Tinkering with Tiny bits of Plastic

Lately, my model railroading efforts seem to have taken on a distinct agricultural theme, with projects including a fertilizer plant and the first step at a grain elevator. I got to thinking...

One of the signature items I often see around grain elevators are augers. Seems every elevator worth their salt has at least one or two for various duty. A grain auger would be a great scratchbuilding project, wouldn't it? One way to find out-bust out the tools, the plastic cement, and a box of scrap plastic shapes waiting for a home. After a couple of evening's work, I had progressed this far:


Then last night, I managed to add a drive line to the top of the auger, along with a pair of tire and wheel assemblies (which aren't overly realistic, but clever, I tell myself). The drive line is Plastruct rod, and the brackets are tiny bits of for sale signs. The wheels are sections of 1/4" diameter dowel with the last of my big black shrink wrap shrunk on them. The grain hopper at the bottom is a bigger chunk of sign, bent around the auger with a flat end glued on. A few minutes with some craft paint yielded this:


Here's one more view of the itsy bitsy model, just over 7" long. The auger tube scales out to 8" diameter, which is realistic. But I forgot to include some type of motor to druve the auger! Something else to figure out.


This kind of small project is rewarding. It hardly costs anything, actually, I didn't have to go out and buy anything not already on hand to do it. Progress is quick enough to not get frustrated. And it's obviously not overly difficult or I couldn't do it.

Personally, it brought back memories of days gone by, almost 30 years gone by now, when I spent two plus years working in Bismarck, ND. Mrs. L4T and I were newlyweds, and one of my tasks was to assemble augers just like this one. I've learned a couple of things in the interim-HO scale augers are a lot less work to build, and being married is just as rewarding as it was way back then.

Break a Leg...

and you just might see some interesting action around the railroad. Today, in Fosston:


After my meeting, I stopped by the loading location and talked to a couple of elevator employees. Seems railcar loading is back in style in Fosston after a hiatus of about 20 years, when trucks were all the rage. While we were talking, I noticed an oddity on a couple of 15 year old covered hoppers-check the car numbers on these two cars:


During the discussion, I asked how many cars they can load. The younger of the employees told me they would have no trouble loading the 14 empties in one 8 hour shift. Then he added that they "were doing it the hard way, with an auger. The leg is broke on the elevator.". The "leg" in this case is the vertical conveyer for grain, and the leg in question served the elevator on the left in this photo:


I learned that the left elevator had been built some years back, with the mission of enabling the elevator to load 26 car trains. This resulted in a savings to the farmers, as the rate on the 26 car cuts was better than the single car rate. However, the grain car shortage and Duluth's preference for trucks spelled the end for trains, at least temporarily. As you can see, they are back now.

While I was shooting the elevator, I heard the horn of a GE and a glance at the crossing caught the gates dropping. Within seconds the westbound manifest was blasting across the street behind a warbonnet and a pumpkin.


I've shot a number of elevator switch engines around Minnesota, but there is no such thing in Fosston-car movement duties are performed by the same kind of power that helps get the crop in the ground.


Here's a shot of the spout that would normally be loading cars, if the broken leg hadn't interfered. Seems one man's loss is another man's gain-and today, it was me that gained, getting a chance to see some interesting action along the ROW and a fruitful discussion with some "insiders".


I can certainly see an elevator such as this having a home on my model pike someday. Lots to like here, from interesting action, to a size very appropriate to a model railroad, the chance to run a variety of older grain cars, and use some of the fine tractor models available. I took a bunch of photos to reference for the day when I get to try my hand at building this facility.

All for today,

Jim