Thank you Joesphbw that's exactly what I was looking for !
Thank you Wayne . Might bug you when I build this weigh station. You have the inside knowledge.
Thank you Ed. That's a beefy weigh table. Heavy duty .
Patrick
Fear an Ignorant Man more than a Lion- Turkish proverb
Modeling an ficticious HO scale intergrated Scrap Yard & Steel Mill Melt Shop.
Southland Industrial Railway or S.I.R for short. Enterchanging with Norfolk Southern.
7j43kNot all railroad scales have bypass rails. Some scales were built to tolerate a locomotives weight.
Yes.
Ones that weren't may have a specific mention in the employee timetable that would list restrictions on what equipment was allowed to occupy the scale track — or not.
Insomnia?
This will help:
http://www.standardscale.com/PDF/AAR_Scale_Handbook_2013.pdf
Cheers, Ed
That Woodland Scenics model could maybe be updated by removing the open-air structure and building a small building. Looking into the big window and seeing the weighing mechanism inside would look darn nice.
A very long time ago, Stewart Products made a working HO track scale.
Not all railroad scales have bypass rails. Some scales were built to tolerate a locomotives weight.
Ed
I recently built this neat little scale from Woodland Scenics to include in my scrap yard. This makes a neat visual detail and anyone that sees it immediately knows it is a weigh scale. Even if you choose a modern structure you could show this old scale in the window as they were often placed so the driver could witness the weighing process.
https://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/Item/D231/page/1
We had a truck scale at the plant I worked in. It was originally an old balance beam type like the WS model above but had been updated with digital load cells and electronic recording device but the old scale was left in place. The platform was only big enough to fit two axles at a time so a semi-truck would have to make at least three stops then the weights added up for each pair of axles.
I'm sure you're aware that most railroad track scales were built using an off-set gantlet track so that regular track movements wouldn't place unnecessary wear on the scale pivot points.
Here's a couple of views of a P&LE scale track under construction in 1915:
PnLE_scale2 by Edmund, on Flickr
PnLE_scale by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
I can't comment on rail weigh stations, but those for trucks aren't much more than a platform (usually paved, nowadays, but could be planks for an earlier era) with a border of steel around its perimeter, flush with the top of the pavement.There's a gap all around it - not too wide, and a scale house of some sort.
At the steel plant where I worked, there were scales at all gates to the plant, and several inside the plant, too. The former were fairly large structures, often including change houses for plant security and scale operators. The scale operator was at ground level, with a large window overlooking the scale. Most had a loudspeaker to allow the scaleman to direct the truck drivers as to the positioning of their truck.I don't recall seeing the in-plant ones, but many of those would be in areas where raw materials needed to be weighed as part of the steelmaking process - not the area in which I worked.A nearby scrapyard which I visit occasionally has its scalehouse elevated - possibly to afford a view into the larger trucks as they enter or exit. I use the same scale when entering with my car, and there's a second scale, inside the yard and controlled from the same scalehouse, where re-weighing is done if you've dropped off all ferrous material, but still have other metals to sell. For small-lot customers with the latter (in cars or pick-ups), weighing was at a smaller scale within a building, and each type of metal needed to be placed, by the seller, in standard containers of known weight, on the scale. The scale operator punched-in the type of metal, and the scale automatically recorded the weight, and sent the info to the office, where a printed copy of your material and its value was done. Very efficient, and a relatively clean way for anyone to recycle metals and make a little dough, too.
I suspect that the ferrous material was shipped out by rail due to the volumes handled, but, since there are two major steel plants in the vicinity, it may have gone out in trucks, too. Outgoing loaded trucks would, of course, use the same scale as those entering the yard. I can't comment on scales for rail traffic, as it's definitely in a different area, and wandering around the yard is strictly forbidden - a dangerous place for sure.
Wayne
Walthers has a couple. And they are on sale now.
https://www.walthers.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=weigh+scale
Getting closer daily on building most everything for my scrap yard. The one most needed detail is a weigh staion for incoming scrap metal.
Are there any kits available ? It would save some time.
Thank you for your time.