Naming industries : LA - Southwestern Bag

 LA- Southwestern Bag. I bet if you look carefully you’ve seen this industry on TV or in the movies. Southwestern Bag is a company that actually does produce packaging materials, burlap bags, sacks, boxes etc, but they are also a major movie location. They make their entire plant available for movies and tv. I, in fact, “Acquired” a railroad cross-buck from LA-Southwestern Bag that read “Railroad crossing, Pacific Electric, 5-Tracks” on a trip I made to Southwestern bag for a movie I worked on years ago. 

I always thought “LA-Southwestern Bag” was a great name for an on layout industry. It wouldn’t fit on my layout, which is set in West Virginia, but what about “Mountaineer Bag and Box”, or “Mid-Atlantic Bag”?

I think names should be plausible. “Ralph’s Tool and Die” does not sound as good to me as “Eisenthal Machine Tools”. I do however have a “Fred C Dobbs Mining Equipment”, I’ll let you movie fans IMDB* that one.

West Virginia is the Mountaineer State so “Mountaineer” plays a big part in the naming process. The Allegheny Mountains, Blue Ridge, and Appalachian’s (that’s Apple LATCH ins) are also frequently seen: Allegheny Milling;  Blue Ridge Flour; Appalachian Tire & Automotive.

If your layout was set in Michigan I’m assuming you’d have a lot of industries with “Wolverine” in the title. I use friends and relatives names heavily in naming industries, “Pettigrew Yard”. I find first initials followed by last names sound more plausible: P.E. Frantz Milling;  A.G. Daumann & Sons Building Materials; D.R.Spooner Coal. 

I like to add “Brother’s” to names; Cure Bros. Sand & Aggregate; Weisman Bros. Freight Consolidators.

I have a few prototype names, that is real names, from the world of business: H.N. Funkhouser Fuel; A.E. Schmidt** (Building materials); Standard Paper Box; Federal Pacific Electric***.

I am very strict to avoid cute names, I got this from Allen McCelland’s book “The V&O Story” and I agree strongly with this sentiment. I want the industry names to be identifiers and not give my operators a second glance as it were. 

I grew up in Southern California. I worked in the entertainment industry for a long time. I use those years as a source for many of the industries I have or am planning. I try to Eastern-ize the names. If I come up with a good name or industry, but it’s “L.A. Southwestern Bag” I’m not afraid to change it to “Blue Ridge Bag”.

It’s your layout you can name your industries whatever you want, this is what I do.



*IMDB - Internet Movie Data Base

**A.E. Schmidt: In the movie business when we were building a beach, or desert, or a “Mongolian Bar” A.E. Schmidt was where we always went when we needed a lot of sand. They also specialized in set demolition and removal.

***Long time readers will recognize the FPE name. My Father worked at Federal Pacific Electric from 1948 until 1976. Now if you Google “Federal Pacific Electric”, all you get is product liability lawsuits.




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