Building HO scale cattle pens


F

flatbedcowboy

Member
It looks like Im getting ready to prep the area where I am going to build a large sale yard that connects to meat packing plants and such. I am hoping to make it large enough to have over 100 scale head of cattle (maybe more).

I know there are a lot of ready made kits out there but I would need 10 or more kitbashed together to get the desired dimensions.

So would scale lumber be the best bet? The corrals would in real life be made of wood, or would something else be easier to use? And where would the best (cheap) place online be to get the product you recommend?


denverstockyards_zps24ff1128.jpg
 
Yes, that is what you get. They sell them in longer pieces as well, but I have purchased a lot of these packages and they are easy to work with.
 
You seem to have thought of almost everything...packing plants, hotel, office, barns. With 100 head of cattle, what are you doing about disposal of...er, ah, uh... I mean, do you have a fertilizer plant somewhere in the area? Or at least severl hopper cars and a front-end loader or somesuch??? Otherwise, depending on your era, you might have a scale EPA after you! :p ;)
 
When I was a child, my grandfather took me with him to work at the Fort Worth stockyards. It was a revelation and a blast. Most of the pens weren't pens, they were just four gates, which could be opened or closed to move or pen animals as necessary. SWome of the gates, and all of the fencing that didn't move had a flat board on top to use as a walkway. Watching them load cattle onto the rail cars was an eye opener.

Good luck with your project!
 
You know, I wonder, in our search for authenticity, have any of you chemists out there thought above making up some scents to go with our model industries? There is something about the aroma from the stockyards, or the smell of sourmash from the brewery...(you could smell either, depending on the wind direction in Peoria, Illinois, 50+ years ago! :rolleyes:) How about smoke from a coal-fired electric plant, or baking bread from a commercial bakery? Oh, well, time to take me medicine. It tastes terrible! ;)
 
I know that sound can get old after a while. I am pretty sure that coal or bread, or even the sweet scent of stockyard (which I associate with my boyhood home) would get old after a while. :)
 
Yea Im not so sure the smell would be so fun after the first day.....

But as for the EPA I know that the older stock yards would clean the pens out and build large hills of fertilizer at one end of the corrals, Im not sure the railroad loaded the materials, more likely a local company sold it to farmers or even made it fair game, I haven't really thought about that part yet.

Hopefully here soon I can get this project started
 
You are correct. The pile outside of the Fort Worth stockyards was 200 feet high at one point (I think). I remember helping my neighbor's family dig fertilizer from the bottom of the pile, then looking up and noticing that there was a HUGE overhang, and a mountain of crap above us! :)
 
It was on a "cliff": they trucked it over from the yards and dumped it over the ledge. I think they even used a bulldozer to push the pile up. It was a lot of crap. (Of course, I was a lot younger, so maybe I was too.)

Here is a link to a later account: http://hometownbyhandlebar.com/?p=5661

He said it was 20 feet high at the time he saw it. So maybe I over estimated. When I was there in the middle 50's it was huge, but the experience was the same.
 
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We still transport cattle by train from Rockhampton, down to the abattoirs in Brisbane. Passes about 200 yards away. Gotta love that "Fresh country air" smell.
 
I once read this book called Cow tales sequel to Horse tales. And it was about a young guy just after the turn of the century that used to go around the countryside trading for cattle and horses to make a car load and about having to round up wild steers and outlaw horses. The imagery pretty much inspired this area of the layout, along with missing the bygone days of large sale yards and small farms
 
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