The auto industry was born in small carriage shops, where pioneer inventors persistently sought a "horseless" means of transportation.
Early cars were made by hand, individually. In 1901 Ransome Olds introduced elements of mass production into the process of
manufacturing autos. His Curved Dash Oldsmobile Roundabout was the first low-price, quality car on the market. In 1901, Olds
produced 425 Roundabouts. This number increased to 2,500 in 1902 and 4,696 in 1903.
The industry was revolutionized in 1913, when Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly line to produce magnetos at his plant
in Highland Park, Michigan. Ford's new system of production substantially cut the man-hours needed to make a car. The assembly
of a chassis, which had taken 12.5 man-hours, was eventually cut to 93 man-minutes. Very quickly, Ford was producing 1,000
cars a day. By the late 1920s, the company was producing 9,000 a day. This kind of production required larger and larger facilities.
The incredible industrial power of the auto makers was turned to the war effort when the US entered the Second World War.
Auto makers quickly shut down civilian production and began manufacturing military supplies full time. Their production capacity
hit all time highs. After victory, they took what they had learned from the military and turned their attention back to consumers.
All the US auto makers reorganized after the War, streamlining their production in a variety of ways. They built new assembly
plants, usually on large patches of open land that were far enough away from population centers to be cheap, but close enough
to take advantage of a ready work force and a means of transporting raw materials and finished products to market.
The new plants were generally one story high -- but a tall story of 50 feet or so -- and were made of a combination of brick
and corrugated metal. Most had an office building on the grounds. All had rail yards and convoy yards where finished vehicles
were stored before being loaded onto rail cars and highway carrier trucks. Assembly plants also had plenty of parking lots
for employees. In the post-war era, plants became more specialized, producing just one or two car models. There were only
minor differences between the plants of different manufacturers. Theauto makers painted their plants different colors, for
example. And, of course, signage around the plants indicated ownership.
Immediately after the War, the role of railroads in transporting finished vehicles declined. It had long been difficult to
ship finished autos by rail, since they were large, bulky, and hard to get into box cars. Highway carrier trucks were used
more and more often, especially as post-war highway improvement projects began to show results. In the early 1960s, with the
introduction of the auto rack car, railroads won back finished vehicle business. Their share of parts traffic also increased
with the introduction of auto parts box cars. Rail facilities were built into newer plants to make shipping as efficient as
possible.
Today's assembly plants are governed by "Just-in-time" delivery schedules. Parts and sub-assemblies are delivered within hours
of when they are to be used. Cars are ordered from dealers and made to order along the line. The main components are put together
and painted. Then seats and other interior fixtures attached, and the engine put in place. Then the cars are loaded on auto
racks and highway carrier trucks for distribution throughout the continent.
1932 Ford Promo Film
1949 Ford Design & Testing
20th Century
Automotive History
The second FordLand structure is the three-story concrete and brick headquarters building that recreates Ford's early head
office. Erected in the 1920s, it also served as DT&I headquarters when Ford owned the railroad. In this classically styled
structure, ideas developed, designs proposed, and plans implemented for practical sedans, hard-working trucks, and futuristic
dream cars.
Early Ford Headquarter Building
Ford's Twin Cities Headquarters
St. Paul
Ford Engine Assembly & Animation
The third structure is a stamping plant, where car loads of coil steel are brought in to make body components. Inside this
curtain-wall construction building huge presses pump out thousands of door panels, roofs, hoods and frames -- all the pieces
that make up the basic car body. They fill hundreds of racks that wait to be loaded into box cars for shipment to assembly
plants, and they produce gondolas full of scrap to be hauled away for recycling.
Ford Stamping Plant
Chicago Stamping Plant Bold Moves - Working Together
Next comes a tire plant to produce wheels for the open road. Tire plants receive raw materials by rail: liquid latex in tank
cars and block and crepe rubber in box cars. They also bring in dozens of carbon black cars, whose sooty contents reinforce
rubber to make strong, durable tires. Walthers model features large tanks to store and process rubber and carbon black.
