Thanks for your kind remarks, Bob. The layout's based on southern and south western Ontario, but no particular place or prototype. I have named the towns after real ones (and some of the industries, too), but none are recognisable as such.
Wayne
Your modelling reminds me of Perth County and also the Exeter area of Souhern Ontario. The olde stomping grounds that I also model.
Let me throw in another vote for boxcars over covered hoppers. Until around the mid 1950's, covered hoppers were used for cement, lime, potash, and similar commodities, with specialized covered hoppers for carbon black and other specified loads. Any covered hoppers assigned to grain service were generally brand new, and specifically assigned to grain service. Use of covered hoppers for grain was a brand new concept, which began to take hold around 1954-60. By 1960, the idea was generally accepted, and shippers were busy converting their facilities to handle shipments in covered hoppers. Your era places you right at the very beginning of this change, so most or all of your grain shipments should be in boxcars.
Tom
Let me throw in another vote for boxcars over covered hoppers. Until around the mid 1950's, covered hoppers were used for cement, lime, potash, and similar commodities, with specialized covered hoppers for carbon black and other specified loads. Any covered hoppers assigned to grain service were generally brand new, and specifically assigned to grain service. Use of covered hoppers for grain was a brand new concept, which began to take hold around 1954-60. By 1960, the idea was generally accepted, and shippers were busy converting their facilities to handle shipments in covered hoppers.
amill32073As I stated earlier, I am modeling in Ohio and Indiana in 1955, so I am thinking that my grain elevator would probably store more corn & soybeans, rather than wheat. I guess you could throw in other grains such as barley as well.
The type of grain stored would depend on the season. Corn and soybeans are generally a fall crop. Wheat can also be a spring crop, known as winter wheat. You could get away with loading either from an elevator, so long as you have enough bins.
There is a huge article on grain elevators in wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_elevator
I don't have time to read it right now. So I'll contribute this observation, not knowing whether it's mentioned in the article:
I read that one of the contributing reasons for "local" grain elevators was to store the grain instead of selling it immediately. The reason was to allow waiting for a higher price.
Since grain was originally shipped by the carload, if the elevator was a loading facility only, you wouldn't need a capacity much more than a couple of cars. I would think if you saw an old elevator with a much larger capacity, it would have thus been also used for storage.
Ed
Here is a grain elevator with a Feed operation just to the right of the elevator.
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =
The dry bean business (pinto beans, legumes, etc) also has facilities similar to grain elevators
No one has ever said anything at all about rice farming in Louisiana and Arkansas which is what I have ca 1945 MoPac. And Kalmbach's grain book ignores rice entirely. Most of the rice industry structures are similar to the Walthers "grain industry" series but what I haven't seen in all the wheat talk is an equivalent to a rice "dryer". Note the fans in openings along the top, to ventilate moisture. This structure appears as best I can tell to be unique to the rice industry.
amill32073 Thanks guys As I stated earlier, I am modeling in Ohio and Indiana in 1955, so I am thinking that my grain elevator would probably store more corn & soybeans, rather than wheat. I guess you could throw in other grains such as barley as well. I figured that boxcars would be used instead of covered hoppers at that time, so I plan to go with that. BTW, I am making Jim Six's kitbatched grain elevator as my grain elevator on my layout. His grain elevator was featured on the February 2011 issue of MR. Let me know if I am off on anything Andy
Thanks guys
As I stated earlier, I am modeling in Ohio and Indiana in 1955, so I am thinking that my grain elevator would probably store more corn & soybeans, rather than wheat. I guess you could throw in other grains such as barley as well. I figured that boxcars would be used instead of covered hoppers at that time, so I plan to go with that. BTW, I am making Jim Six's kitbatched grain elevator as my grain elevator on my layout. His grain elevator was featured on the February 2011 issue of MR.
Let me know if I am off on anything
Andy
Although it was touched upon in earlier replies, in most midwestern small towns the one facility actually did both functions. My Uncle was on the Board of Directors for the German Valley Farmers Grain Co. This was in German Valley, Illinois on the Chicago Great Western in the late 1950's and early 1960's. The business was known about town as both "The Elevator" AND "The Mill". The primary business in the fall and winter would have been loading locally-grown corn into boxcars for shipment, but one could also go there to get a wagon-load of ground chicken feed. This was the "classic" small grain elevator structure, with a drive-through ramp for vehicles to dump grain within a covered area. The "office' portion actually held what amounted to a small store, with rolls of barbed wire and scoop shovels for sale.
