I have a structure from a train show awhile back that was already built and I am uncertain what it was used for. It’s two vertical thanks elevated above ground on a rack. They funnel down with enough room for a truck to drive under for loading. No pics yet, but thought someone might recognize the description.
Mike
One possibility would be part of a pressure-unloading system for bulk transfer: grain, or powder, or resins, etc. are blown from a covered hopper car up into the cylindrical hoppers; they then feed by gravity into trucks beneath ‘as needed’.
These could be loaded from the ground via one of those conveyor loaders, making it easy for trucks to load materials stored in piles without the rigmarole of lifting the stuff up into the truck and arranging to distribute it from edge to center…
It sounds like one I built about 40 years ago. It was used at a sawmill to catch the sawdust. Then a RR car would take the sawdust to a paper mill. That’s the best I can do from your description.
Joe
Without a picture, it’s a guessing game.
How about a sanding facility?
Mike.
Something like this?:
Ed
Possibilities:
A sanding facility
Ammonium Nitrate prills (beaded fertilizer in commercial volumes)
Sawdust (mentioned above)
Potash
Cement
Lime
Plastic beads of a kind used nearby in forming
and many others…
Ed’s facility, if that’s the structure the OP has, is interesting.
Don’t be fooled by modelers sticking a random transit-mix truck underneath into thinking this is a concrete plant – see the vents up top and the transfer pipes? This is for dry materials.
You could use this for certain types of transit-mix, by metering the dry materials into a cenent-mixer and adding the appropriate charge of water ‘down below’ – or have only dry aggregate components in the hoppers to be added to cement and water paste loaded in at a different location.
Schwarz Baustoff-Logistik is an actual ‘thing’ (a company dealing in dry building materials) but I wouldn’t wish their website on a dog, so here is a representative ‘other firm’:
https://www.baustoff-logistik-suedharz.de/
Note the range of material they specialize in providing. Some of those are options for this sort of double-hopper facility…
The one in the model box is it. I thought it might be associated with a sanding process. Would it have an open sand bunker nearby?
Don’t think sand, except for maybe street-sanding for winter.
Maybe special chemical additives to a concrete mix.
Ed
Well, I don’t have a place for that kind of facility so looks like I’ve got to be creative.
At every cement plant I have been in, the product is dry when the trucks are loaded.
Dry material is loaded first, then the water is added, the chemical reaction starts, and the truck leaves the lot. Water is never added until the truck is ready to go to the customer.
All materials are dry in the plant until they are in the mixing drum on the truck.
-Kevin
Doppelsilo is double silo in English - which is what it is
Schwarz-Bau is black construction which the references I found say refers to an illegal building
However
Found the kit at several on-line stores. They call it a concrete silo owned by the Schwarz Concrete Works - so it translates to Schwarz Construction (company).
I’m planning a sanding tower based on a photo here:
Sand tower by Edmund, on Flickr
I found another photo of a similar tower on the Erie which has two silos.
Fuel_May_EL-2 by Edmund, on Flickr
Fuel_May_EL-1 by Edmund, on Flickr
Thank you, Ed
Photos really helped. I may modify it for a sanding structure.
Mike
Schwarz (u. Sohne, I believe) is the name of the building materials company. ‘Baustoff’ (one word) is dry building material, including what we call ‘dirt’ in the United States, ‘logistik’ is the same sense of planning and delivery that ‘logistics’ implies.
If your example is set up like the version on the catalog, it is specifically intended to MIX material from the hoppers in some proportion – I suspect this would be sand in one and larger aggregate in the other, whether for transit mix or transport to on-site mixing. It’s possible that one would be cement and the other sand, but that would pose something of a caustic dust problem and terrible rain difficulties ‘as shown’…
But in every “cement” plant I have seen, or designed, the water is added in process, with supply and treatment and temperature controlled and assured at mix time. There is no water, or provision for it, anywhere in that structure.
I have certainly seen transit-mix trucks with water reservoirs (looking a bit like Elesco feedwater heaters!) and those could certainly be used to get the paste started, with aging in the truck. I kinda ASSumed those were primarily for washout after delivery in remote sites with no water or water trucks available.
The ultimate strength of concrete is a function of the water to cement ratio. Too wet and the concrete won’t meet specifications. The field measurement is referred to as “slump”. The wetter the mix, the higher the slump. If a truck is delivered with a slump that is too high, the entire truck is rejected. Therefore, it’s common to leave the plant with a little less water and add the final amount at the job site. Hence the water supply on the truck.
Since high slump concrete is easier to place, it’s a constant battle with the operators to not put too much water in the mix on site.
Ray
Since this is from a Europeon source it would be nice to have had a Europeon knowledgeable source comment. There is no question in my.mind that the cement truck goes with the tower since they are in the same gaudy colors. This appears to be a train set level building not a serious detailed structure.