THE SCRAP YARD by Matthew Nitka A great railroad-served industry ... Gondolas. The proverbial donkey of the railroad. They are abused, banged, dented, pierced, sagging, and overall neglected, yet they carry everything from scrap metal to finished coils. I-beams to crossties. Pipe to poles. Gondolas do it all. But like any revenue freight car, gondolas are nothing with- out customers to provide those loads. One such customer is the scrap yard. For years, long before recycling became the en vogue idea of the 2000s, scrap yards have been turning old material into scrap suit- able for shipment and reuse. The beauty of a scrap yard on a model layout is they have no set footprint. Scrap yards are often stuck in-between businesses, tucked under a bridge, located in a remote setoff area of town. They need road access for trucks, and a siding from the railroad, but beyond that, their structure requirements • INDEX • TABLE OF CONTENTS