Slaughter house

I have nothing to share, except a childhood memory:

I grew up a block away from a very small-scale slaughter house. They processed cows and pigs into packed meat. It would make a very interesting model, and not take up a lot of space. About a quarter of the building was a small indoor holding pen. It was open to the street, separated from it only by a fence/gate. Trucks would unload the stock into this pen, where they would await their fate. Half the structure was the processing area proper. My friends and I would frequently hang out and watch. The memories are vivid: They would shoot the cows in the head with a .22 rifle. The hogs were hung upside down by their heels and the butcher would cut their throats with a big knife. Quite the sight for 10 year old boys. 

Interesting from a modeling perspective is that one corner of the building was a small retail butcher shop. I was often sent up to buy a pound of hamburger. It never occurred to me to build such a structure, but it would be extremely cool. 

Look up the history of Sioux City, Iowa. We had Swift, Cudahey, Armour, Sioux City Dressed Beef, Needham, Raskin as well has a nation ranked stock yards.

You should find a lot of photos.

Dick

Hollsc posted:

Anyone have any pictures of a slaughter house they may have modeled?  I am wanting to kit bash one from existing buildings along a siding with the holding pens then the ramp where the cattle are led up to the facility.  I’ve seen some nice HO scale ones but just curious if anyone has modeled one in O. 

Check out this link, it is the history of the John Morrell plant in Ottumwa IA.  There are a lot of pictures of the former plant along with the car shops.

http://www.cityofottumwa.com/w...at-Packing-Plant.pdf

James

Such a project could have truly unique interior detailing. 

Sounds like an interesting project. After reading your post I  came up with a neat picture of an HO scale small packing plant via web search:

I think this could be kit bashed from a couple of AmeriTowne building kits. Windows from Korber. This picture has given me ideas to do something similar. It looks like it could have small footprint.

Also found some info on meat packing plants and even info on an O scale butcher shop at:

http://www.railroad-line.com/f...c.asp?TOPIC_ID=36602

Tom

Thanks for the replies.  I think I m definitely going to do this project and will post pictures when done.  I found this HO scale one which I like a lot and the HO Walthers one pictured above I believe its a Champion Packing Company. 

I had Joe at Model Structures custom build a packing plant for me a few years ago.  The concept was modular OGR wall sections for a quick and simple structure.

Follow the link and scan down to "Kit Bashed Ameritowne Buildings".

http://www.modelstructuresinc.com/custom-designs.html 

The structure is 3D not a building flat.  The side you see has three loading doors and the entire wall is windows.  The wall section with the loading doors was kitbashed by Joe.  It looks as if it were cast that way by the ORG-Ameritowne folks.  The opposite side was planned to be a different packing plant.  It was designed using the 3 Story Rear Wall and Blank Back Wall so that it would have a totally different look.  I even had Joe paint the wall white with blue window frames for a different industry appearance...AND just to go one more mile, the white side had four loading docks.

The structure was designed to be a view block on a peninsula with two different packing plants in the same "stockyards district".  While the structure was just 6 inches wide (the width of one wall section) I placed a different structure (a place taker until I could have the "right" custom slaughter house built) on the end hiding the width of the packing plant from the viewer on the end of the peninsula.  Worked good enough for my needs, 

The slaughter house was never built, I imagined/planned a 3 story with a ground level entry for the livestock and since the buildings abutted each other, how the meat got from point A to point B was NOT the railroad's problem.  The "place taker" was my Menards American Power and Light.

Some things that I obsessed over that I will share:

1) the length of a 40ft O scale boxcar, reefer or stockcar is approximately 11 inches over the coupler.  The dimensions of the wall panels of the Ameritowne structures was close enough for me. 

2) to accommodate the length of the railcars, I skipped every other wall section.  So on the side shown on Model Structures, there were four sections with just windows and between each of those sections was a section with the "ground floor" having the custom wall section of a loading dock, freight door and a "person" doorway.  The loading dock section was placed every other wall section: Window-Loading Dock-Window-Loading Dock-Window-Loading Dock-Window.  Seven wall sections, each approximately 6 inches wide...that made for a 42 inches long by 6 inches wide by 9 inches tall.  The "roof top structure" was added so I could not "see" over the top since the structure was the view block...again, it works for a short fat guy, but not you tall guys...so design yours according...I am sure there are several custom builders on the OGR who might benefit from that design....

Alas, I am rethinking the "The ATSF Oklahoma City Stockyards District circa 1963".  I am high centered on this project, so I am considering changing focus to a small Santa Fe branch line thru North Central Oklahoma.  I currently have Joe commissioned to build a limestone crusher and aggregate loader.  I am planning on those structures being placed on the peninsula and the packing plant being moved to a corner on the shelf...thus only one side will be viewed.  And since it is a branch line, while it is a large structure, but three loading docks is "smaller" than four docks, right?  After all, it is my version of reality, or what might have been...

Here was mine it's gone now to make way for the Steel Mill but it was fun when it was there most of the everything I scratch built I made jigs for the Stock pen fences

Once I had two packing houses on the layout  have lots of photos of the large complex if your interested. Roo.

I like the way your stockyards and packing plant fit in the trackwork.  Very nicely done.  The ice house fits into that scene very well.  I like the overhead bridge for ice block delivery and the ramp from the stock pens to the entrance into the slaughter house.  That works very well on your layout.  As does the overhead delivery from the packing plant to the rail car loading facility.  Making use of every available space...well done.