Cement Plant Module

upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
I have begun work on a module which was to include a model of the Ash Grove Cement plant at Nelson, Oregon. I'm not much of a scratch builder, so the project was not likely to be very prototypical in the first place. But to make things worse, these modules were supposed to be completed in time for the Boise GATS show in late June.

Time is running out! Construction is now to the "just get something done" stage, so I'm just throwing some things together in the hopes of making the module pass for a cement plant. What do you think?
 

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upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
Well, we have decided that we will not be able to complete the modules in time for the Boise GATS, but here is a look of the cement plant modules.
 

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upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
A couple more shots of the cement plant.
 

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upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
I got a little more work done on the cement plant modules. I continue to experiment with the placing of structures and alter the painted appearance. The modules continue to evolve.

Since I started this project (which I had been contemplating for some time), I learned that Walthers released a cement plant in HO with a kiln similiar to what I wanted. I almost bought the HO kit this weekend in the hopes that I could modify it to fit my N scale project, but I decided against it because I am already so far along with my kit-bashing, scratch building version.
 

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Ralph

Remember...it's for fun!
I'm in awe, really. Wish I'd seen these pics before I built my own free lanced and somewhat fanciful cement plant. Say, did you scrathbuild the conveyor system leading off to the left of the pics?
 

upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
Ralph,

Yes, I did scratch build the conveyor system. The conveyor belts were made from cutting wooden strips on my table saw and simply painting them gray. I will probably add some painted detail later, but for now they are plain gray in color. The conveyor supports were leftover sprues from the Bachman Car Shop kit that I kept in the hope of finding a use for them. They were already gray, so the color was right. On the top of each support tower, I made a little structure (also made from leftover Car Shop parts--doors and windows, I think) to conceal the ends of the overlapping belts.

The end of the converyor system and the main building of the cement plant was a Walther's New River Mining stucture that I cut in half and placed in an "L" in order to get the structure going the right way over the tracks. Into one side of the mine structure I ran a PVC pipe (kiln) that has plastic centers from cash register paper glued together and encircling the kiln. Most of the cement silos are made from PVC pipe pieces that were given to me by a local plumber (they were too short to be of much use to him). I glued some styrene to the top and bottom, painted the whole thing gray and added a few other bottles and PVC pipes to make the structure more convincing. The car loading tower is from the Walther's coal loading kit with a scratch built plastic pipe connecting it to the main silos.

The cement plant office bulding was built from two different Pikestuff kits (I don't recall the names at this time). The sacked cement warehouse is a red structure from a Wathers sawmill kit or lumber wholesaler. I'm still looking for something else for this part of the plant, but it will do for now. If I decide to keep it where it is, it will be repainted something other than the red that it is now.
 

RailRon

Active Member
Everett, I think you built a very fine cement plant! Everything is there, which is needed: The converyor system for the needed mineral stuff, then the tubular kiln - the heart of a cement plant, looks good! :thumb: - the big silos and finally the building all around.

And it's quite a sprawling industry, which is true for the real things, too! (I know, we had one in the vicinity, but it shut down a year ago). You will have quite a bit of traffic on this one. :)

Beautiful scratchbuilding!

Ron
 
Hi..... having worked on many Cement Plants ( serviceing Elevators, used to get to the top of those Silos ) you have done a good job depicting the usual Buildings used in the Manufacture of cement . On the plants the Kiln was fired by coal , so a coal siding would not be amiss Also walkways between the silos, and of cause an elevator shaft on the side of at least one of them, cement plants are very dusty so lots of dust is a must , hope my
commments will helping in getting the feel of a very worth while lineside industry
Very nice modeling !!!!
 

upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
Thanks, guys, for the helpful comments. I will be looking for ways to include your suggestions.

Jimmy B.,
I already have a track that goes behind the plant for the coal cars. (The coal cars are a little more visible in the attached photo.) I have been considering placing another spur on that track for additional car storage, and so a switcher can get past the plant to some other industries that I have planned for farther down the track, without having to move the coal cars out of the way. However, the space behind the plant is very limited and it may not be as easy as I would like to reach behind it to spot cars.

I also planned to have a conveyor from the coal unloading area to the plant's main building, but space is pretty tight. I may have to just pretend that the unloading area exists out of sight.
 

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upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
Here is another recent picture of the Cement Facility.
 

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