Hi all,
I’ve always been fascinated with grain elevators, mostly because there are about 10 of them within 5 miles of my house. I’d like to have a somewhat accurate model of a grain elevator on my N scale layout, but I need some inspiration. So if you have a grain mill, elevator, bin, silo, or anything that has something to do with grain, please post some pics here. It doesn’t matter if it’s stock, kitbashed, or scratchbuilt, I’d love to see it. Thanks in advance.
New or old?? wood or cement? I have trouble calling anything cement an elevator, on the prairies of Saskatchewan there are still a few older wooden “elevators” and new cement elevators, these are usually called inland terminals as they replaced many of the dismantled wooden types, and they are quite abit farther spaced so large trucks must haul farther, there is a grain (wheat) museum in Calgary, Alberta that has operating models of an elevator along with a huge HO train layout with grain trains, I’m sure they could send you plans (blueprints) of old elevators. I’ll try and find their website, does anyone out there know?
This one is located on the Bucyrus club layout.
This isn’t anything of mine but, since nobody else has responded, I’ll go ahead share this link from the Atlas forum. It was posted by Jim Six, who wrote the artitcle in GMR 2008 about Tom Johnson’s Indiana Northern shortline. These are all pictures that Kalmbach didn’t use in GMR. There are several different grain elevator shots mixed in there, but you’ll need to hunt for them within the group:
http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=42124
BTW - this is really bandwidth-intensive, so beware if you’re on dial-up
Shot of a Walthers ADM elevator, one of the first kits I did.
Here’s a shot of the grain elevator on the layout of my friend and mentor, Chuck Ellis:
Don Z.
Actual grain elevator on the BNSF just south of Topeka Kn.
I’m hoping to include one of those on my little N layout. The Walther’s ADM Elevator is very close to the Landmark elevator I passed too and from school every day for 8 grades. I have no idea when it was actually built, but my memories of it go back to the late 50s.
Haven’t built it yet, plan for N scale model, using techniques from construction article for model on MR&T layout, Mod RRer Nov86 p.78
Elevator would hide track entracne to staging.
Here’s mine. Kinda cheesy but I hd to crank out in an evening before a show to do a last minute fill in on a module for our club. 10 foot peice of plastic drain pipe, some balsa wood and scratched out the building on top. The pipe are from model spru’s. I want to do a better one, and take more than say 2 hours it took me to do this but it has served its purpose.
These 3 elevators on the CB&Q are gone now…so if you see one you might want to model take those photos now!
I am working on a layout set along a piece of Hiawatha Avenue in Southern Minneapolis - lots of grain silos and elevators. Did a bit of research, and learned that there are in principle three kinds of elevators:
A country elevator is a collection point where local farmers deliver their grain. It ships carloads of grain of various kinds.
A receiving elevator is e.g. at a mill or a brewery - it ensures that the business has a supply of grain. As the name indicate it is a recipient of grain traffic.
A terminal elevator is typically owned by grain merchants and holds grain until it is sold and shipped onwards (by train, barge, ship or truck). It will be both the recipient and the shipper of grain loads.
Elevators generally consists of two things : a number of storage bins and a mechanism to elevate/lift the grain from ground level (or below ground) to the top of the bins. For a terminal type elevator usually housed in a square building taller than the top of the storage bins.
A magnificent example of mill with storage containes and an elevator can be found if you search on the model railroader forums for the word “mill” and user DrWayne - his CERN plant looks darned good!
Smile,
Stein
Here is a sample of an older elevator.
More background info on elevators:
http://www.vanclevedevelopment.com/downloads/VanishingGiants.pdf
A seriously cool model RR mill structure from poster DrWayne:
http://forum.zealot.com/t110626/
An earlier thread showing quite a few modelled elevators:
http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/344123/ShowPost.aspx
A couple of “Mill City” (Mpls) prototypes:
General Mills in Minneapolis, 1958 (from the Minnesota Historical Society image archieve online)
Cargill’s elevator on Hiawatha Avenue ca 1931:
Smile,
Stein
Me too. I’ve got hundreds of pictures of them.
The biggest thing I’ve seen in grain elevator models is that they aren’t tall enough. Personally I would use the Walthers HO scale one as a base for an N-scale model.
Growing up in Wichita Kansas. I always considered these to be the “standard” for a grain elevator. These are only about 1/2 mile long. The ones 90 miles to the northwest in Huchison are about a mile long. I understand some even larger ones are now being built in the area.
Old and New together. This is Bazine Kansas on the old Santa Fe Scott City Branch.
Here’s mine. Completely scratchbuilt and completely fictional. Based on all the old ones my son and I see on our annual cross country road trip. Needs some other buildings added. Oh yeah, and a layout to put it on.
