Does anyone here model a fertilizer facility on your layout? What componets do I need? Ive started with a cement storage for dry chemicals and some tanks to represent anhydrous ammonia…What are the large tanks at a facility used for?
Here are links to agricultural chemical manufacturers and distributors.
Actagro, Ag Production Company, Agrium, Crop Production Services, Dow Agrosciences, Farmers’ Fertilizer and Supply, Nachurs, Simplot, Tessenderlo Kerley, Verdegaal Brothers, Wilbur Ellis
Ag Production Company: Chemurgic, CA, Satellite, Street View,
Well technically I do, but its a 1900 era plant and it receives phosphate rock and bones to make fertilizer so it probably won’t be useful to you.
I don’t have a full facility, because of space, but I do have a transloading facility, where hoppers of dry bulk fertilizer ingredients are loaded from rail car to truck. This is the procedure that the local farmers co-op in my area did. Hoppers would come, usually 3 or 4 at a time, and a simple auger with a low flat hopper was placed under the car, the the load was transfered to trucks, than hauled to the co-op for blending and distribution. Looks like the reply right after your original post has plenty of links to look at for ideas. There is a huge (Landmark, Inc., that bought out our local co-op) facility not far from me, that has many dry bulk storage and liquid storage tanks. The dry bulk tanks are pretty much what you have done with the cement tanks, as they both use the same type of product conveyance to get it from car to tank, tank to truck, etc. Tons of different dry bulk products are brought in to blend into fertilizer, including phosphorus, iron, calcium, potash, lime, and a long list of other minerals and products. The large tanks are for liquids, usually the ingredients for herbicides, insecticides, and pesticides, and after blending, the finished product would be stored in other large liquid tanks. The anhydrous ammonia facilities would look a lot like LP gas storage. The piping is a little different. Large on site storage tanks would be filled by truck or rail car, and the small tank / wagon set up you see on farms, are filled from the large tank, or trucks that bring the product to the farm to fill the field applicators.
A search of the various facilities around the country, as a previous poster has added links to, would be the best way to learn more.
Mike.
They dry sheds will primarily hold Urea, Map/Dap, and Potash.
Like others said Anhydrous is stored in pressure tanks but primarily arrives via truck in modern days due to railroads preferences to get away from TIH.
Tanks will hold 28 or 32 UAN, ATS, 10-34-0, among others
Model Railroader themselves built a nice little fertilizer plant on their WSOR project layout, hm…(the quarry, the Virginian, WSOR) 3 years ago. Scratchbuild/kitbash from Pikestuff steel warehouses and conveyor. Here is also a shot of a local one. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehoss/5720562075/in/photostream Now it could be a feed shed I haven’t looked into, business I believe is just listed as a Co-Op, but it would work none the less.
Although I don’t have pictures you can insert-favorite-online-map-service-here Pickett Wisconsin. There is a co-op there that would also work. Now a decade or too back all that was there was the steel warehouse and cinder block pump house along with the natural gas storage tank. Eventually the overhead truck loading bin was added, Now there are tanks all over the place, but those have been added only with in the 9 years since I have lived in the area.
The fertilizer plant I used to pick up from back in the '80’s, wasn’t a lot different than some coal dealers I have seen. There were large bins, concrete floor and wooden sides, for each element of fertilizer. (Some elements came in different concentrations, so there were more than 3 bins.) The bins were filled by augers that came from rail side. A Bobcat loader was used to scoop up the product and dump it into the scale bin. Each element was added to get the blend that was ordered. (A larger facility may have had all augers from bins to scales, to mixer.) Then it was mixed (think stationary cement mixer), and sent up an auger to a holding bin where it then flowed into the truck. All this was done in a covered building, as getting the fertilizer wet made it difficult, if not impossible, to sell, because it wouldn’t be able to flow out of the customers spreader in the field. Even very humid days could be a problem, as the fertilizer would absorb the moisture, like table salt does.
Just my observations.
Good luck,
Richard
Thanks eveyone for the lesson on fertilizer plants ! I think I still need a few more items to make my plant look right…The links of the California plants really helped…