The C.J. Riley & Sons warehouse

In the East Shumala part of my layout town of Shumala is a small warehouse, with signage for C.J. Riley & Sons. It is in fact a scratchbuilt structure built by C.J. himself, following (I seem to recall) an article in one or another of the magazines. It served on two of his layouts in Pittsburgh, and with his move to the west coast, he gave it to me, thus its name. 

Given his and my camaraderie in the ICFS group (for background, you can visit: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/07/that-red-icfs-truck.html ), along with his expertise in structures and scenery (see my book review: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/05/riley-layout-book-published.html ), I am honored to have it on my layout. 

It is identified as a shipper of wool and dried beans, a common combined business in the Central Coast area of California where my layout is set. That these cargoes really require only bagging to be shipped, makes the somewhat tiny building a little more reasonable. The structure was built to look a little dilapidated, and its travels have helped that along somewhat. Here is one view of its overall appearance: 

From the other end, it looks a little different, but is still an interesting structure. The loading dock seems to need repair, perhaps a condition fitting the rest of the building.

This is one of my industries that doesn't load box cars very often, so in numerous operating sessions there is either no car at this dock, or a car is at the dock that doesn’t get picked up. 

There are naturally inbound cargoes, usually of shipping material, along with the outbound loads. Below are a couple of illustrative waybills.

Consistent with its small size, there is normally only a single-car move at Riley & Sons, as you see below with SP 44-tonner 1902. 

When we operate the layout, this business usually has no switching needs, but when it does have a box car spotted at its dock, for loading or unloading, it impedes switching at the Phelan & Taylor packing house farther along the spur, as well as Caslon Printing. Providing operational complications is an okay role <VBG>.

Tony Thompson