industry Name from a 1950's American layout I saw a picture of once. It was a coal depot on that layout, but I used it for an advert on "Portway Center" (an advert, because the layout didn't have any industries - at all!)

 

[dave1905]

Tri State Milling is clearly not named after a family member, that name was selected off the transfer sheer included in the kit. I chose a milling company as that gives an excuse to run flat cars and gondolas.

 

 

 

That's I guess a difference across the Atlantic.  To me, if I were to guess what type of cars "Tri-State Milling" would get, flats and gons would be the last cars I would expect.  To me a "milling" company makes flour and grain  products.  They would get covered hoppers of grain and ship boxcars or airslides of flour, or boxcars in, boxcars out.

 

Never would have occurred to me to equate "milling" with metal working.

[Adrian Wintle]

That's I guess a difference across the Atlantic.  To me, if I were to guess what type of cars "Tri-State Milling" would get, flats and gons would be the last cars I would expect.  To me a "milling" company makes flour and grain  products.  They would get covered hoppers of grain and ship boxcars or airslides of flour, or boxcars in, boxcars out.

 

Never would have occurred to me to equate "milling" with metal working.

Interesting, because I would have equated it to metal work and millwrights and I have lived most of my life in Ontario. Mill or Mills would be grain/foodstuffs though.

 

Adrian

[Robatron86]

It's funny you say that Dave, as the kit is designed as a flour or grain mill, I just omitted the dust collectors. As Adrian said, I see milling as a metalshop or fabrication business.