what kind of incoming and outgoing cars and materials would there be for a cement company and a brick yard (1920’s era)?
Lime, sand, portland cement. Most likely the plant would be cited near deposits of clay and sand. If it was a high quality clay deposit you would expect a tilery or pottery cited there also. Don’t forget coke, coal or oil to fire the kilns.
If the operation were really large scale you might expect it cited on a lake or navigable river where barges would be offloading bulk commodities. The economies are such that margins in basic materials aren’t such that all the elements could realistically be shipped in by rail. Barging is about 20% of the ton mile of railing.
Cars would be: gons, flats, tanks, covered hoppers, boxes…anything moving bulk consignments and boxed/bagged commodities.
Hope this helps and Good Luck
Randy
One minor change, in the 1920’s you wouldn’t have covered hoppers. It would be boxcars, gons, or hoppers. By the mid 1920’s the hopper bottom gons were pretty much obsolete for coal hauling, it was mostly in hoppers, but there were drop bottom gons and plain gons hauling coal. Brick would be shipped out in virtually any type of car with a flat floor, flat cars, gondolas, boxcars and stock cars were used. Cement would be in boxcars (bagged). That means you’d have to have boxcars of bags inbound to the cement plant. You’d also get gons of steel or iron balls (3-6" dia) for the grinding mills at the cement plant.
Dave H.
Incoming - Machinery, possibly coal, molds, additives - bagged and liquid, refractories for the rotary kiln, motors, instruments, bearings, Cannonballs for the crusher
I don’t even want to think about my “happy times” around kilns and thermal dryers. Cement plants were (and are) many times considered as unique situations in the context of mining operations. Nasty places; kilns especially, because of the potential for horrible accidents.
On our railroad, we’re gonna have lots of boxcars in and out. If you model loaded cars, don’t overload it. That stuff is !@#$ heavy, dirty, and hard to handle, even with mechanical equipment.
work safe