Scrap Glass Loading Facility

[FCIN]

Here's something a bit unusual that I've never seen or heard of anyone modeling. There are two of these facilities close to where I live and this one is on Norfolk Southern in Lawrenceburg, KY, located at the end of the former branch line that ran from Lawrenceburg to Versailles. Aerial view: http://maps.google.com/?ll=38.033169,-84...8&t=k&z=18.

The Lawrenceburg facility has two man-made mountains of scrap glass and some other unidentified material waiting to be loaded in to covered hoppers to be recycled, and these "mountains" can be seen some distance from the facility.

Here's an overall view of the rail siding, retaining walls and loading conveyor     Closer view of the loading conveyor     Loading conveyor looking toward end of the spur     This small Whiting TrackMobile is on the property, but hasn't been used in some time     Finally, here's a few of the empty covered hoppers NS uses for this service     Would be interesting to see how one would go about modeling the piles of crushed glass.

The other facility is located here in Frankfort on R J Corman and is a bit smaller in size (Model railroad size). Here's an aerial view of the Frankfort facility: http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=qbxjsr7...orm=LMLTCC.

I've been told that both facilities receive most of the scrap glass from the Toyota and Ford assembly plants. They must break a lot of windshields!

[Brakie]

Ed,The way I would make a glass mountain is by making small hills by the standard procedure and then sprinkling Woodland Scenics Soft Flake Snow on it since that glass appears to be a white powder..

That's the only way I could think of.

[TTRAK_andrew]

G'day All,
The reported source of the glass for recycling:

I've been told that both facilities receive most of the scrap glass from the Toyota and Ford assembly plants.

suggests that it would be from a limited variety of glass types, mainly the laminated glass used for windscreens? If the auto plants make their own windscreens then the glass may be from more than just breakages but also from quality control failures, `end of run' left overs etc. Wiser people with direct experience in the motor manufacturing trade would no doubt have greater insight.
Never the less, this is an interesting industry. After looking at the aerial view of the Lawrenceburg facility it appears that three covered hoppers are loaded at a time and a reserve of nine other hoppers are waiting on the abandoned branch line the siding is located on. I can imagine a local freight dropping off a large set off empties say once a week and then on every visit to the area picking up the 3 loaded cars at a time, after placing empties on their place. I would imagine that would ensure a guaranteed supply of hoppers for the glass recycler and have the needed empties stored close at hand and not occupying valuable track space in a yard somewhere else. Something worth noting for layout operations, especially for Industrial Switching Layouts and Switching Puzzle layouts.
Regards,
Andrew G.

[MountainMan]

Windshield must have the plastic layer removed first, i order to be used in recycling.

[MasonJar]

I have used "bird grit" for roofing aggregate as it takes a stain fairly well. Got a white-ish semi-translucent version from my local dollar store. Looks like it might fit the bill, and at a cost somewhat less than WS materials.

Andrew

[Brakie]

Andrew,While out about about today I stopped at the dollar stores and took a look at that stuff..I agree I think it would look ok for crushed glass..

Oddly they make crush glass loads in N Scale but,not HO-go figure.

[eje]

Thanks for posting this most interesting industry, Ed. I'm thinking such a facility might justify having some rolling stock from the automotive industry on the layout now and then since there must be automotive industrial activity in the area! There are few things riding the rails quite so soulful as a really beat up old Penn Central 86-foot eight-door box car. As to modeling the crushed glass, I'm contemplating foam covered with fine white or very light gray sand over sprayed with blue/green-tinted gloss medium, for N scale. Nice catch! Ric

[Puddlejumper]

I became interested in scrap glass recycling since I saw a blue scrap glass load in HO, can't remember the manufacturer but it is out of production. I would like to have a scrap glass recycler on my layout, so that I can model open loads of red, blue, brown, whatever, scrap glass. Need to do more research first though.

Dave

[radivil]

Michael's sells very fine colored sand-like material that looks a lot like crushed glass. Even came in a green that matched the green I remember in some of the plants. There are some pretty huge glass recyclers back in the Pittsburgh area and I'd considered working one into a layout. When you don't have the space for a layout any more, you start doing a lot of thinking and exploring at stores.