This is something Peter Jones might like to model, or one of the guru's followers; not much in the way of plants, though, except for industrial plants.
Brick Factory Railway most have never seenVisited the Glen-Gery brick company capital region factory in Manassas, Virginia yesterday evening. A supervisor gave me a quick tour of the plant and I took photos with my cheapy Coolpix camera.At first, I thought the railway inside was narrow gauge but found it to be standard gauge, using, I’m estimating, 25 pound rails. I was covered in red brick dust by the time I completed the tour.There are several plants, probably 3 football fields in area. There’s a real railway that loads bricks into boxcars (no photos yet) and the plant itself contains probably around 50 tracks. Several of the tracks go perpendicular to the other tracks and I was fascinated to see how the cars change directions. You will see several photos of special transfer cars that do this neat trick. The tracks also extend outside to where bricks are stored in large piles. There are many piles there as brick demand at the moment is low.The brick cars are pulled by one of 3 means: electric trolley locomotives (complete with trolley poles that pull a wire along a trolley line), cables, and Bobcat.There is a yard for holding the bricks, tracks that push the cars thru a fiery kiln, holding tracks for them to cool and a completely separate railway for a brick dust reclamation operation that works a trolley on an elevated track. There’s even a RIP (repair in place) yard for repairing broken trolley cars. I’d estimate maybe 200 or more cars but I’d need to do an interview to get better details.The manager says this plant was opened around 1960, but he seemed fuzzy on details and since it was after hours, he was the only one on duty. He’s been working there 15 years and said he and others might soon get laid off due to slow housing market.I thought it interesting that these bricks are still made in the USA, as so much is in China.Hope some of you might share my enthusiasm for this very interesting operation.At firstbrick cartrolleytrolley polebrick holder made of stone, in the shape of a rail!RIP track with underground repair areakiln fire seen in distance; very hot area (causing me to sweat)yard (cable holder on ground and Bobcat)transfer track and locomotive, electric poweredspoked wheel on one of transfer carsother transfer cars not spoked (I didn’t learn how transfers are done as nothing was moving)cars ready for transferBobcatseparate building and railway, elevated, brick powder (reclaiming plant railway photos are all below)right view of previous view; shows arm extending off trolley where the dust is collectedelevated electric locomotiveelevated trackmanual stop put in place so car stops and goes other direction automatically; there are several places where these are located so the cars can stop and go in various locationsanother view of elevated locomotive; remotely controlledoutside viewdidn’t go to the other side of building where Norfolk Southern (ex-Southern, has a sidetrack, where bricks are offloaded from boxcars. No boxcars in recent month because of housing problems.My plan is to contact a magazine like Trains or NG & Industrial Railways and see if they’d like an article, then go back and do interviews and use my Canon Rebel camera for more photos and diagram the processing of bricks from start to finish. There are other brick companies in the area like this that have railways.
What a fascinating posting! If I had the space for a model of that brickworks I would follow Peter's advice in the latest GR and start hunting down useful shapes.
Keep up the good work.
Bob
David,
Congratulations on your article in the recent issue of GR, interesting and well written. I remember the discussions on this forum regarding the problems caused by the use of sealers prior to attempting to use adhesives.
When I checked out your website I noted your indoor "office" layout. I assume that your office is at home because that's something I certainly could never have gotten away with in any office I ever worked in.
Good work.
Walt
thanks, guys; the office layouts (several I built) were at my work sites. I've been moving around to so many desks lately that I'll likely build a special lightweight portable unit; maybe incorporating garden plants.
BTW, I did read and enjoy Jones's method behind the madness whereas he scopes out a particular industry and draws upon the shapes and patterns without getting into all of the fiddly details; then builds a structure from anything he can find that's suitable and then weathers it to the appropriate consistency.
I've not read about any other modeler who does as he, although perhaps Malcom Furlow would certainly be in the same category; he too being an artist.
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