L&N Industrial Rail Spur

[FCIN]

I notice on the plan you have shown one spot on industry A and two spots on Industry B where there appears to be a faciltity for hopper cars to be unloaded by gravity, presumably thru openings in the middle of the track and down into some sort of underground storage bunker?

Do you have any pics or examples of this type of hopper unloading facility? What kind of commodities, other than grain, are delivered by this method?

Mal;

Industry A (bakery or small candy plant) has a small shed over the track at the point where the Airslide hoppers are unloaded. You'd spot one in the shed with another behind it and when one is unloaded, it would be moved toward the switch by plant personnel or pulled by the train crew and the next one moved into the shed. Looking at this web page about a bakery in Plover, WI, http://brucerail001.webng.com/w091021bak...90921.html should give you a good idea of what I'm talking about. I plan on kit-bashing the Walther's Magic Pan bakery for this structure and will use the covered shed from a Walther's ADM elevator over the track. It would work for either of the possible industries. A couple of prototype bakeries that I've located here and there, actually have no shed over the unloading point. Probably not necessary since they appear to be unloading pressure differential covered hoppers that would have a hose connected to the car.

As for Industry A well here's a Bing Aerial view of the facility that this is based on: http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=pp1rq65...orm=LMLTCC. You can see why I like this prototype for use on the front edge of the layout, as the track is located so far from the structure. Rotating the view you can see what appears to be two unloading spots where the beans, rice, popcorn would be unloaded from the cars and I assume an underground conveyor takes the commodity to the main structure. On the east end of the view you can also see what appears to be an above ground conveyor at that point. Might make a nice detail to include. Not sure what those two ramps you can see are used for unless they sometimes get box cars of the commodity in bags and unload them with forklifts.

As shown on the plan, I will model just enough of a structure to show that there is in fact an industry there and add to that "concrete canyon" effect. I will probably model the covered hopper unloading pits by cutting out a few ties between the rails, then making a simple grating from some plastic shapes and screen wire or something similar and placing it in those two locations, so it will be obvious where the cars spot. There is room enough on the track to spot a couple more cars waiting to be unloaded and I will probably include a couple of dummy capstan type car movers with cables by the track. Here's a web page showing different types of car movers so you'll know what I'm talking about: http://www.saferack.com/capstans-and-railcar-movers.cfm.

Similar type facilities where covered hoppers/open hoppers are unloaded can be found all over the country. At the distilleries here in Frankfort, there was simply a metal grating between the rails covering a pit where the corn, rye, and malt were unloaded, then conveyors lifted the grain to storage bins. When a car was unloaded, they used an electric car puller to move the empty down the track and position another load over the pit. Same thing for the coal unloading by the power house. We simply spotted the hopper over the grating, then plant personnel opened the hoppers and let the coal fall in to the pit. Didn't take them long to unload a car and again they'd use the car puller to move the empty and spot another load.

Grain, feed, fertilizers, salt, and similar commodities, along with coal, gravel, sand in open hoppers, would be unloaded in this manner. You can of course unload these type cars on that good old team track just by placing an auger conveyor and pan under the car and using the conveyor to load a waiting truck. That was what I had planned to do if I included the transload track on the layout.

Although not mentioned, Industry E (the soft drink bottler) can be seen in this Bing View and again shows why I selected it for a foreground industry http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=qb7t9m7...orm=LMLTCC. Not only is the track some distance from the main structure it's what I'd call a model railroad size industry, as they only spot two cars at a time, although the short spur will hold four corn syrup tanks. R J Corman usually switches this plant twice a day.

Hope this helps some. Feel free to ask about anything and I'll try and help.