A month or so ago, I posted the second of two blog essays on switching layouts (the most recent was called “Pratt Island,” and it is here: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/07/pratt-island.html ). My subject today is a question I received by email, asking about an aspect of that post.
(I might also mention a preceding article of the same kind, making some of the same points; it’s at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2026/03/designing-switching-layout.html .)
What the question was about was my mention in both posts about the usefulness of warehouses as industries. Now of course any sizeable industry may include a warehouse among its buildings, for shipping, receiving or both. But the question wasn’t about that. It was about businesses solely working as warehouses.
There was a time when such businesses were widespread. Here’s a single example, the Harborside Warehouse in New Jersey, right across from Manhattan. The image is from the back cover of the 1953 Official Guide. You can click on the image to enlarge it if you wish.
The ad notes that they provide rail-water connections, including lighters to ships, to other railroad piers, and to Manhattan, as well as direct rail service from the Pennsylvania. They can offer storage, transshipment and distribution. So freight sent here might be en route to Manhattan, destined to a ship for overseas destinations, or held for later movement onward.
Harborside does not seem to have provided drayage also, but that was a common component of warehouse businesses, thus offering pickup and delivery. Then the business name might include “van and storage,” or “transfer and storage,” or sometimes “storage and trucking.”
For examples, one can consult any railroad “Shippers Guide.” A valuable source is Rails Unlimited, who offer, for example, a very nice Chicago & North Western Shippers’ Guide (cover shown below). You can see a write-up about it (and the other 25 Guides available) at: https://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/Books/shippers.html .
In this guide, for example, we can look under warehouses. Here is part of page 587, including the Twin Cities. Any of these warehouse names could become destinations on a waybill.
Choosing one of these warehouses, a waybill like that below might be created for my layout:
For an even bigger city, we might consider Chicago. One very comprehensive Shippers Guide that includes Chicago is that for the B&O (also available from Rails Unlimited), as I’ve described before (see the post at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/01/another-excellent-shippers-guide.html ). Here is the beginning of the B&O warehouse listing:
One could readily repeat the process just described for the shipment to St. Paul, using any of these names. The versatility of a storage and transfer destination is obvious, and I intend to expand my use of these as destinations. Modelers of big cities can use warehouses as origins, too.
Tony Thompson