Hi everyone!
I am still modeling my grain elevator from Walthers. I have finished modeling the elevator but now I am building one of the two other buildings in this kit, a storage bin. The problem is that there are no doors on this little building.
My stupid questions are:
What is the use of this building in relation to the grain elevator?
How can they store something inside this building if there are no doors?
Thanks for your help!
Mine has a door.
I often don’t like the door(s) that come with many kits and have modified many. It should be easy enough to make a door, just look at mine for guidance.
The storage bin was just that, used for storage. The grain would be transferred back to the elevator for train loading.
Do you have the same Walther kit than me? If yes, I don’t understand why yours have a door and not mine.
And I am not sure I understand why this building was used. You said it was used for storage. Why, then, the grain is not brought directly to the grain elevator instead of putting it in this storage bin? Do they put grain in the storage bin because the grain elevator was full and could not receive more grain?
Generally a correct observation. My understainding is that the building is supposed to be a storage bin. Storage bins are for storing excess grain and would have the loading pipe. If it was my kit, I’d probably abutt it to the main building as best I could and assume egress happens through the walls. The Walthers illustration shows the building to be separated.
Looks like a close prototype for the Walthers Valley Growers kit.
Sometimes kit manufacturers simplify the kits as they are rerun. Maybe yours doesn’t have the little extra bump up to the roof line.
Thanks Douglas.
I think I will do as you suggest, put the bin very close to the grain elevator and paint it in the same colour.
Finally, it’s impossible to put the storage bin very close to the grain elevator because the building is too large and the truck alley is blocking the way. If I put the storage bin on the side, I will still block the trains coming in. The office can and will be glued to the grain office but not the bin.
Maybe I should use this building for something else?
Its a model. A representation. If it doesnt fit I would just put it how Walthers has it or somewhere convenient where a loading pipe would make sense. I’d probably add the loading pipe and put a scrap door somewhere.
I’m not a grain expert, but with a big steel bin, you can load with a pipe or auger.
Or use an auger near the door for unloading.
I simply google searched grain bin images
I agree. I would think the model should come with a door or a pipe, but our model structure kits typically come with less detail. If you look closely, real structures have way more details than our represenatitive models do.
Many folks will build the kits as built or slightly altered, then go back later and super detail the structures as part of the finishing touches of a completed layout.
Our kit came with a rotating roof vent, windows in each end and two sliding doors, boxcar style on each long wall. It sits on piles and the floor is the height of a merchandise truck, roughly.
Our building would not be suitable for use as a grain bin. Grain is pretty heavy stuff. The windows would break (and you wouldn’t use a windowed building for grain anyway).
Walthers instruction sheet clearly shows all of these features. The web link to the structure is:
And the instructions are in .pdf accessible from that page.
https://www.walthers.com/amfile/file/download/file/xWTOP3nZzAK9RbRK4lor92B4hS2Pw3CU/product/421782/
Note those curious about electric lighting (and power) to the elevators will find answers in the text. The extent of electric lighting is not detailed. The delay due to lack of grid power for electric lighting is noted.
This outbuilding is not described in the instructions as a storage building. As modelled is not for grain. It shows the roof vent, four sliding doors and two end windows.
Remember that these elevator sidings could serve as a freight spur and a building like this, loadable from a truck bed, would serve as a general freight depot for the locality. We plan to locate ours alongside the elevator siding with one long wall with doors alongside the rails and the opposite side lined up with the gravel road serving the elevator loading floor. In fact, the Walthers instruction sheet says exactly that.
Granaries on farms were generally small square wooden buildings on skids. Relics are still seen and the much prized antique "barn wo
Your kit is different from the one currently advertised as being priced with a special model discount and also out of stock!
Can you post the Walthers kit model number or check for a web site link so we can find the product you have?
That’s a large grain storage building (if it is such a building) but not implausible. Such a building would have a loading hatch, probably several, cut high into the walls and some sort of low placed access door, not man height but large enough for a person to get in. The model is definitely not accurate for a grain bin.
This building should be on piles or skids for moisture and vermin control. Commonly lined with “tin” at least on the floor and up the walls for some distance.
