This might seem like an odd topic, but hey, I can't find out unless I ask right? Anyways, I am working on a layout with a theme geared towards the Southern & Norfolk Southern railroads. I'd like to include an elevator on the layout, but I just keep fixating on these as being more midwestern and western. I know of course, that there were elevators in the south and was wondering if anyone could direct me to a source, photos or something that I could use to prototypically set this on a layout. I'm specifically interested in ones found from the 1970's to the present day, and located in the southern U.S. I know that there are a number served by Norfolk Southern today in places like Indiana and Illinois, but I'd like to focus outside of that as I am trying to set my layout with a more VA, NC, SC, GA theme.
Here is one in Georgia.(on page 3 of this Flickr account) This talks about another one. Here is one in North Carolina.
Don't have any photos to hand, but for years there was a "modern" metal type grain handling facility on the ACL/SCL at John's Island, S.C. Looked an awful lot like some of the modern metal bins and handling facilities by Walthers. As I recall, the elevator handled soy-beans.
CSX Customer info on grain trains. It specifies something in Mt Olive, NC. As an aside, here are some pictures of massive BNSF facilities, but all out west. Not all are so large, but check Enid, Oklahoma.
Dreyfus owned a 10 (IIRC) silo elevator in Pascagoula, MS until about 10 years ago when it was razed. I'm sorry that I don't have any photos, but it was the typical case of "it will always be there, and I'll come back later to get photos when I have more time".....:sad: I'll try to some photos online. The elevator served to transfer grain from rail to ship. The rail side had a five or six track double-ended yard feeding a 180 degree loop to dump gratings next to the elevator. The empty cars were then placed on a second three-four track yard for pickup. The yard was owned by the Port of Pascagoula, but served originally by the L&N, later CSX. A pair of very old EMD SW's moved hoppers from the yard to the elevator. The water side of the elevator had a 30 foot (IIRC) depth that provided for some very large grain ships. I remember seeing one Russian vessel that I was told displaced around 40,000 Tons and was more than 800 feet overall, bigger than an Iowa-Class Battleship!
The only state that you might consider "Southern" that had a whole lot of grain elevators would be Texas. But every state had some, just as long as you're modeling a grain producing area, or a gathering point for grain. Here's a behemoth: ConAgra Elevator in Ft.Worth, TX Or this one, too. AGP Grain Coop - Bovina, TX Not much help, am I? :sad:
Most of the Southern states seemed to have grain elevators more at ports, like this one: FDGI LLC. - Mobile, AL
They're all over the rural South. There's an abandoned one in Marianna, FL, on CSXT, and a couple of active ones in Donalsonville, GA, also on CSXT, that I go past when I drive to Atlanta. :cat:
Grain Elevator - Pascagoula, MS This page shows the Louis Dreyfus elevator shortly before it was brought down in 2002. Turns out my memory did not serve me well, it was a 40(!) silo elevator, not 10 as I had remembered. The last photo shows the outbound yard that stored empty hoppers after dumping. The inbound yard is to the right out of the picture, and had twice as many tracks. Understand that the elevator had not been used for 8-10 years when these photos were taken, which accounts for all the growth. http://www.pascagoula.net/PhotoGallery/GrainElevator/grain.htm This series of photos shows the demolition of the elevator building itself. They don't have anything to do with railroading, but I think they are interesting photos. http://www.co.jackson.ms.us/WN/WNFeatures/Grain Elevator2002/grainthumbnails.html
Hy, in the pictures they show two bay cover hoppers. Do they use two bay cover hopper for grain service. I always though they use it for cement and silica.
John, when those photos were taken, the elevator had been out of service for many years. I suspect CSX was using the yard as temporary storage for whatever cars had overflowed other yards....? I can't remember anything out of the ordinary that was happening on the MS Coast in '02 that would have required extra cement or silica shipments. I don't remember seeing any cars other than four-bay hoppers when the elevator was operating. I passed that elevator twice a day from '72 until '95, and walked along the tracks during lunch about half the time. Edit - After looking at those photos again, I realize the two-bay hoppers are on one of the tracks that are used by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Facility, not the elevator. IIRC, Ingalls was involved with a major facility expansion in '02. Those cars easily could have been delivering material for that effort.
