I have a bunch of covered hoppers and am in the process of building a grain elevator off a prototype in town. I want to know where my covered hoppers could go or come from to make a somewhat real operation. If anyone can give me an idea or even links to some possible kits, that would help.
Two which come to mind would be a flour mill or a harbour, where the grain would be loaded into a boat or ship. Walthers offers their Red Wing Milling Co. kit
However, most layouts are so small that you’d get better use of the space taken up by the milling company if you were to ship from your grain elevator to an industry not on your layout. This is easily done if you have a staging yard or track, but it can also be accomplished with an on-the-layout interchange, or, if that’s not possible, an on-layout siding which would represent interchange with another railroad. Between operating sessions, remove the cars spotted there and assume that they’ve gone several hundred (or thousand) miles to the place where the grain will be used. That type of track can also serve any other industries on your layout, allowing you to model more varied types of industries which aren’t necessarily related. Some of them would ship stuff “elsewhere” on that track, while others might receive stuff from “elsewhere”. That way, you model the part of that industry which most interests you, leaving the “too big”, too expensive", or “too boring” parts for “elsewhere”.
Another benefit of expanding your industrial base is that you can suit those industries to ones using types of rolling stock which interest you most. For instance, if you like reefers, model a fruit/vegetable packing house or model a fruit/vegetable processing plant. The one end of the industry which you choose to not model leaves space on your layout for something
Most ‘modern’ grain elevators are quite large: Once that grain hoppers are loaded, they get shipped to:
- Flour Mills(wheat)
- Fructose Syrup
- Ethanol Plants(although most ethanol plants get their corn locally)
- Malting Plants(Hops & Barley)
- Soybean Processing Plants
- Export Elevators(all grains)
- Sunflower Seeds Processing Plants
Why not take a stroll down to your local elevator and ask the elevator manager what they ship and to who?
Jim
First a quibble- I don’t think it is proper to call a grain elevator a grain MILL. The elvator is primarily a storage, drying and handling facility, whereas a mill usually processes or fabricates something. A feed mill grinds grain into feed, and may add something like mollasses.
I second the motion that your destination industry or industries should be off-line via interchange or hidden staging. In the modern era prototype rail shipments usually travel hundreds or thousands of miles from origin to destination. In earlier eras, most shipments would cross a state line or two (or several) en route from producer to consumer.
Compare this to the size of a layout. I have full use of a double garage, which gives me about as much acreage as the 1:1 scale development I live in. Boeing’s main assembly building isn’t the only industrial structure with more floor space than that.
One destination not mentioned by the others - commercial feed lots. Driving from Amarillo, TX, to Clovis, NM, you will see feed lots the size of New England counties, each with a huge feed mill adjacent. You will also see covered hoppers by the hundreds. Not being much for animal husbandry I couldn’t even guess what mixture of ingredients were represented, but it’s a safe bet they weren’t grown locally.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with a sawmill to process the local cash crop)
Neither am I Chuck, but I do know now a days, especially these big feed lots, the feed is basically mashed up corn (corn meal) base with some fattening sugary things like molasses (mentioned) and other additives to pump vitamins, antibiotics and the like into the animals.
Kind of makes me wish I was alive when cows were kept in open fields and ate what was on the ground, and didn’t have to pay 2 or 3 times as much for that kind of meat.
Consider a feed mill.They look very similar to a grain elevator, but they take in grain from rail cars, possibly grain trucks from the local farmer, and the loads out are usually a truck or farm trailer going to the local farmer to feed the small herd of cows/pigs etc. They frequently have grain dryers, a couple of legs and several storage tanks/silos along with a mixing facility to take the various grains and antibiotics, addatives etc, which is mixed up in batches depending upon the needs of the herd. The herds output is checked to see what to feed the animals, depending on the contence of their fecal matter, as well as several herd health factors.
The facility would be very similar to a grain elevator, but not as large as a grain elevator. The grain elevators around my house in Toledo Ohio were quite large, took input from rail cars, local trucks and farm trailers. They shipped out primarily via lake boats (the 700’ kind) and ocean going ships, also 700’ feet or so, as the must fit through the locks in the Wellend Canal and out to the Atlantic.
Feed mills seem to have more pipeing, but it could be just as much, just in a more compact building.
I did visit the local feed mill when I was scratchbuilding my facility, and took pictures in the different stages of completion. The owner/operator was most helpful and offered very constuctive critique. I thanked him profusely every chanch I got. That was in Tacoma WA, but a feed mill is about the same wherever it is.
There was a program on A&E or the history Chanel, or the like and he crawled all over a grain elevator in Buffalo I think they were. They showed the legs, the man lifts, the tops and bottems of the silos as well as the leg that went out to the ships, It was a pretty informative show, but I can’t remember the name of it.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River R.R.
You could also have an elevator and a feed mill on the same layout and they never even cross paths. Where I live we have two elevators receive by truck from local farms (mostly corn, soybeans, and some assorted grain)and ship out covered hoppers; AND a feed mill that receives from out of state by covered hopper and ships by truck to regional chicken farms. And, just to keep things interesting, there’s a team track in town that both loads hoppers from local farm trucks AND loads local trucks from hoppers for delivery to manufacturers of the local “product.” Try to fit that on a 4 cycle way bill.
This discusion has centered on the agriculture industry. Don’t plastic pellets and cement get shipped by covered hoppers?
Drew,
Plastic pellets get shipped in those really long covered hopper(typically 4 bay) or pressure differential covered hoppers with the ‘plumbing’ down by the outlet bays. The ACF 5250CF and 5701CF were two early covered hoppers in this service. Usually round loading hatches on top, and pneumatic tubes/gates on the outlet hopper on the bottom.
Cement is usually shipped in 2 bay covered hoppers(70 ton in the 50’s/60’s) and 100 ton currently. Some cement is shipped in 3 bay ACF 3560CF covered hoppers as well. I have seen both trough and round loading hatches on the roof, but round appear to be more common. Outlet hatches can be either gravity or pneumatic.
Jim
Surprised no one has mentioned Batte Creek Michigan as a destination. It is the cereal capital of the world.
Because that’s thinking outside the industry box and many fail to think outside that box…
I too was just as guilty(even with my 9 1/2 years of railroading) until I started doing on line research on today’s railroad served industries…
The wow factor really kick in as did the modeling ideas…