This has been a good thread! If you have enough space and could do justice to a smallish to medium-sized cement plant, the rural setting is just fine – you will find that many if not most cement plants are in very out-of-the way places (think Grand Chain, IL or Alpena, MI or Fredonia, KS to name a few!).
Your average cement plant today will likely receive few if any inbound raw materials or fuel by rail. Most well-positioned plants (i.e. the ones still running right now! have water access and hence receive their fuels (usually coal, coke) by barge/ship, much more economically and on the larger scale that a typical 1 million ton cement plant demands. Same with raw materials (rule of thumb to make portland cement: LISA = Limestone, Iron, Silica, Alumina). Most plants have their own limestone quarry and limestone is by far the major raw material, with stuff like iron fines, sand, clay, etc. being used for the I-S-A components to the extent that your limestone doesn’t have enough of any of those. If
I live in a rural part of New Jersey and there is a concrete plant right down the end of the road where I live. Clayton Concrete inc. There are many aspects of a “concrete plant” this particular one at one time had a rail spur going to it but it no longer exists everything is trucked in or out. But as mentioned you can just supply a little imagination and use rail lines and or even barges etc. I supplied a link below for a company out of Texas that manufactures concrete plants. This ought to give you a little insight and get your creative juices flowing. One thing that hard for many of us to remember about model railroading is scenery compression. On your model railroad depending on size constrictions you may be forced to pt your concrete plant or other industry near lets say a school or farm house and out buildings a residential neighborhood etc. Yes there is a certain amount of flow and realism that should be maintained to actually give the illusion that this is real but as I was told by one of the hobby’s great builders think of each scene as a snap shot and individual piece of your world as the train moves on to the next scene it theoretically could be miles and miles away from the last scene not merely on the other side of a bush or row of trees. I was also told something that is always on my mind when building is that the scenery and details are there to compliment the trains not the other way around. So if you want a cement plant in your neighborhood go right ahead and build one, I got one in mine.
Cement plants are located next to limestone quarries. Limestone is burned in a kiln creating a material called klinker that is ground into the powder that is cement. The plants have one or more kilns that are several hundred feet long. a mill, silos and large piles of stone and coal. In comming rail traffic would consist of gypsum, lime and lots of coal. Out going would be cement to concrete plants (covered hoppers) and maybe synthitic gypsum from the anti polution equipment. The quarries are very large and have some realy serious equipment.
Cement is the powder you mix with sand, stone and water to make concrete. For the record cement is not what comes out of the back of a ready mix truck, it’s concrete.
In my personal railroad experience we have a massive cement plant located in an extremely rural area,it is served by a dedicated local which often pulls close to a 100 cars a day, these cars are sent to hump yards where they’re broken down into smaller 4-10 car shipment to batch plant customers in cities such as St. Louis, Milwaukee, Ft. Wayne etc., the plant is very similar to those offered by Walthers kits but there are numerous structure over a wide area, all located in or near a quarry, no ingredients are brought in by rail though they often burn waste solvents as fuel (could come in haz-mat tanks though) others burn coal.This plant recently doubled in size bought new sw-1500 (rebuilt) and hundreds of cars. Other online plants are in a medium size town(Michell IN ) and also in suburban Louisville(Jeffersonville-Speed IN ). Also an interesting operation is Maine Coast I believe which loads cement out to barges for dragon - how about a cement plant to rail barge operation? Branford Steam railroad has a similar gravel operation to water covered in R&R ? in the past.
I’m surprised no one responding has yet mentioned a great resource to answer your question – Jeff Wilson’s book, “Model Railroader’s Guide to Industries Along the Tracks 3” (look at http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/12422.html). There is a whole chapter devoted to prototype information on cement plants and suggested modeling ideas.
I toured a cement plant last September just south of Laramie, Wyoming. They have nearby quarries for limestone (which I also visited), gypsum, and shale (clay). They bring in small amounts of iron additives, such as slag. There are two kilns. The site is served by rail on the UP mainline, but the cement plant owners/operators have their own small switcher, saying it cost too much for UP crews to do the switching.
Go to Google Maps and search for Laramie, then pan about 1-2 miles directly to the south to see it on a satellite image. The active ne quarry is about 8-10 miles to the east-southeast.
Monolith is 1 of 2 cement plants served by the UP out of the yard in Mojave and is located just south (railroad direction) of Tehachapi. The other plant is at Oak Creek, about 10 miles west of Mojave. Train frequency is about once a week for both plants. Oak Creek will use 3 or 4 SD70’s of the newer vintage and a dozen or so cement hoppers. Monolith also has 3 or 4 SD70’s, up to a dozen or more cement hoppers, a few coal cars, plus a chemical covered hopper or 2 for a plastics plant in Tehachapi. Yes, the SD70s switch the local industries.
The Monolith plant uses a track mobile to switch inside the plant. MANY moons ago they had a narrow guage line to bring the rock from the quarry, but that has been replaced by a conveyer belt system, and then large dump trucks.
Both plants also have a steady stream of double bottom cement trucks (dry, not wet) heading in and out every day.
On an irregular basis there is a cement rain that heads north over the Loop. Lots of power, very few cars compared to the regular trains. The coil steel train is the next lowest in the cars to unit ratio.
Unless you really have the space I would suggest modeling just the loading spur going under the silo and make the rest of the plant part of the painted backdrop. As noted they are LARGE. Not that deep, but long and tall. The Monolith plant sits right beside the UP main against the mountains and dominates the view for a good 5 miles in both directions from the valley.
Even better, model just the spur disapearing into the background to hold a few cars. The Oak Creek plant sits in a notch in the mounta
You might consider picking up Kalmbach’s The Model Railroader’s Guide to Industries Along the Track:3 which has a very informative chapter titled–are you ready for this?–Cement!
have water access and hence receive their fuels (usually coal, coke) by barge/ship, much more economically and on the larger scale that a typical 1 million ton cement plant demands. Same with raw materials (rule of thumb to make portland cement: LISA = Limestone, Iron, Silica, Alumina). Most plants have their own limestone quarry and limestone is by far the major raw material, with stuff like iron fines, sand, clay, etc. being used for the I-S-A components to the extent that your limestone doesn’t have enough of any of those. If