Agri Related Businesses

[jwb]

I started a thread on the West Coast Rail Forums at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.westcoastrailforums.com/thread-7652.html">http://www.westcoastrailforums.com/thread-7652.html</a><!-- m --> regarding cattle feed coming into the San Joaquin Valley. Reinhard's new series on the MAW has kept my focus on agricultural related industries, about which I don't know a whole lot (I live in the big city).

However, one thing I've noticed is that most parts of the country get inbound grain, and only the central parts ship grain out by rail through grain elevators. The inbound grain can come into feed mills, which often look like grain elevators. However, they're often more interesting structures than plain modern elevators. Here is the Verhoeven Milling Company in Hanford, CA:
   
   
   
   
I'd like to hear more from anyone who's familiar with feed or the feed lot business.

[MountainMan]

You didn't specify a time frame, but there are some general rules of thumb. You've got grains, corn, beets and a host of other agri products going outbound, and fertilizers inbound. From time to time large agri equipment gets shipped in. Agri leftovers and by-products get shipped out to become pig and cattle feed, which is also a big part of the agri industry as a whole.

As a rule of thumb, covered grain hoppers out, nitrate tankers and empties back in.

[jwb]

Actually, there's major unit train traffic of covered grain hoppers inbound for feed in the San Joaquin Valley, since there is a great deal of feed lot, dairy, and poultry business. As FCIN/Ed pointed out in Reinhard's thread, grain elevators and feed facilities look very similar, and of course, you can't easily tell if a covered hopper is loaded or empty. In some ways, the question is just the direction the grain is flowing -- at a town elevator, it comes from trucks to storage to train. At a feed facility, it goes from train to storage to truck. And fertilizer, it seems to me, is often in both places, since they may not raise grain, but do raise cotton, onions, or whatever.

[faraway]

I am under the impression fertilizer and feed has often more different kinds to be stored and is therefor stored in smaller bins. That makes the installation more interesting for our average layouts.

[jwb]

Feed facilities vary a lot. Here is one that looks very much like a modern grain elevator (at Burril, CA). It is probably served by unit trains:
   
On the other hand, here is a poultry feed facility in Port Jefferson, NY:
   
But then here is a feed facility that I just can't understand very well and haven't gotten good answers to at Western Rail Forums:
   
   
One thing that strikes me is that there aren't very many kits for modern specifically feed facilities that look much like the prototype. There are some for the older Purina Chow type ones, but even those aren't that great.

[faraway]

You may like the Okie mill in Okonola OH. at the MAW. It would be a great prototype for some challenging scratch built model.
Google maps link https://maps.google.de/maps?q=ohio&ll=41...e&t=h&z=19

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6109/63102...fc9b_b.jpg
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2270/57847...14f7_b.jpg