Fort Myers, Florida in the 90's - Its the layouts 30th birthday this year - Freemo South 2024

[trisonic]

Ian, I think you should do the Corn Syrup Processing Plant - then I can copy yours.............

 

Seriously do you have the "Model Railroad Planning - 2010"? That has the best article I've seen on the build and the operation. (p 68).

 

Best, Pete.

Edited March 31, 2014 by trisonic

[roundhouse]

Thanks Pete.

 

Had a look for that year but it appears to be the one not available on Amazon.

 

Will do a bit more searching for a copy.

 

I have plenty of corn syrup tanks so that is the obvious choice.

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

I woke up very early this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I have just read the article that Pete refers to, thanks to Shortliner providing this for me.

 

It makes interesting reading as I had not appreciated that corn syrup came in different grades. This requires a particular grade to be unloaded at a set point in the unloading area as tanks and pipe work cannot be mixed so as to avoid cross contamination of the grades.

 

I have very limited space so I will probably go for a small building with the storage tanks visible.

 

As I will only have one unloading track, the tanks that have either been unloaded or are awaiting unloading can sit in the main sidings on Fort Myers and then be tripped to the siding by the resident switcher.

 

This should keep operators busy.

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

Not much to report on progress at the moment as last weekend's short notice decision to go to Devon and Cornwall ate up planned work session on the boards.

 

However most of whats left to do can be done in thel ighter evenings now when I need ot go outside ot do timber work.

 

I have more or less settled on the following industries to be served on the layout:

 

paper

pelletized plastics

Corn syrup

Lumber unloading point (not sure whehter to do a removable loads)

Cement unloading

Possibly propane aswell but I now need to finalize the track plan in the next few weeks.

 

I made a trip to Maplins on SUnday so now have the bananna plugs to wire up.

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

This weekend I have obtained a cement silo kit and a propane tank kit, so that's to industries decided.

 

The cement plant is now going on the new end board as it needs a bit more space than I first thought and the corn syrup will move to one of the existing boards. Ideally I need to find some photos of a rail served cement unloading point

 

Progress should pick up the layout now.

 

 

Photos to follow in the next few days.

 

Ian

[shortliner]

Probably bigger than you want - about half way down  http://thecbusindustrialrr.blogspot.co.uk/

[roundhouse]

Probably bigger than you want - about half way down  http://thecbusindustrialrr.blogspot.co.uk/

Thanks for that link. Yes it's a lot bigger than the space that I have but certainly gives me an idea of the unloading facilities which are pretty basic.

 

Ian

[Scottish Modeller]

Cement works....

 

Loads of these in NE of America!

 

Lafarge North America
541 Leominster Shirley Rd
Lunenburg, MA 01462

 

Rail served - rail access is to north of the address location on Google maps

 

Dragon Products Co
U.S. Route 1
Thomaston, ME 04861

 

Rail served - very busy location.

 

Keystone Cement Co
6507 Nor Bath Blvd
Bath, PA 18014

 

Another rail served location.

 

Hope these give some ideas!

[roundhouse]

Cement works....

 

Loads of these in NE of America!

 

Lafarge North America

541 Leominster Shirley Rd

Lunenburg, MA 01462

 

Rail served - rail access is to north of the address location on Google maps

 

Dragon Products Co

U.S. Route 1

Thomaston, ME 04861

 

Rail served - very busy location.

 

Keystone Cement Co

6507 Nor Bath Blvd

Bath, PA 18014

 

Another rail served location.

 

Hope these give some ideas!

Thanks for those locations. I will have a good look on Google later.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[Gloucester Road]

I might be able to get some photos of the plant in Lunenburg as it is not to far off the route i use driving to work. Another location that does concrete/cement/stones is here 408 elm st milford nh 03055, just north of this location 8 hitchiner way milord nh is suburban propane which is rail served. Hitchiner manufacturing is between these two locations also rail served. I cycle past these locations all the time.

 

Stephen

Edited April 13, 2014 by Gloucester Road

[roundhouse]

Stephen

 

I had a look at that location and although its a large plant there are two rail heads and both could be adapted to suit the layout so if you do get chance to get some close up photos that would be great.

 

Thanks

 

Ian

[Mike Boucher]

Cement works....

 

Loads of these in NE of America!

 

Lafarge North America

541 Leominster Shirley Rd

Lunenburg, MA 01462

 

 

If you want photos of this one, let me know and I'll see what I can do.  Its only about 5 miles from my house...

[highpeak]

I'm a bit confused about the cement business. Are you intending to receive loaded hoppers of cement, or ship loads out?

For instance, Dragon Cement is a producer of cement, if you want a business that receives cement try googling "concrete batch plant". That may be a more compact model for you, a batch plant is much smaller than a cement plant. Of course, the kiln etc could be "off stage" or on the back scene and just the loading arrangements modelled.

The May 1998 Model Railroader had an article on a concrete batch plant, though it ended up being a pretty sizeable model. It looked good though.

[roundhouse]

I am thinking more along the lines of unloading cement in covered hoppers so a batch plant would be more in line to what I am after.

 

Although would have thought the loading . Unloading facility would be much the same.

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

Just one photo showing progress on the road over bridge. The space in front of the bridge was going to be the cement unloading siding but will now be the corn syrup unloading.

 

Track laying will commence in just over a week time.

[roundhouse]

Some more progress this evening after doing some more work to the new fence panels in the garden.

As it was a nice evening a another board for Dobris was set up so that two boards of Fort Myers could be temporarily put together.

 

The first shot shows how the new siding will look.

 

He second photo was taken about an hour later after a section of plain track was cut and lifted allowing the first new turnout in twenty years to be installed into the layout. It was been reconnected electrically but still requires the dropper wires for the frog polarity.

