Walthers Medusa Cement

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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I am going to model a ready mix operation and use the Walthers Medusa Cement Company. I am ignorant of these type operations. What exactly does an operation like this recieve by rail? Multiple commodities? Also what type cars are acceptale for the mid 80,s to 90,s? thanks for any help!

Thanks,

Corey

2

empty covered hoppers ,I believe that they ship more than they receive ,could be wrong but theres a huge plant like that near here thats east of the top of Cajun pass. its a gigantic plant but theres a silo in the middle of it all that reminds me of Medusa kit…some one with more knowledge will chime in…Jerry

3

Really, so they ship a dry cement then?

thanks

Corey

4

The Medusa Cement kit models an industry that receives dry cement. Typically by covered hopper since the late 1950s/early 1960s.

If associated with a co-located “Readi-Mix” concrete operation, it’s possible that they might receive gravel or sand by rail also, but more often this cement is trucked locally to other businesses that make the concrete.

Plants that ship cement are huge, more like the retired Walthers Valley Cement kit
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3098

5

As Cuyama says, the Medusa Cement Company would receive cement in covered hoppers and then load it into trucks for distribution to concrete batch plants via truck. This is described in the kit description: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3019

An example of a concrete batch plant would be this IHC cement factory model: http://plasticmodeltown.com/cement.html

And they did try shipping wet cement once, but had a hard time getting it out of the truck [:)]

6

Thanks guys. For the Ready Mix operation that is here then the Medusa probably is not appropriate. i guess it would be a batch plant. They have 2 metal silos like in the IHC kit and a spur coming in and a big pile of rock that i believe is trucked in and a loading elevator similar to a coal loader. I assuume the get cement for mixing then in hppers. i know they get rail service. i guess i need to get one of those IHC kits and canibalize it. I do have a couple photos of the facility.

thanks

Corey

7

Here’s a few pictures of the local cement company.

A couple of hoppers at the plant.

The Medusa plant on my old layout.

8

I combined Medusa Cement with a Kibri batch plant linked with a kitbashed Pikestuff building to make a plant that receives portland cement by rail, ships dry portland cement by truck and ready-mix cement in cement mixers. The dry bulk trucks pass under the silos to be loaded, the covered hoppers deliver cement to the unloading shed on the right side of the silos.

The same Medusa Cement kit, with modified structure on top, is also part of Valley Cement cement plant, shown here on the layout at Boothbay Railway Village. I modified the silos for the covered hoppers to pass under for loading, and moved the loading shed on the side to the aggregate building to unload aggregate, as this building has no way to receive raw materials by rail (DUH, we are doing model railroading, not model trucking)

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great scenes,great picts ,now I have to order one …ps ;if anything I was rite about the hoppers any way[swg]

10

Thanks everyone for the great photos and info.The one i was going to model is similar to the one in Robby’s area.

Corey

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One thing I forgot to mention about making the silos drive thru for covered hoppers in the cement plant. The clearances are very tight; I had to grind some of the interior ribs and fill with a bit of putty on the outside to get clearance without getting an obvious bulge in the exterior where the silos meet. Clearance is OK for gravity dump (square loading hatches) and PS-2 hoppers, but modern plate C hoppers will not fit.

If I was to do it again, I would scratch build an unloading shed for the aggregate building, and use the existing loading shed with the silos.

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Its a good looking facility! Thanks for posting the photos. I found the Faller Batch plant and that looks a lot like the one here, i think i will use it and ditch the old structure and use a Pikestuff structure to replace the European one and i think it will be good.

I take it that most of the covered hoppers would be acceptable for carry Portland Cement.

Corey

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[quote user=“G Paine”]

One thing I forgot to mention about making the silos drive thru for covered hoppers in the cement plant. The clearances are very tight; I had to grind some of the interior ribs and fill with a bit of putty on the outside to get clearance without getting an obvious bulge in the exterior where the silos meet. Clearance is OK for gravity dump (square loading hatches) and PS-2 hoppers, but modern plate C hoppers will not fit.

If I was to do it again, I would scratch build an unloading shed for the aggregate building, and use the existing loading shed with the silos.

[/qGpaine; what is the radius of track going around you’re industry’s there ? looks like its a end of a peninsula,do you know the width of peninsula ?, nice use of space…Jerry

14

I was going to reference the Faller cement plant found on the Walther’s website in my previous post (instead of the IHC model), but that one is N scale (http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/272-252195). Did you find a HO version?

I know that IHC made that model, as well as Revell. Not sure about Faller.

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When you said you found an N scale one i thought …oh crap, I did it again, bought an N scale item. but no it is HO, just got this one off EBay… pricey but it’s nearly a dead ringer for the Ready Mix plant i want to model. Looks like it has some of the same components as the ICH kit but this one looks so much more detailed.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/390343367061?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_4531wt_1163

Corey

16

If you mean the cement plant, I did not do the track plan, but I think is around 26" to 30". There are some more photos on the museum website at
http://www.railwayvillage.org/Cement_Plant.htm

17

I goofed in my post on page 1, the batch plant I used is Faller, not Kibri - I built it a about 10 years ago. This is the Walthers link to the HO scale kit:

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/272-130474

18

There is a Medusa facility here in downtown Toledo. It is not a ready mix plant, but it has been here for nearly 100 years. In the early years, it received shipments by barge and now a lake freighter delivers the bulk cement. Early on, product was bagged and shipped out by box car and by wagons. The rail service is gone since the '60s and shipments are by bulk hauler semis now to the various ready mix plants around the area. When there was rail service in the early years, sand and aggregate were delivered by rail. It was offloaded onto the ground and then mixed with the cement in producing mortar and bagged concrete (like QuickCrete) products.

19

Hi all, forgive me for dredging up an old thread but I found it when I did a google search.

I have built and installed an HO scale Medusa Cement for my small layout and have some operations questions:

(1) Approximately how many cars would a prototype facility of this size receive per day or week?

(2) Am I correct in assuming that only one bay of a two-bay covered hopper gets unloaded at a time? Thus, each car must be moved slightly to put the adjacent bay over the unloading auger to complete the unloading? Is this typically done by the cement company with an on-site cable winch, or does the railroad have to bring over a switcher?

(3) I have been looking to purchase a cement mixer to park by the doors, but now I think I was mistaken. My understanding now is that this type of facility doesn’t load cement mixers, it loads large bulk cement trailers. If this is correct, does anyone manufacture such a truck in HO scale?

Thanks in advance!

Alan

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  1. You could probably use a trackmobile (http://www.broadway-limited.com/trackmobileho.aspx)

  2. Not yet