Prototype Highline

Early on, sugar beets were hauled in whatever was available to hold them: gondolas, hopper cars, box cars and even stock cars.  These were unloaded by hand with shovels and pitchforks and a small army of workers and stored in large piles at the factory until they could be processed.  This was slow, hard work and time was critical – beets began metabolizing their sugar as soon as they were pulled from the ground and the sugar yield would be low if they sat too long.

Later on the process was improved with the use of “high lines” consisting of a low trestle structure over water flumes.  Boards were laid across the flumes, the cars (side dump gondolas and hopper cars) were emptied over the boards then workers would remove a few boards at a time and push the beets into the flumes to be carried by a sluice into the factory.  One problem was the beet harvest was timed for late autumn and early winter. If rain or snow collected in the uncovered cars then froze, it was very hard to get the beets out of the cars.

A further improvement was the “wet hopper” as used in the Loveland factory.  Hot water was sprayed over the cars while they sat over a larger flume melting any ice present and providing an initial wash.  The Loveland wet hopper will be built later on.  For now, I’m concentrating on the Windsor high line.

Here is a photo from Gary Morgan’s “Sugar Tramp” book that shows the upper part of the high line.  There was a fairly steep incline to the right (on a sharp curve!) to get the height needed. You can see that the beets were piled pretty high with a crude fence keeping them in place before the flumes were opened.  The safety railing on the trestle is equally crude but served its purpose.

This photo from Kenneth Jessen’s book “The Great Western Railway” shows the details beneath the trestle.  You can see the concrete flumes covered by boards waiting for the beets to fall. Note the sloped areas alongside the flumes to help guide the beets. You can also see the concrete footings for the trestle bents.  I’m not sure about the purpose of the lattice work between the trestles but I suspect it was a later improvement that supported a tarp to protect the beets from bad weather.  In the middle front is a gate to control water flow from the flumes.

Unfortunately, by the time I got interested in this stuff (1985), the Windsor high line was long gone. However I was able to photograph some remains of the flumes to help guide my efforts. Below is a weed filled flume with some of the concrete trestle supports.

Some flume head gate detail.

More flume gate detail. The stick on top of the concrete is marked in feet.

So, all in all, not much to go on but enough to do a reasonable facsimile.  I would be pleasantly surprised if anyone with firsthand knowledge of the beet factory visited my layout and was able to offer a serious critique.

Model Base

My first thoughts on modeling the fume structure were based on finding some high quality wood material and using a router to carve flumes.  That would have required more precision that I am probably capable of.   My second thought was to start with some ¼” plywood and build up the flumes with basswood strips.  This sounded very doable … so I did it.

This picture shows the 10” wide by 42” long base of the high line with 1” x 3/16” basswood strips spaced 3/8” apart creating the flumes.  The flumes will be lined with 0.060” by 0.200” styrene strips to mimic the concrete sides.  The angled beet guides will be 3/8” by ¾” model airplane triangular shapes with styrene strips for the concrete.  The trestle bent supports will be 3/8” by 3/16” balsa strips cut to length. To gain some height in the trestle bents, I lowered the base 1” below the surrounding surface and will disguise the difference with the “crude fence”.

This shows the entry end of the high line with cribbing supporting the ramp (on a curve!) up to the required height.  The beginning of the trestle track can be seen on the left: basically Atlas code 83 flex track with long bridge ties inserted every so often to act as railing supports.   The trestle bents will be about 2” high.  I have quite a few to make but I have thought of some short cuts.

All but the ends of the flumes will be covered with two beet piles made from shaped extruded foam.  The three rear flumes will be “operating” – boards being removed with beets moving from a thick pile into the factory.  The front three flumes will be covered with boards with a low beet pile “just being started”.  I will built short trestle bents for the tops of the piles and full length bents for the end areas.  At least, that’s the plan.   

Below is the head gate at the other end of the base.  This collects the six under-trestle flumes and combines them into a single larger sluice heading off to the factory.

