kasskaboose Selective compression is a challenge for many folks. This is true regardless of layout size, location, or scale. I'd pick what you can and convey the rest with backdrop photos.
Selective compression is a challenge for many folks. This is true regardless of layout size, location, or scale. I'd pick what you can and convey the rest with backdrop photos.
Coming from the are with many cement plants - many served by the LNE or others - a lot of the plants in the area are wide and more square in area rather than linear. Not that they couldn;t have been, but the one Byron mentions is a much more linear layout which seems better suited to the area available to the OP.
The one I remember most is oen we drive past every time we visited my grandparents. That had tracks on two levels, there were two grade crossings, one just slightly uphill from the other. Coal and other materials were supplied on the upper track, dumped over a trestle arrangement (concrete trestle, not wood), and the lower level was where the box cars and covered hoppers came in and left with bagged and bulk cement. There's still a plant there, in the late 70's it was modernized and is now truck served, no rail service whatsoever.
My previous layout had space reserved to feature a plant that was on that line, a branch of the Reading. That was a much wider, flat plant. Facing in off the lead, to the far left was the coal receiving area, the limestone was dug right there at a quarry that was part of the plan complex. In the middle were tracks for boxcars for loading bagged product from the bag house, and then to the right of the storage silos were some tracks for loading covered hoppers with bulk product.
There's a good book I have that covers the cement plants of this region in fairly good detail. This is it: https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Lehigh_Valley_Cement_Industry.html?id=NnX33SJCy1QC
I was a bit disappointed that there were only a few views of the plant I was intending to model. It was torn down somewhere around 1971 is memory serves, but it was built in the 20's or 30's. Today it's an industrial park with some rail service, and the rows of houses for the workers that are shown in the book along the main road are now pretty much all gone, replaced by shops and businesses.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Compact N and HO switching layouts based on the former Kaiser Permanente (now Lehigh Southwest Cement) cement plant in Northern California were included in Layout Design Journal #54 (First Quarter 2015) published by the Layout Design SIG. This issue also included a number of other small switching layouts based on single industries (paper, steel, auto plant, brewery, etc.). Back issues are available. Jim Providenza described the construction of his cement plant in Railroad Model Craftsman, Nov. and Dec. 2002.
You’ve probably already looked at these, but the internet search string “model railroad cement plant” yielded some useful links.
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
Look up the Lehigh and New England rr. They had a large cement region they served that is now NS. you will get loads of cement plant names to look up. And in numerous configurations. Good region to base a plant on.
Wolfie
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
Not familiar with layouts or LDE based on a cement plant. Maybe the best way would be to design your own plan based upon overhead google or bing searches of real cement plants. You'd have to search to find them.
I know of a good sized plant in Speed, Indiana, across the Ohio river from Louisville KY, that is served by its own short line, the Southern Indiana RR, or SIND. Uses two Cat powered Alco s2s. Its close to popular roads so there are good street view shots as well. Lots of covered hoppers and boxcars.
Another Lehigh Cement plant on the east side of Mitchell, IN. Pretty good street views.
Also, there is a glass plant in Lapel IN served by shortline. Lots of sand hoppers. It shouldn't be much different from a cement plant in terms of rolling stock and operations.
I'm sure you can find other inspirational track arrangements the more you search.
- Douglas
I think I would research and study cement plant operations and design my own LDE, and it could be located at the end of a spur, or along side of a main.
I like the end of a spur, as I would add a siding or 2 for car storage and staging.
Mike.
My You Tube
I have a 10 foot by 16 inch section that has been allocated for a large cement plant. I'm looking for either a LDE or an industrial switching layout design to help with the design. Other than Soeberg's Daneville cement plant, i've not found a whole lot. With all of the ISL shelf layouts out there, you would think that a few would be cement plants, but that is not the case. Any suggestions or designs that I have missed? Thanks.