I still use my promotional carpenter's level from the German Valley Farmers Grain Co. It is lettered with "Grains - Salt - Coal - Feeds, Custom Grinding and Mixing German Valley, ILL. Phone 9 " Yes, the phone number was just "9". I think that the "coal" was just a large pile of coal down the track from the elevator structure that could be loaded by endloader or by hand, there was not a tipple-style structure. I know that the similar small grain elevators in places like Pecatonica (CNW), Davis (Milw), and Lena (ICRR) - all in Northern Illinois, all offered the same sort of services for farmers. One can thus justify not only the out-going loads of grain but also a variety of inbound supplies.
Bill
Now to throw a wrench at the machine. A grain elevator could ALSO receive feed. Also just noticed the ExactRail add to the right for a SOO LINE PS-2cd 4427 car.
I personally like the look of an older crib-style elevator with a couple of box cars spotted next to it. My dad is getting pretty old (love ya dad!) but even he is a little too young to remember big covered hoppers starting to become more main stream.
p.s. I refer to covered hoppers as grain hoppers so please don't get confused. Their are so many variants, sizes, and capacities for covered hoppers I just refer to them as what they are hauling, i.e. grain hopper, salt hopper, potash hopper, cement hopper, etc.
Grain hoppers did not really come into play until around 1954. The PS2 2893 3 bay/70 ton capacity covered hopper was one of the first(1954). I remember that the M&StL had them and they were stenciled 'for grain loading service only'(or something to that effect) so that they would not be routed to Mason City or Ft Dodge for cement loading. This car did not have center discharge outlets, and the loading was done via round hatches on either side of a center running board. Some of them are still around, if they have been rebuilt and qualify under the 40 year rule. BNSF had a few still on the roster in 1996. They would be used in general service minerals/fertz loading by this time as they are too small for grain loading.
the PS2 4427CD of the early 60's was one of the first P-S car that featured a center loading trough on the roof, and center discharge for the 3 discharge bays. The follow-on PS2 4740CD(the Athearn model) was built from about 1966 to 1972, and with over 15,000 copies was the first large production run covered hopper for Pullman-Standard.
The ACF 'Center Flow' designs also started in the early 60's and the ACF 4600CF & 4560CF cars became very popular for grain service as they were the first to feature center flow discharge chutes, and the curved roof line allowed the car to be loaded to full capacity.
I did a lot of rail fanning in the late 60's/early 70's - There was a lot of 40' box car grain loading going on. Many of the secondary lines had sidings or elevators that could not load covered hoppers. In Canada, the 40' grain door box car hung on even longer. By the late 70's, most of the remaining elevators that were still shipping by rail had been converted to trough loading. For a layout based on the 50's, I would suspect that the grain door box car was still 'King of the Hill' for grain loading. But unless one has a specific elevator that could load them(like the Land Mark Elevator mentioned by Brakie), they would be in some kind of mineral service that needed product protection from the weather.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Andy,Back in the 50s boxcars was being replaced by covered hoppers..
I recall seeing new covered hoppers at the big Land Mark Elevator that was on the Eastside of Columbus(Oh) starting in '55..As a 7 year old kid what caught my attention these new hoppers looked bigger then any freight car I've seen and they didn't have a side door..My dad explained how these cars was loaded and unloaded.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
For your time frame and location, I'd say the grain elevator is an appropriate choice. And yes, boxcars are quite appropriate. Sometimes product was shipped out in bags, sometimes loaded loose. This was done by using so-called "grain doors", which was nothing more than a temporary "door" installed on both sides of a car, perhaps with a paper lining to "seal" to the insides of the car. There was an opening about a foot or so from the roof so that grain could be loaded with the grain door in place. At the destination, the grain door would be removed, letting the cargo spill out, presumably onto a conveyor or augur or under-track pit. Workers would shovel out grain from the ends. As you would expect, cars used for this had to have clean, "tight" interiors so the grain wouldn't leak out or be contaminated by pests.
