MKT/UP Airlawn Industrial Lead is Dallas TX circa 1988

[squirrelhunter]

So for the last couple of years I had been kicking around doing something based of the corn suryp transload article in the 2010 MRP. The article on the MKT Dallas yard also served as bit of inspiration about doing a Class 1 in a small space. And https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=39199.0 by MILW 12 here also got me thinking.

What finally got me going in late 2019 was picking up about 8 Atlas Cargill corn syrup tanks on eBay, some revised shelving in the train room, and a few bare T trak modules.

I was shooting for something compact, potentially portable, and that would take about an hour for a solo ops session. I needed a corn syrup transload but also wanted a few other industries for rolling stock variety.

This got me looking for a prototype some where in Texas that was reasonably compact and served by the MKT or MP. That pretty quickly led me to the Dallas area. ADM has a very modelable facility on the old MKT Denton branch, but there is one next to Mockingbird yard, and it had the bonus of being surrounded by other industries. I threw down some unitrak and ran about 10 ops sessions, but realized finishing an operating session in an hour was difficult to do at a realistic pace.

So I pulled up the track and looked for something that met my goals, and found the MKT (now DGNO) Airlawn Industrial Lead just south of Love Field in Dallas. I've run about 6 or so ops sessions with the current arrangement and it hits all my goals so I figured I'd start a thread for it now.

Here is the layout as a whole as it stand now (just benchwork and track):
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I'll add more about the industries, operations and overall setting in follow up posts.
 

[squirrelhunter]

This page from a December 1988  UP ZTS book gives the overall layout of the area. Love Field occupies the big blank area to the upper left hand side.

Track 863 is the Coca Cola Bottling plant (which is the last module on the far left in the photo of the layout).

The siding at 860 is on the 4ft long module in the middle.

[squirrelhunter]

Here is the industry/track key to the map in the post above. I'm modeling most of the stuff across Denton Drive from the main, tracks 855 to 863.

[squirrelhunter]

Here is the industry list from a 1985 MKT SLIC book. As you can see the Airlawn 1 and 2 leads were a bit busier three years earlier.

[LIRR]

why the 1-hour limit?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I love it! A great use of the format.

[squirrelhunter]

why the 1-hour limit?

Basically with young kids and a demanding job, the inability to set aside longer blocks of time to just run trains. Also I subscribe to the Lance Mindheim idea of trying to have short, frequent ops sessions.

My schedule has been crazy this spring, but prior to that I was able to finish an ops session about every other week. And If I had a slow weekend, I could even fit two sessions in.

One thing I didn't anticipate when I had to leave a session unfinished on the original Mockingbird Yard iteration of the layout was how much it annoyed me and how hard it was to remember what I was doing switching move wise when I came back a week or two later.

[mstl 246]

Cool concept and thanks for posting the proto info for the area. Always looking for data like that and even better it is MKT!

Nat

[Rivet Miscounter]

I mean, I know you gave me like a 7-year head start, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let you finish your Coca-Cola plant before me!!!   

Seriously, that's a great area to model, especially Mindheim-style.   And being a closet MKT fan myself, this one will be fun to watch!

[MDW]

100%!!!
Love the Katy and know that part of Dallas well.   Looking forward to your progress.

Michel

[squirrelhunter]

I mean, I know you gave me like a 7-year head start, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let you finish your Coca-Cola plant before me!!!   

That actually brings me to one of the dilemmas I'm facing- how to model the Coke plant?

So this is the area for the Coke plant:


So the plant has two tracks with three spots each. The plant itself would occupy the space between the front for the module and the track. The spur off to the side is the vacant Airlawn 3 lead, which I use to store off spot corn syrup loads.

I'm thinking of doing some kind of removable roof for the awning area covering the Coke tracks, maybe the roof from a Rix kit supplied by some styrene I beam posts. But I'd like to suggest the rest of the plant, without making the car numbers hard to read. I'll throw in some satellite image screens hots of the Coke plant in my next post

[squirrelhunter]

This is the Coke plant viewed as if you were looking from the wall behind the module towards the front of the layout



This is the view of the front of the plant from Mockingbird Drive:


And this is the building that is between Coke and the Airlawn 3 lead:


So as you can see, looking from the front of the layout, you'd see the metal awning over the tracks and a big parking lot behind that. 

In the area to the left of the Airlawn 3 lead running over to about just before the turnout, the warehouse with the curved side will occupy the space.

[amato1969]

Love that curved siding and warehouse!  I'll be watching your progress...

  Frank

[packers#1]

How prototypical do you want to be? If you flipped the Coca-Cola plant to the other side of the tracks with the parking lot out front, it would set up well for your module.

[Rossford Yard]

why the 1-hour limit?

I like it.  I have a switching layout with a main yard and 6 distinct runs (about 16 cars each) out of that yard.  Typical time varies from 30 minutes to just over an hour.  So, when I feel like running (usually right after work, even though the layout is just next to my office and where I am typing this) I pick a job that can be done before dinner is ready!  In reality, when I have guests, the 30 minute jobs are a bit more popular than the 1+ hour jobs.  Not everyone likes complicated switching, or 4 hour sessions.