[Mike Boucher]

Today on the way home from work, I stopped into Lafarge in Lunenburg.  No one was there, and there were a ton of "no trespassing" signs.  I knocked on the office door, but no one answered, so I didn't take any pictures.  One thing I could see from the gate, which you can't see in the Google earth photo, is they have a trackmobile there for switching the cars.  I did look like a very interesting small industry to model.

I'll try tomorrow morning on the way to work...

[roundhouse]

Mike

 

Thanks for trying.

 

Ian

[Mike Boucher]

OK, today I stopped by LaFarge North America in Lunenburg, MA.  Went to the office and the two guys inside got a chuckle of out someone walking in to take pictures so a guy in England can make a model of it for his model railroad.  When I said you can even get a model trackmobile that runs, they couldn't quite believe it.  So they let me walk around the outside, unsupervised, taking pictures for 5 or 10 minutes.  Here's some of what I got...

 

Overview of the facility, looking from the south back towards the buildings, and way in the background the track curves to the east to meet the mainline.  I didn't ask what the difference between the two building is, but it seems obvious that they store two different materials.  The office is in the open door on the 2nd floor of the building furthest left/west.

 

 

And turning 180 degrees, the track comes to a rather unimpressive end...

 

 

The south side of the cinderblock office building, and the silos.  I'll call these the West silos for future reference)

 

 

Note the picnic table and propane BBQ grill in front of the office.

 

Closer pic of the two unloading bays.  Note the structure next to the truck to the left.  More on that later...   The truck was just exiting from under the silos (between the office and the unloading bay) when I was arriving.

 

 

Closeup of the west unloading bay, with the trackmobile and 3 hopper cars.  The man in the green shirt entering the building is the site manager.  The other man I spoke with was wearing a hard hat, hearing protection, and a high-visibility vest.

 

 

The South and East sides of the other building.  (East silos).  note that there isn't a truck dock under the silos for this building.  I don't know if trucks back in through that large overhead door and are loaded inside, of if the piping above the center track between the two buildings is used to load product from these silo to the single truck dock.

 

 

 

And another view of the two unloading bays

 

The north side of the east silos

 

 

And the west silos from the same spot.  Note the two distinctly different styles of covered hopper.  Adds variety to the rolling stock you can use for delivery, and if someone questions you about it, whip out a copy of this picture and prove yourself right!

 

 

 

The "yard".

 

 

Note the reporting marks on those covered hoppers.  "LAFX": LaFarge North America has their own fleet of covered hoppers.  Notice there are at least 3 different styles of covered hopper there.  All seemed to be 2 bay hoppers.  Also note in the photo with the trackmobile, the reporting marks on the hopper being unloaded is GACX.  So, its perfectly reasonable to have "non-LaFarge" hoppers delivered to this plant on your model RR.

 

That structure I mentioned earlier?  There are two of them, this one is way against the western edge of the property.  It seemed identical to the other one closer to the tracks.

 

 

And since the truck was leaving, I got to see what they were for.  The truck driver climbed up the steps, and lowered that cage down over the top of the truck. That gave him both a walkway out to the top of the truck and a safety cage so he could shut the hatch(es) that were opened while loading the truck.

 

There was a sign at the top of the steps that said, paraphrasing, if the safety cage didn't surround the hatch, go back down the stairs and reposition the truck.  Interesting aspect of the plant which would really add to the "atmosphere" of the facility if modeled, even though its not part of the operating scheme.

 

Another element of atmosphere, saw this guy wandering around scrounging for food...  And yes, he's inside the fence.

 

Deer also wouldn't be too surprising around the edges of the woods.  Three ran across the street in front of me in town later that evening

 

Having seen the facility, I would make this guess as to how it operated.  Loaded hopper cars are delivered in the center track.  The plant employees use the trackmobile to pull 2 or 3 cars (depending on which silo they were going to) to the end of the track, and then push them into the unloading bays.  The bays seemed to only be able to handle 1 car at a time, so as each car is unloaded, they reposition the cars.  Once those 2-3 cars are unloaded, the trackmobile would push them down to the far end of the "yard".  So, the outer two tracks are storage tracks for the empties.  Lather, rinse, and repeat.  I'm assuming that when the loaded cars are dropped off, the local would also pick up the empties off the outer two tracks.

I'm guessing the local which does the switching is based out of the Fitchburg yards (a few miles to the west) instead of Ayer (a few miles to the east).  This is based on the fact that I've seen plenty of covered hoppers sitting in Fitchburg, while Ayer seems to be mostly intermodal/autorack traffic at this point, not that that matters on the model railroad.

 

I took about 30 photos total.  If you want all the originals (also much larger, 3200 x 2400 instead of 800 x 600) let me know and I can send a zip of them via email...

Hope this helps.  

[Mike Boucher]

Oh, and just down the street is this:

 

 

That looks like a loading facility to me...  Its part of the P.J. Keating facility, totally unrelated to LaFarge, IFAIK.  I didn't have to ask anyone for permission for this photo, as I took it while sitting in my car on Reservoir Road.

[roundhouse]

Mike thank you very much for taking the time and effort to get those photos and thanks to those guys who let you wander around.

 

Some very useful photos there especially of the covered unloading points and the truck loading gantry.

 

It's amazing how clean the whole area is.

 

I will have to compress everything into the space that I have but it really does give me a good idea of what to do now.

 

Thanks again

 

Ian

[Glorious NSE]

If it helps, Walthers has just released a model of those access platforms.

[roundhouse]

Thanks Martin. Will get some of those.

 

Ian

[Gloucester Road]

Mike, glad you were able to get in the facility before i was. They might have had a bit more of a chukle at me as i would have been in my pilot unifirm.

[Colinw62]

If it helps, Walthers has just released a model of those access platforms.

Have you got the part number for these ?