Ford Tire Plant
Ford/Goodyear Tire Truck
Goodyear Tire Story
Parts from stamping plants, tire plants, and a host of other suppliers arrive daily at the defining structure of the auto
industry, the assembly plant. Inside, frames are welded, panels joined, bodies painted, seats installed, wiring threaded and
wheels bolted on. Walthers auto assembly plant will be an impressive structure on any HO layout. The brick facade of this
structure stands two stories; behind it, the corrugated metal plant extends into the landscape. Multi-paned windows, loading
areas, and roof detail add to the realism.
Ford Assembly Plant
Ford Assembly Plant
St. Paul
May 5, 1925
The first car manufactured at the new Twin Cities Ford Plant, in St. Paul
Ford Motor Company's long history in Minnesota began in 1912 in a small, converted warehouse in Minneapolis where 100 employees
assembled Ford Model Ts with hand tools.
Almost a century later, Ford employed more than 2,100 persons in a state-of-the-art assembly plant and several sales offices
in the Twin Cities area. A majority of these people work at the Twin Cities Assembly Plant in St. Paul on a bluff overlooking
the Mississippi River.
The plant assembles the best-selling compact pickup truck in North America, the Ford Ranger. More than 203,000 Rangers were
built in 2000 and over seven million vehicles have been built since the plant opened in 1924. A unique feature of the Twin
Cities Assembly Plant is a hydro-electric facility on the nearby Mississippi River banks built at the time the plant opened.
The facility generates enough surplus power to sell back part of what it produces to the local power grid.
The plant also features a high-tech training facility, the UAW-Ford-MnSCU Training Center, which includes robot, electronics
and computer labs.
A Look @ Ford's Early Assembly Process
Ford's Family
....& A Henry
Ford FlipBook
Rail-shipped vehicles arrive at distribution facilities, where they are transloaded onto auto carrier trucks for delivery
to the showrooms of local dealers. This Ford automotive distribution facility includes a corrugated metal office building,
a guard shack, fencing for security, track bumpers, and two highway trailers.
Ford Distribution Facility
Ford Auto Loader
Twin Cities Ford Distribution Facility
Ford Auto Carriers
Finally, cars arrive at the dealer's showroom. "America's Driving Force" includes an auto dealership that will
look great in any small town or big city scene. The model incorporates different styles of architecture, tracing how the dealership
has expanded over the years. It features a front showroom with floor to ceiling windows, a suite of offices, and a service
bay in the back.
Ford Uptown Dealership
Ford Hydro Electric Turbine
Mississippi River
Hydro Electric Turbine
1924-1994
15 Tons Of Cast Iron 100 MPH Rotation Speed 1,500 Horsepower
This is one of four turbines that
Ford Motor Company installed in 1924 at the "Ford Dam" Hydro Electric Plant located below the main assembly plant, smack dab
in the middle of the Mississippi. The turbines were replaced between 1992 and 1994 after 70 years of service. This one water
driven turbine produced over 1,341,776,000 Kilowatt Hours (KWH) of electricity in its lifetime. This offset the burning of
286,000 tons of coal and avoided 470,000 pounds of particulates, 4,589,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 5,340,000 pounds of
nitrogen oxide.
Ford Dam
Mississippi River
The Model-T
No auto industry project would be complete without the cars themselves, and this layout will have dozens of Fords represented.
Including classics such as the T-Bird, The F-150 Pickups, Fastback Mustangs, E-Series Vans, and the awesome Shelby Cobras.
T-Bird
F-150
Mustang
Carroll Shelby's '66 Cobra 427 SuperSnake
'07 Barrett Jackson
Shelby Cobra
'60's Concept Fords - Mustang
'69 Mustang
Mach 1
Shelby - The Build...
...&
Along Route 66
The Peanuts Gang Futurama & Tom & Jerry Talk Fords
My Ford project will start with history of the automotive industry and its connection with railroads while focusing mainly
on Fords early beginnings. It then will trace changes in automobile production and the development of rolling stock created
to meet the demands of delivering to and for the auto industry. It'll take a look inside today's plants and describes in detail
how the logistics of auto production depends on close cooperation with railroads.