Do a search in the forums for "Signode grain doors" and you'll come across more reference material.
Brad
EMD - Every Model Different
ALCO - Always Leaking Coolant and Oil
CSX - Coal Spilling eXperts
Yes, it kind of a mix to two things -- chicken farms for sure with Tyson being the big buyer in the area. And there are a surprisingly large number of farms that rotate corn, soybeans, and grain. Go 40 miles south and it's cotton. 50 miles north and it's tobacco. There are 3-4 elevators in the county that ship covered hoppers and every one of them would be a classic model genic small one with three different designs.
jmbjmb What's interesting is here in Tennessee, we have a small elevator in town that is a classic collection of butler bins, pipes, and such (they just expanded a few years ago and added four more bins). About five miles down the road is a modern Tyson feed mill that that looks more like a Kansas elevator that receives bunches of covered hoppers. Such a contrast in buildings and operations. SNIP
What's interesting is here in Tennessee, we have a small elevator in town that is a classic collection of butler bins, pipes, and such (they just expanded a few years ago and added four more bins). About five miles down the road is a modern Tyson feed mill that that looks more like a Kansas elevator that receives bunches of covered hoppers. Such a contrast in buildings and operations.
I'd almost bet the reason for this can be summed up in two words: chicken farms.
Industrial scale agriculture can bring some interesting juxtapositions between the old and new. But this is pretty much a post-1980 development. An old-fashioned feedmill served a bunch of different independent farmers, each with differing mixes of animals. The truck serving it was often a medium single axle model with an augur to deliver larger orders. Much of its product will still arrived and was distributed as bagged goods. Most incoming product arrived in boxcars, with covered hoppers only coming into widespread but not exclusive use by the late 1960s
The modern large feedmill will likely have contracts with a few very large feeder operations, most likely all the same: chickens or turkeys or pigs, etc. Large, specialized semi-trucks shuttle back and forth, delivering truck-load size orders. It will do 98% of its business in bulk goods, perhaps even 100%. All product arriving by rail is in covered hoppers.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
My layout is based in 1955. It is in Ohio and Indiana
Oh, and just for grins, there is a team track next to the old station (now MOW office) where covered hoppers are loaded directly from trucks.
I'm modelling southwestern Ontario, where there was a lot of mixed farming. I added a farm supply store to supplement business at the elevator. While it doesn't make feed, it does sell it, along with fertilizer, tools, hardware, and implements. I need to add some signs, yet.
I can't really add much to Miles and Jim's info. For a small layout, it's probably worth summing up that a small elevator can also be a feed mill, but a large feed mill would be nowhere near as big as a large elevator.
Andy,
Miles sort of summed up the difference. As he mentioned, era is very important. By the 60's, many small rail served elevators were superseded by the large concrete monsters(like the Walthers ADM grain elevator). Many times these wood crib construction elevators sort of morphed into feel mill/ag service operations. Walthers have several feel mill/elevators that are good candidates for the feel mill operation.
In today's current world, most of the small wood crib construction elevators are either torn down or are some kind of ag service(non-rail served) operation. I have seen a lot of examples of rail served ag service complexes that have an old wood elevator buried in the complex(with a lot of 'Butler' building or pole barn construction building as well. The received fertilizer, anhydrous ammonia, feeds, LP, and other ag related bulk items. They rarely ship out anything by rail.
Back in the 50/60's these operations sometimes still did ship out grain by rail, but many of them could not convert to covered hopper loading and stopped shipping by rail. Small elevators and feed mill operations lined up on the house track or business track are classic industries of the era.
Here in Nebraska, a grain elevator is one that takes-in bulk grains usually by truck, and then ships out the grain later by rail to other destinations. A feed mill takes in a variety of grains and mixes them together and with other additives to produce a feed product. In my opinion, the era you are modelling would have a bearing on the quanity and type of rail service for either the elevator or feed mill. A more modern era (versus transition era) would likely see greater rail volume for the elevator than the mill. Good luck on your layout!
Miles.
Modeling the UP Sidney Sub in Nebraska & Wyoming in fall of 1999 in HO scale
Hello, I am in the process of buiding a 2X9 midwestern themed shelf layout. I wanted to know the differences between a grain elevator and a feed mill. If anyone has an idea, please let me know.
Thanks,