C REAT E YO U R OW N K IT

MODELING CEMENT DEALERS
By Dan Hol brook Plans by Davi d Pri nce, Sureline G raph ics

The cement transloading operations and plants are real railroad industries you can duplicate on your model railroad. Here's how two retail cement dealers are supplied by the railroad, with plans and possible kit sources for your layout. Plans for the Portland cement manu facturing plant appeared in the May 1 992 a nd May 1 993 issues o "The f Journal. " P hotos of the A rundell Brooks retail cement plant near Bal timore, Maryland appeared in the No vember 1 992 issue .
ydraulic cement, commonly called simply "cement," is a combination of aluminates of lime and silicates. The most common use is for concrete, a mixture of cement, sand, water and gravel or crushed stone. Concrete is used mostly for highway construction, sidewalks, poured foundations, bridges and entire buildings. The most common cement is Portland c e men t . Port l a n d c e m e n t c o n s i sts mainly of hydraulic l ime and i s so named because it resembles a natural limestone found on the Isle of Portland in England. Cement is manufactured by crushing l imestone or limestone-type material and further grinding it into a powdered form in combination with water. This mixture is then heated in a shaft or verti cal kiln, and the resulting dry powder is bagged or shipped in bulk. This is a very simple explanation of the cement manu factured process. The complete process will be covered at a later date. Cement transloading facilities came into being during the late '60s and early '70s . Many smaller ready-mix plants were discontinuing the use of railroad delivered cement . The cost of pur chasing individual carloads of cement, sand and gravel continued to increase to the point that it was no longer cost-

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effective to receive single carload ship ments . A number of Portland cement manu facturers began to develop centralized transloading facilities at which central location receives cement via rail i n multiple car shipments and unloads the cement into a small silo. A truck loading facility is located adjacent to the silo. These trucks deliver the cement to ready-mix plants and construction sites. Instead of each location receiving ce ment by rai l , only one location was needed for receiving cement, and each plant ordering cement could order the amount needed , large or small. Two plants are presented in this article: Dun dee Cement at Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Lehigh Cement at Plainfield, Il lino i s . Both plants are basically the same with slight differences . 1 2lehigh Cement, Plainfield, illinois Lehigh Cement's transloading facility is located laong the Elgin, Joliet & East ern Railroad at Plainfield , Illinois. Plainfield is located about 3 5 m iles southwest of Chicago, making it central to most ready-mix and batch plant facili ties in the Chicago metro area. Note in the track diagram that this is a run through facility. Cars are set out on one end, pulled through the dumping build ing by a car-puller, and the empties placed on the other side. Lehigh Cement receives cement from the large Lehigh Cement plant at Mit chel, Indiana. This plant is located on the CSXT. Originally, this plant was served both by the Monon and the B&O. Prior to the CSXT mergers, most cars seen at the Plainfield transload facility were Monon cars, ususually cars in the 50000 and 5 2000 series. After the merger of the Monon into the L&N, later Seaboard System, and then CSXT, other types of cars were noted . Even as late as 198 8 , M onon cars were still
R AILMODEL JOURNAL - July 1 993

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