This building could be filled from an elevator spout but before grain augurs would be shovelled out by hand. These buildings were not commonly that large before augurs.
Since OP mentioned grain elevator kit, I believe it is the Valley Growers Association Elevator.
Mike, Walthers makes another rural grain elevator kit, that has a different out building.
Do you know what this outbuilding would be used for storing? The doors seem too big and floppy to be storing loose grain. Walthers seems to think it belongs next to the tracks for loading or unloading.
That’s the one we have. The doors and piles mean the floor will be at boxcar floor height. These buildings would serve as a type of general freight depot served by the elevator siding on one side and a road on the opposite long side. Given the way boxcars were spotted for loading grain and then when loaded rolled along the siding for storage until the pick up locomotive arrived it would be logical for the freight shed to be located between the elevator and the points if the siding sloped down from the main and the other way if the siding sloped up from the points (I would think that orientation would very much be the exception).
It just stores excess grain from the elevator. It would be filled by a small pipe to the roof from the elevator.
It is easier, and stronger, to construct the storage bin without a door. Some have access hatches in the roof, and some do have doors.
Very little grain would enter this building. It would be unloaded by an auger being inserted through a small opening in a wall.
This is a typical unloading auger in a steel grain bin. The one used on that wooden building would be something similar.
Doug, that one just looks like a generic rural storage building to me. I do not think it would be for bulk grain. I have no idea why it would be next the the track like that.
-Kevin
Yeah, I figured it was general purpose but could not quite understand why such an elevator would have a need for a relatively large freight shed.
Its a nice gp building to place elsewhere.
In Southern GA, they have peanut farms and peanut processing facilities. They have a grain operation look to them but some of the buildings have unique shapes. Some of the properties are dotted with small storage bins or gp buildings all over the complex like the two buildings in question. Wooden, old, probably been there for decades.
There was often a freight shed on the elevator siding usually owned by the Co-op that ran the elevator. Supplies, bags of specialized feed supplements as an example would be dropped off.
Here are some of my pics including my trip to Vulcan.
Don’t forget to use “dated” track on your elevator siding.[(-D]
And if you want to add some details that can be seen through the open door.
Some of the elevators had the winch and cables in place that were used to pull the rail cars along and at one there was a pile of 64 old switch stands off in the grass.
Visiting these old elevators is like being on the “Life After People” TV show. The elevators are open and accessible without another soul around for miles.
Next time you drive across the Prairies take the back roads, it can be like stepping back in time. Driving a forty-mile stretch of section road I let my 14-year-old daughter drive the truck for a while. Why not all the farm kids were doing it.[(-D]
I took this picture near Ashburn, Georgia in 2016. The sign had the name of a peanut company, but I have no idea what this building actually is used for.
-Kevin
Learner’ driving permits are still issued to 14 year olds in Alberta. I had one at that age and my daughters did. We are all city kids. On the farm they drive without a license. The only limitation while on the farm is legs long enough to reach the pedals. If you ended up driving to the elevator there’d not likely be anyone stop you.
I think that P&H yellow elevator shows a discharge pipe from the elevator to a small building that looks converted to a grain bin: doors and windows boarded up and feed pipe into the roof area somewhere (probably the opposite wall, assuming that’s what the pipe is.
As for the size of an ancillary building providing freight and distribution that would depend on the draw area for the elevator which would create the demand.
Well, that’s a very small feed mill attached. The different ingredients come from the different bins then go up the tower and down the feed pipe into the building. Feeding what is a question but maybe it’s a bagging and distribution facility.
I don’t know enough about Peanut Farming to say. (BTW, Jimmy Carter still lives in Plains Ga and use to give Sunday sermon’s at his local church at 90 something years old. He may have stopped by now).
Mike might be right. But if its on a peanut farm, it might be where farmers deliver their trucks of peanuts and then they are stored.
Golden Peanut Company has a plant in Ashburn. Bagging peanuts, shelling peanuts, and making peanut oil are all part of the process.
Hoppers for crushed shells (industrial uses). Tank cars for peanut oil. One of those industries that could generate different kinds of car traffic.
Atlas paints a 25,500 gal tank car for GPC, which is what got me interested.
Anyway, not trying to hijack the thread.
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