i am still in the planning process and was wondering what building i could use in tangent with a grain elevator. train takes loaded cars west to a what? how does corn and wheat get to a grain elevator? much thanks to aybody who replies
AK
I’m no expert. These are just observations of a cross-country traveler who keeps his eyes open.
Grain elevators in farm country receive product from the local farms, in wagons Back When, in farm trucks and trailers (some of which are too big to be highway legal) today. When farmers used oat-burning horsepower, elevators were comparatively small, numerous and only a few miles apart. (This can be seen along I-40 from the Oklahoma border to and beyond Amarillo, TX. The tracks are gone, but the elevator structures still stand.) Surviving country elevators are big enough to load unit trains.
A westbound grain train is headed for either a humongous elevator at the water’s edge (from which it will be loaded into a ship for export) or a really big processing facility from which the wheat emerges as flour and byproducts and the corn emerges as a variety of commodities ranging from corn syrup to cattle feed. It could also be headed for a feed mill like the ones along the BNSF in West Texas, which receive raw feed materials in trainloads and supply feed to adjacent feedlots, some of which are as big as New England counties.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
If you travel in the upper central states area (IA KS NE SD) about every small community has a grain elevator. I lived in central Nebraska for a number of years (along the CB&Q/BN/BNSF main); and you would see a larger elevator every few miles. The stand out on the prarie and you can usually tell by the elevator on the skyline that you are approaching a town. Hence the name “prarie skyscrape” for grain elevator. Farmers bring their grain to the elevator in trucks where the grain is measured and checked for moisture content. During the fall harvest the influx of corn and soy beans far exceeds the capacity of the elevators and the grain is piled on the ground for several weks until the railroad can get enough rail cars in to haul out the grain. Most of the grain is tansported to large grain elevators for storage until sale for export or processing. So grain can go from elevator to elevator to elevator…before being processed. During the harvest a lot of grain is moved in large dedicated unit grain trains from the small farming area elevators to the large export storage facilities.
Other non elevator grain industries would be ethanol plant, oil seed processing, animal feed processing and flower mill.
just for clarity
modeling modern spring in colorado foot hills
still in the planes but not so flat
bnsf
any good kits i could use for a flour mill?
cant do much research
thanks
I think several manufacturers, like Walthers, make flour mills. Other destination industries for grains are breweries (Coors comes to mind!) and cereal makers like Kellogg.
Rick Keil
I grew up on the high plains of Colorado, an area I didn’t much appreciate as a kid but now really miss.
All grain arrives at an elevator by a truck. Grain leaves by train or truck. Historically, the pattern was step-wise. The grain left the farm and went to a country elevator in the nearest town by wagon or truck, where it was weighed, sampled, and dried. Country elevators were typically small and had a capture radius of perhaps 8-10 miles. The grain left the elevator when market conditions were right, often only a few times a year, and travelled by train to a terminal elevator in a location such as Omaha, Minneapolis-St. Paul, or Wichita, where it was reweighed and resampled, and often blended to obtain desired gluten, protein, or other desirable characteristics. Terminal elevators sold into regular markets such as flour mills, feed lots, and export. The grain travelled to market elevators in cities such as Chicago and St. Louis where it was wholesaled to flour mills. Often flour mills were side-by-side with several market elevators. Grain also traveled by train from terminal and market elevators to export elevators at ports such as Buffalo, Galveston, Portland, Kalama-Longview, Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, and Thunder Bay, where it was tranferred into ships for export.
Today the small country elevator is vanishing from the scene, as is the market elevator. Market elevators still dot cities such as Omaha, but most are disused or abandoned. The pattern today is to load at the shuttle elevator, which is a high-throughput facility that can load a 110-c
You can think of it as a three or four step process.
Basically the farmer stores grain on his own property in hoppers or bins, sometimes known generically as Butler Bins although that is a trade name. here is a hopper
Here are bins
Then takes it to the local grain elevator during (before, actually) the shipping season:
Then the railroad takes it to huge grain facilities that might transload to trucks, rail, or boats or barges (Such as this facility in Beardstown IL)
From there it is sent to the using mill (which might be overseas).
Some of these facilities are huge!
Or the railroad might take it directly to the mill with no intermediate storage:
Dave Nelson
Corn and grains come into a chicken feed plant via covered hoppers.
I live on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. This is chicken farming country. Quite a few farmers raise chickens here and there are at least two chicken processing plant here. Perdue and Holly Farms. The farmers need chicken feed. This comes from a feed plant that looks remarkably like a large grain elevator. Covered hoppers bring grain and corn in. The cars are switched at the feed mill by a track mobile. I think the corn is ground at the feed plant and mixed together with other grains in the correct mixture to use for chicken feed. Then it is loaded into feed trucks which deliver the feed to the farms. Chicken houses are long, low, narrow buildings and they have a feed bin at one end. Like a round corrugated storage bin, but smaller and on stilts. Being set higher than ground level allows the chicken feed to be fed by gravity to the chicken house feed auger that runs the length of the house.
Hmmm I work for BNSF on the Front Range. We dont have any grain elevators along the line here ( sad I know) But when I was back in Galesburg we would load trains for export and or mills. We also sent car loads to Golden Colorado.You could do that seeings your modeling the foothills. Have some head for Coors in Golden,well have a LOT head to Coors.I would say you could use some modelers license and send a couple to the turkey plant in Longmont.Have the rest go anywhere you want to.
Back in C&S days there were elevators all over the line that were owned by Coors.I have heard from guys that worked in that era that cars would be picked up and taken to Rice yard ( where Elitchs is now) and then sent up to Golden.
much thanks to all and RWM for his novel
I forgot about one place that also takes gain on the FR sub. Budweiser up by Ft Collins.Duh ps it veryday and still forget about it lol.
BTW all our lines up to Greely were sold ( handed over ) to the Great Western.But that used to be the CB&Q back in the old days.
Welington has an old elevator but its spur was pulled and it is now a place for auto parts.At Highland there is a Coors grain storage facility but it doesnt ship by rail anymore.