CCF & 5th Ave Lumber Visit!

Today I had the opportunity to visit two of the industries that I am modeling: Columbus Coated Fabrics and 5th Ave Lumber.  What a neat experience! Not only has this solidified my desire to want to model these industries but it gave me some insight into how they actually operate.  Lets first look at CCF. (Note: No trespassing was done, I had permission to visit these sites.)

Columbus Coated Fabrics:
I visited the site where CCF was located a couple years ago to try and get some information on how it may have operated.  Unfortunately, there was almost no evidence that one of the largest manufacturing plants in Columbus once resided here.

The site is now home to what seemed to be Govt. Assisted housing and from what I can tell the same development will soon be on this side of the road:

The only evidence I could find that CCF once existed here were some of the retaining walls that held the siding tracks in place near the loading and unloading docks.

In this first picture you can see the Main Tracks. The right one is now owned by Norfolk Southern and the left by CSX.  At one time they were both held by Conrail.  If the 2nd Ave Industrial Lead still existed down this far it would have been to the left of the CSX trackage and continued down to 17th Ave:

It seems that the loading and unloading levels of the building would have been a few stories up, certainly not on the ground level.  I dont think that I will be able to capture this in my modeling but it was interesting. 

Here are some remnants of the sidings:

A switch point from an old #5 turnout up on one of the retaining walls:

Im not sure why but if you look closely in this picture you can see one retaining wall up quite a bit higher than the one below it.  I believe that the higher one held up the 2AIL (2nd Ave Industrial Lead) and the lower one was the actual CCF siding. I cant confirm that at this time but since both had evidence of trackage that is my best guess.

Photos of the actual 2AIL.  This is looking South toward Columbus on top of the 5th Ave Bridge, on the right you can see Clark Grave Vault:

Looking North toward CCF. You can see where the rail has been cut in this turnout. Like I said earlier The 2AIL used to continue all the way down to 17th Ave.  This turnout was the first of three for CCF service:

On top of my perch of the massive fill dirt pile at CCF you get a fantastic view of Downtown Columbus and of Clark Grave Vault, you can see their water tower to the left. This would make a fantastic night shot, however, I wouldn't feel safe coming here at night:

 5th Ave. Lumber "Columbus Builders Supply:"
Luckily 5th Ave Lumber is still in operation and I was lucky enough to get the chance to talk to Bill, the owner.  He shared a lot of fantastic information with me that will really help with my modeling and research as a Civil (Rail) Engineering Student.  The first thing that was interesting was that they are actually served by Norfolk Southern out of Buckeye Yard.  They generally receive one or two cars a week, but at the busiest times they take in one a day.  He receives ply and osb in boxcars and dimensional lumber on Centerbeam flats. It takes them one day by forklift to unload a car and it is generally swapped out for the next loaded one in the evening, after they close.  They actually have two sidings one on either side of 5th Ave but I am going to focus on the one South of 5th as this is the original.

Here is the unloading site South of 5th:

The tracks used to curve and go all the way down into this area but as cars continued to get longer and longer the rails began busting so now it is just a short siding for one car.  I am going to model it as it used to be just for operational and visual interest:

Heres the car stop.  Pretty high-tech!

Here are a couple shots of the siding that serves the yard. Note the state of the track! Should be fun to model!

Once again you can see Clark Grave Vault to the right:

Neat random K-rail:

Entrance to the yard:

 Here is the 5th Ave Bridge.  All of the trackage I have been showing you are on top of that bridge.  It will be a lot of fun making this scene:

 Note the low clearance, only 14' measures out to about 3.5" in O scale.  Should be doable with a pretty hefty slope for the road. Luckily the RR tracks stay level and only the road dips to avoid a crossing.

I ate lunch at The North Market downtown and was once again reminded why I love Columbus Railroading both past and present. This is North Market, these tracks once served the loading dock that is covered by the new brick in front of it:

This may not seem too interesting until you look at where these tracks came from:

Im not sure what these two industries used to be but they are certainly old and cool! The riveted steel on the exterior of the right building just looks incredible! I can imagine an old 0-6-0 with a pair of refer cars in tow steaming through this concrete valley...neat stuff!

Thats all for now. I have a meeting set up with Clark Grave Vault to tour their site and rail operations and I have been invited back to 5th Ave Lumber to watch NS switch out their car early next week. Look for another update about that.

Thanks for looking and feel free to share with anyone you think might be interested!