Questions about Cement Industry, storage silos


stokesda

stokesda

My other car is a 4-8-4
A couple of years ago, I had a friend who switched from HO to On30, so he gave me a bunch of his HO stuff. One of the things he gave me was a Walthers "Medusa Cement Co." which was fully assembled, minus the billboard sign. Here's a link on the Walthers website. Apparently it's out of production now:

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3019

I didn't get the box or instructions with it, so I didn't get the usual literature about the industry and its use that comes with most Walthers building kits. I've done a little research about the cement industry online, but still have a few questions before I can make a decision about putting this industry on my layout or not.

The only place I could put it on my layout is in an industrial switching area, which would have a variety of other industries. I know there are some air quality issues around cement processing/storage facilities, so would it be feasible to find storage silos like this in a populated area, such as an urban industrial area? Or would they be more isolated because of the dust/particulate issue? Are there any industries that you absolutely wouldn't put it next to (like maybe a factory that produces food or beverages)?

How common is it to see storage silos like this as a standalone facility? I would think it would be part of a larger cement production plant or a concrete batch plant.

Could this model be used in its existing configuration as a grain elevator (or some other bulk material) instead? If not, what would I need to add/modify to do so?

Thanks in advance.
 
Local cement distributors are fairly common, you can usually find them in any moderate- to large-sized town. Here's a view of one that is located in downtown West Sacramento, CA:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v...0&scene=8949838&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

I originally bought the Walthers Valley Cement complex, but discovered that my layout simply didn't have the space for it - so I just scratchbuilt my own 'Medusa-wannabee' structure using PVC pipes:

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/CSX_road_slug/misc_etc/cement_silos_rough_draft.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/CSX_road_slug/lineside_industries/SummitCement04.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/CSX_road_slug/lineside_industries/SummitCement02.jpg

These facilities can be located anywhere as long as they are equipped with so-called 'bag houses', which are like giant vacuum cleaners, to collect stray dust. The baghouse on mine supposedly exists behind the silos...:rolleyes:
 
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Ken has it right. The Walthers model is really a cement distributor, not a manufacturing plant. In the real world, the portland cement would be delivered by rail and then removed from the covered hopper by pneumatic lines and carried to the top of the silos and dumped through the bag house to control the dust. The other side of the plant would usually have truck loading if there's no batch plant on-site, which is common for cement distributors in large cities. Most of the cement is picked up and delivered to portable batch plants set up for specific projects like large buildings.

A cement storage facility would usually be located in an older, more grimy industrial section of town rather than an industrial park so you would never find one in the same area as something like a food or beverage maker.

A cement storage plant could not be used as is for a grain elevator because the unloading and storage methods are completely different. Grain elevators are usually filled from a bottom dumping hopper and cement plant from top discharge hoppers. That's why you see the tall vent like stack running up the side of the model. You also wouldn't find large roll up type doors on grain silos. You'd have to do quite a bit of detail changes to this kit to use it for anything other than a cement storage plant. Now, you can call it whatever you want and the average person is not going to know the difference anyway. Most people think anything with silos is a grain elevator. :)
 
Jim or Ken,

If one of you could map Lehigh Cement in Mason City, Iowa, that is out cement plant where they make and ship it. dont know if that will help him or not. someday if i have the space i'd love to model this plant.
 
Chad,

I just tried zooming in on Mason City, Iowa, but LiveMaps doesn't appear to support birds-eye view functionality for the Mason City area...:(
 
Chad, I can't much detail from that area either. Seems like the satellite is avoiding Mason City for some reason. :confused:

Just to illustrate the difference between a cement storage facility and a cement plant, here's a picture of a real cement plant:

rotplant1.jpg


As you can see, they are huge operations, rivaling steel mills and oil refineries in the amount of space they occupy.
 
Ken & Jim - thanks for the feedback, that's pretty much exactly the information I was looking for. I know cement plants are huge operations and that all I have (and have room for) is this storage/distribution facility. I had just never seen one in real life and didn't realize they existed separately from the main cement plants or concrete batch plants.

I think I'll stick with the cement distributor as an industry, but will have to choose adjacent industries accordingly. I wanted to have (part of) a breakfast cereal factory (an excuse to use covered grain hoppers and corn syrup tank cars), but I'll find another area on the layout to put that.

I do have a follow up question from Jim's post, though - exactly how does the cement get from the rail cars into the storage silos? I assume it's discharged from the bottom of the hopper somehow. I thought it was conveyed to the top of the silos by a traditional bucket elevator, but it sounds like it's done using air pressure? Is it sucked up to the top in a pipeline? What exactly is inside that external duct structure on the Walthers model?

So many questions, makes my head hurt!:confused:
 
Here's a live maps pic's of two huge Cement plants 8 miles north of me.

This one is Florida Crushed Stone Co. Plant:http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v...dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

And this one is portland/Cemex plant north of that about 2 miles:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v...dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

there was a third mine between those two mines but they mined it out 15 years ago!:(
it was here: http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v...00&scene=724800&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

Their out put is on the average of 150 to 200 cement cars a week! and take in and a unit coal train each a week!:eek: When those mines dry up(and they will) that line will more than likely be turned in to a bike trail:rolleyes:
 
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There are several ways to get cement from the hopper to the silo. The oldest is that the hopper dumps from the bottom into a bin that contains a moving bucket line. The cement falls into the buckets and is then lifted to and dumped in to the top of the silo.

The problem with this method is cement is sticky and doesn't fall into the buckets evenly. Eventually, the hopper pit gets full of spilled cement and it must be cleaned out manually with shovels. This lead to the development of the vibratory pit system, where the cement is vibrated by either air or mechanical vibration driven by electric motors. The pit is built at about with about 20 degree slope so the vibrated cement flows downhill to an auger system, which then loads the bucket line.

This system, while an improvement, still doesn't address the problem of loading the silos from the top. Cement has clinkers and it's necessary to maintain the clinker ratio to have good quality cement. Loading silos from the top makes the clinkers fall to the bottom and it's very difficult to maintain the clinker ratio. This has lead to the most common method of loading silos in use today, the vibratory air cannon. The cement is still dropped in a sloping pit and vibrated but the auger delivers the cement to bins that feed air cannons with different size openings, usually four per barrel. The cement is then shot into the silo from as many as seven different levels, with the different sizes of the cannon openings separating the clinkers from the lime and sand to maintain the correct ratios. The silos are also divided internally to help maintain the proper ratios. The two large silos in the picture I posted are fed by this method.

The Medusa Cement model appears to use the oldest method, with a bucket line carrying the cement to the top of the hopper. Since cement today is already delivered with the proper ratio of ingredients, smaller bucket line plants like this still exist because the silos are usually emptied on a weekly basis and the cement mixture stays pretty consistent. It's only cement manufacturing plants, where the cement may stored for weeks or months, that have to worry about ratios and air cannons.
 
That's a wealth of useful information, Jim. It all makes much more sense now. Thanks a lot! (now where's that "thumbs up" smiley?... Oh, well, I'll just use this one) :D
 
You're welcome, Dan. Probably more than you ever wanted to know about cement silos. :)

Good find, Chad. That's a Whitcomb 65 tonner, a pretty rare bird. Even more unusual is the complete lack of markings except for the radio control warning. Good paint scheme for a cement plant though - white and gray. :D
 
on ms live search maps type in Holly Hill, SC. look for interstate 26 and you will see three cement plants. they are Holcim, National, and Gaint cement. we get all of ours from Holcim
 
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