Wondering if this is plausible. I wantrd to add something to medusa cement. I plan on adding piping from the top of silos to the bag facility. So i would have loaded hoppers swap out the empties. And be able to switch a couple box cars as well
It probably depends what you're intending it to be, but I'd say yes. Look for the Cemex plant in Victorville, CA on google maps (16888 E Street, Victorville, CA 92394). The kilns are out in the desert. The Victorville site does the grinding, blending & shipping. Lots of silos & buildings with pipes & conveyors going everywhere. While I don't believe they ship bags by rail now, it appears one of the trackside buildings has loading doors so it's possible they did in the past.
Certainly would work. You would also have loads in in the way of boxcars carrying bags to be loaded. You might want to look at the Rix grain elevator kit as a source for piping etc. http://www.rixproducts.com/6280707.htm
Ok thanks guys. That helps. I'm not big on everything has to be prototypical. But plausible is ok. Like bob ross says. In your world you can do what you want lol Joe
If you are considering cement production, some or perhaps most kilns are fired with coal. There is such a facility near me and UP still maintains a fairly long branch line to service it. Trains to the plant include coal loads and empty covered hoppers in, cement loads and empty coal hoppers out. Never seen any box cars going to this plant as I don’t think they do any bagging there. Brad Myers Peninsula Ntrak / AsiaNrail My Blogs: http://www.n-scale-dcc.blogspot.com/ http://www.palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/ http://tokyo-in-nscale.blogspot.com/
Yeah, I'm not looking at cement production. I am keeping medusa cement as intended. A distribution site that loaded hoppers bring cement to. My question was if this type of site could also have a bagging plant. Maybe cement piped from the silos to the bagging plant. Then bags distributed by truck and rail.
Depending on your era a bagging facility would be plausible. Usually today's transport involves railcars bringing the cement to a distribution facility and then it's trucked by dry bulk tankers to a ready mix plant. As far as a modern bagging facility, quik-crete in town receives their cement by bulk tanker and it's right next to the NS and CSX mains. www.google.com/maps/@40.092703,-82.9993094,294m/data=!3m1!1e3 It's then shipped out usually by flat bed trucks to the destination. Any ready mix plant I worked at moved cement in piping using augers if that helps.
You can walk into almost any hardware store today and still walk out with bagged cement or even get a pallet of bags delivered to your site. So a bagging facility is still relevant today and can fit any era you want.
Are you attempting to model an industrial plant where Portland Cement is actually manufactured? That’s a lot of cubic footage. If instead what you want to model is a “Dry mix” concrete provider; that can be modeled in a much smaller location with a lot less needing to be scratch built. A dry mix plant takes the dry readymade Portland Cement and mixes it with various aggregates including sand and pea gravel along with an activator such as Potash and then the dry mixture is dumped into what are commonly referred to as cement mixer trucks where water is then added and the stuff is mixed on its way to the construction site. The Medusa Cement silos represent a site for the storage of pure, dry Portland Cement sans any aggregates or activators. This bulk dry Cement is loaded into bulk dry-product trailers which then transports it to where it is used to make concrete or to a small shop where it is bagged for wholesale purposes. Those same silos might also be located at the site of a large Dry/Wet mix concrete plant.
Resuscitating an old thread on cement handling facilities. The photo below shows a facility where lime arrives by railroad covered hopper and is trucked out. It's a nice compact little industry that I've driven past a thousand times. Does anyone make an N Scale kit to build or offer parts to kitbash a facility like this? Thank you.
Hardcoaler....My son worked at a cement batch plant in the Valley. He gave me some great ideas. He has since seen my adaptation...all scratch built...and he said I nailed it !!!
In Burnsville MN the CNW/UP formally served a plant that received both bulk and bagged loads inbound. They would warehouse the bagged material in a small warehouse with two boxcar doors on a siding capable of holding 8 boxcars. The bulk was delivered on 2 tracks and offloading capability of 4 cars at a time. I got a tour of the plant some years ago and will post photos when I can find them. The local would be 4 to 8 boxcars and up to 24 covered hopper cars. A small warehouse with a boxcar dock and a couple of truck docks would be ideal for the bagged product. The product came bagged into the warehouse from the production plant. The loads originated from Mason City Iowa.
I used the 'Medusa Cement model but did not have the real estate for anything large like you are working out Chessie Fan (wish I did). I squeezed in a hopper distribution only as 'Hoffa Cement'
The prototype for the kit unloads lake freighters and loads into bulk cement trucks. At one time it was rail served and loaded hoppers as well (rail is still buried under the dirt lot).
Yes, portland cement is often sold bagged in home centers, but that's not the stuff where you just add water. Portland Cement is the glue that holds together the aggregate, the mixture of sand and gravel that with portland cement makes up concrete. Portland cement is make up oc minerals and a cement plant, at least here in flyover country, is where portland cement is made. A substantial part of it is limestone, and plants are often located near a ready supply. In this area, the bagged stuff isn't made at cement plants, but are dedicated plants that likely receive cement in trucks and railcars. I often drive on a local freeway where there is a plant where concrete is made, and loaded into trucks. This is called a batch plant. I too is lined with railcars, mostly open hoppers that are owned by the plant, and they receive sand and gravel in the open hoppers, and in two bay covered hoppers cement. There are hundreds of open hoppers (two or three bay that look well used) and at most a half dozed covered hoppers. Sand and gravel is stored in big piles in the open, and there are conveyor belts running all over from the railyard to the mixing plant, not easy to model in smaller scales but very scenic. What I'm trying to say is that this discussion has gotten a little afield. Modeling a cement plant, and a bagging facility is different from modeling a batch plant or a facility that makes quick-crete and the like.
Dry bulk cement is delivered from the bottom of truck trailers or rail cars, piping on top of silos is the filters, not cement delivery. Cement is moved by truck exhaust to silos, or air pressure from rail cars. Augers are used from silo bottoms to scales before being dumped into mixer trucks. Air pressure keeps the cement loose so the Augers cam move the cement to the scales. I batches concrete for 35 Years.
