Blair Nebraska

Several years ago I worked in Northeast Nebraska.  There was a corn syrup plant in Blair Nebraska (NE Nebraska on the Missouri River).  I checked Gogle Earth and Windows Local Search you can get a current Bird's Eye View of the plant.

I would think the new Walthers ethanol plant would be a good start for a corn syrup processing plant.

Is this it?

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Blair+Nebraska&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=AHCTSuOrFoPatgOv-PjQDw&ll=41.533511,-96.101146&spn=0.022263,0.026565&t=h&z=15&iwloc=A

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Blair+Nebraska&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=AHCTSuOrFoPatgOv-PjQDw&t=h&ll=41.5347,-96.100459&spn=0.022487,0.036478&z=14&iwloc=A&output=embed
View Larger Map

It's slightly to the east of town, on the river.

Look up "Kraft Food"

Look up "Kraft Food" industries on the internet!! I have no photos but we do have a Kraft Food plant here in Winchester Virginia. The Winchester & Western Railroad brings about 10 cars of Corn syrup every Day plus twice that many sealed flour cars they are pulled & pushed into a 4 track yard of which two tracks are through a large garage. Then side by side 4 cars per track inside the Garage structure, the Corn syrup is pumped out on one track and Flour is dumped into a center of track pit that resembles an ash pit of the steam era except it has a system that pushes this box up against the bottom of the car that has a conveyor system inside and under it.  At one time I had considered Modeling the Winchester & Western and watched the procedure. There are Pipes 4inch, 6inch, 8inch, & 12inch that take the two products to large cylinders (5) large on end type about 60 to 100 feet tall. Never really measured. Also a couple of what look like half size tanks you would see at a oil refinery for Syrup storage.

Second industry The  Whitehouse Foods corp has about 15 Cars  of Corn syrup twice a week delivered on the other end of town. They are one of the largest producers of canned Fruit Mostly apple sauce. The other large Delivery to them is by Trucks during Apple Harvest season they receive 10 to 20 of those long flat bed Trucks full of crates of apples every day for a few weeks in August, Sept, and October. Out going is lots of Box Cars filled with Boxes of both canned and jars in 12 packs of Apple Sauce also large Tractor trailer Trucks as many as 15 a day every day. I have a couple friends that work there and told me the company load Box cars and trucks 24 hours a day 6 days a week closed on Sunday. On Sunday the entire facility is steam cleaned top to bottom.

Hope this helps a little.

Dan

corn syrup

lots of great info, thats what I'm  looking for, at the club we are expanding into a new location, and I plan on building a back drop with the buildings and having all the tanks and piping out front. the pictures and info really helps keep coming with more.

I will try to remember to

I will try to remember to take my digital camera to work with me tomarrow. I drive all over north Virginia all day and I'll try to get by the 2 plants and get some photos of the Train areas and the corn syrup cars if any are at the plants.

Dan

Los Angeles corn syrup

Anybody in LA with a camera?  There's a corn syrup offloading facility on Roundout St a couple of blocks from the old cornfield yard near Chinatown.  I'll edit this with better directions when I can.

A quick look with Google earth seems to indicate that the facility does not exist,anymore.  It has apparently been way too long since I railfanned/explored that area.  Which brings up a point:  if you see something interesting, and have a camera,  take some shots  It may be gone tomorrow.

Take pictures when you can.

I can certainly echo Don's comments about making sure to take pictures when you can do it. I have an article on Corn Syrup offloading facilities coming out in the 2010 Model Railroad Planning in January. In it, I discuss the industry a little and the reason that the offloading facilities are nice, reasonably sized places to model, yet they can add a lot of operation interest because of the nature of corn syrup grades. Cars are frequently emptied on either side of a car that has a particular grade in it that has to go back to that spot. In the article, I include photos of two offloading facilities here in MA, one in Westboro, MA and the other in Framingham, MA. Well, since I was preparing that article (last winter) the facility in Framingham is gone, poof! The foundation has even been removed. The tracks are still there, but there is nothing left. Fortunately for me, I have lots of pictures of that plant. It was the more interesting (i.e. more difficult) of the facilities to model because it had outdoor storage tanks and the associated piping. I have detailed photos of the piping and tanks of that plant, which I have taken while I was working over in Framingham Yard.

If you are interested in some of the photos I can see if I can dig them up.

Jim