Valley Cement has 3 buildings and a set of silos. The cement making process begins in the concrete building on the right, although Walthers calls it 'Building #3'. It is in this building that I think the limestone is crushed and maybe mixed with other ingredients. The crushed product is then conveyed to the middle building (#2).
The kit has the conveyor between buildings #2 and #3 up in the air, exiting #3 under the roof line and entering #2 under its roof. As if the product has to be lifted up to the conveyor to building #2. This seems odd to me. It would make more sense if the conveyor exited building #3 at ground level and rose to the opening in building #2.
Can anyone offer any justification for this arrangement of the conveyor? Is it logical? Or should the conveyor really exit building #3 at ground level like I think?
Thanks for your help,
Jeff
I call Bldg 3 the aggreagte building. This is where limestone and other aggregate materials are delivered by rail or by truck. After mixing and crushing, the aggragate goes by conveyor into the kiln building (#2). This building has the furnaces that heat the rotary kiln where the the limestone and other materials are melted into Portland Cement clinker. They exit into the next building where the clinker is ground up into powder. Then to the silos for storage. Diffferent grades of cement are stored in the various sections of the silos.
This is an overall view of the Valley Cement kit that I built for Boothbay Railway Village. I have added a fuel tank (#6 fuel oil), a bagging plant and a couple of other buildings
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
This is a model that requires a large footprint. I added a hole on one building to have it fit a smaller width. The original dimensions require a lot of space.
I think the flow of the buildings is logical. It interesting to read how structures do (or don't) follow real operations. Of course there is a level of imagination requred.
The bin is the larger building at right to which raw materials are deliverd and stored. They are conveyored over the the taller central building where crushing, as needed, and mixing take place. The material falls through the crushers, and that would account for the central building's height.
From there is is put through the kiln, which if I recall is turned on idler wheels on the central pylon, an which is rather obvious between the two leftmost buildings. I believe the product is then blown or conveyored to the top of the silos.
selectorThe material falls through the crushers, and that would account for the central building's height.
Exactly. If the OP wants to put the conveyor between materials and crushing on the ground, than have at it, but the material needs to end up at the top of the crushing building.
This kit is an older design, probably fashioned from the old Medusa plant that used to be on Jones Island, in Milwaukee, but is no longer there.
Whats there now is a storage silo owned by LaFarge cement.
An image seach of cement plants reveals lots of pictures.
Mike.
My You Tube
Bucket conveyors play a large role in bulk material handling. I worked in a plant processing tungsten and molybdenum ore to finished powdered metal. Much of the process was a gravity operation but between stages a bucket conveyor would move material back to the top of the process chain, then crushing, sifting, ball-milling, extraction, etc. would all be a gravity movement.
For the next steps it was back to a bucket conveyor for transport to the top again.
I could see a crusher/sifter inside "Building 3" then the bucket conveyor hauling the processed material to the top of the building to be funneled onto a horizontal belt conveyor into Building 2. This keeps the material delivery up high so the process into the kiln can all take place by gravity.
"Generally" Walthers does a pretty good job of representing industry processes in their Cornerstone models.
Good Luck, Ed
Thanks Ed, that's the explanation I was looking for. A bucket conveyor within building #3 lifting material up to the conveyor leading to building #2. That makes sense. I understand the concept of delivering material from up high to begin a process, but it didn't make sense to load the material onto the conveyor at such a height. I would have thought the material would be placed on the conveyor down at ground level.
And, I agree, Walthers usually does a good job of representing the industries they offer, but usually is the operative word. And Valley Cement may be a fairly accurate model of a real-life plant somewhere, but that's not to say that the real-life plant isn't an anomaly.
But, whatever. I have a plausible explanation for building the kit as the directions show and that's what I needed.
Thanks again, Ed.
Another bit about the process - at the outlet of the kiln, you get large chunks of material, which is then crushed in roller mills into the fine powder that gets stored in the silos and, even more so in earlier times, loaded into bags that were sewn shut and loaded in box cars.
I come from a region full of cement plants, and there was a book put out covering them which only incidently explains the process but has lots of views of the various plants. Walthers did a good job building a representation - but it IS highly compressed and leaves out a few things to make it fit on a typical model railroad. While not generally as large as a full blown steel plant, a cement plant is VERY large and representing all of it could be a whole layout in itself, let alone having other trains and industries to serve. So like many things in model railroading, we compress and make reasonable representations to fit the avialble space.
The plant in the region I most remember was one we frequently passed, every time we went to my grandparent's house. I distinctly remember the aggregate store, it was open air, not roofed over, but was an area with concrete walls with the buttresses like the walls in the kit building - basically, take off the roof and leave one of the long sides off. Material here came in by rail. Just past this end of the plant was the road we turned up, which climbed a hill. There were two grade crossings on different levels, one was at the base level of the plant, the other came in at the height of the top of the bin walls. There were multipel sets of silos in this plant, one set was closer tot he aggregate bin area and was open, like the silos in the Medusa Cement kit, and I remember trucks being under there getting loaded. What I dont remember is seeing the kiln tube - in many lder plants this was fully enclosed. It was only later when a differnet company took over and they modernized the plant (and tore down a lot of stuff, like those aggregate bins and the truck loading silos) that the installed a kiln more like one in the Walthers kit, where it was fully exposed - this is another palce the kit is compressed, btw, the kiln tube is MUCH longer and the angle it sits on is a lot shallower.
I've been on the property of another local mill, but didn't get to see much, I was mostly by the office area, we do IT work for the company. I was only there once or I would have inquired about possibly getting a plant tour (probably unlikely in this day and age).
ANother local mill was served by the branch line I modeled on my previous layout. I plan to incorporate a reduced version of that brnach in my next layout with just one industry to server - the cement plant.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
G Paine I call Bldg 3 the aggreagte building. This is where limestone and other aggregate materials are delivered by rail or by truck. After mixing and crushing, the aggragate goes by conveyor into the kiln building (#2). This building has the furnaces that heat the rotary kiln where the the limestone and other materials are melted into Portland Cement clinker. They exit into the next building where the clinker is ground up into powder. Then to the silos for storage. Diffferent grades of cement are stored in the various sections of the silos. This is an overall view of the Valley Cement kit that I built for Boothbay Railway Village. I have added a fuel tank (#6 fuel oil), a bagging plant and a couple of other buildings
Nice job Mr Paine. I have that kit as well, BUT no room on my new layout for it.
Brian
My Layout Plan
Interesting new Plan Consideration
G Paine
I was wondeering if i could get a few close ups of what you done? I like what you did here and to be honest copy some of it. I have the kit and this would make it complete. What other kits did you use?
Thanks,
Big Mike
If you click on the picture, it will give you an enlarged view.
I would also suggest that you remove your e-mail address, as it may be subject to misuse.
Wayne