Stay tuned for more details as they develop.

Looks Great George

George,

  Wow I love it information and the work done. I am just enjoying all the work you have done amd it is making my job easier. Do you have anything on the Loveland dump as I have room to model that. I would like to know where you are getting a lot of your research from I not finding much on the sugar mills. Keep up the work and the photos!

Mike

Thanks

Thanks Mke.  I'll respond to your questions via e-mail.

As a person who works

As a person who works currently at a beet factory in Moorhead MN, this is pretty cool.  At my factory we recently redid some concrete work where we found some leftovers of a similar fluming system you have there.  The trains never went over the top to dump them in the flume/sluice piles, I am pretty sure this was piled up with loaders and flumed in when they processed that pile. This factory was built in '48  The trains did deliver the beets from the outside piling stations up until the early '60's I believe, after that its been trucks.  The tracks went up and over the wet hopper to dump the beets in.  We had a system that had what we called drenching tower pumps, that would literally flood the beets out of the drop bottom gondolas into the wet hopper.  The ramp leading up to the hopper is still there. 

I have been tempted to model this factory from the 1950's, but it doesn't fit into the Milwaukee road scheme that I am planning, but we shall see.  If you need any specific information on sugar factories let me know I can fill you in. 

Brent

More progress (finally)

Progress has been slow due to vacations, book reading, more vacations, holidays and general slothfulness.   My last posting was Sept 13 (oh, my).  I was holding off taking photos until there was enough to show but, due to lack of planning, I couldn’t do “this” until “that” was done and “this” kept bring pushed off.  Now that all the “thats” are done, I’m ready to make good progress but I needed photos of the intermediate steps before they are covered by next steps.

After the base was finished, I added styrene strips to form the edges of the flumes and the sloped areas that guide beets into the flumes.  Basswood bent footings were added and all was painted in concrete colors.  Thinned black acrylic paint was used to darken the lower parts of the flumes – mud and dirty water leave their marks. Dirt was used for ground cover between the concrete slabs.  Ignore the splats – they will be covered by beet piles.  

This is an overall shot of the flume area.  The empty space between the bents will be low and high beet piles with shorter bents.  I probably have not spaced the bents close enough but I did not relish making a lot of them.  The trestle only needs to hold loaded beet cars so the spacing seems OK to me. 

The flumes use a lot of water so  I used “modelers license” to imagine how the water got there. A nice 3’ pipe comes from the factory and each flume has its own valve to control water flow.  The valves are from the scrap box – fire hydrants and brake wheels.  The J-shaped pipe underneath is large gauge solder.  The supports are fire escape pieces.  Plastruct supplied the walkway railing. More rusting, some beet dusting and weathering is still needed.

The missing bents have been filled in.  The beets on the higher pile (now just carved extruded foam) hide the bent timbers with just the top beam exposed.  This reduces the number of complete bents needed by four. This pile is assumed to be already dumped and is being flumed into the factory.

The lower beet pile covers the base of the front bents making them easier to build. The baseless bents are glued into holes in the foam; beets will cover the unsightly holes.  I had a lot of trouble assembling the bents.  I created a nice styrene jig to hold the timbers but didn’t have much luck with glue.  I tried yellow glue but it oozed out and glued the bent to the jig, even though I had some relief behind the joints. I eventually used gap-filling CA but that doesn’t seem especially strong. The bents are fragile but tough enough once they are in place under the trestle.

Overview of the entire beet dump.  Enough bents for me.  Once the piles are covered with beets, all the ugly gaps will be filled in. That’s some sweet pipe there.

In operation, workers place boards over the flumes to cover them while beets are piled on top.   Once the beet hopper unloading is finished, water is turned on and boards are removed one by one to allow the beets to fall into the flumes.   This end had boards over all the flumes.  The back set is the last to be removed for the completed pile.  The front set is longer since the front pile is just being dumped.  They will be glued down (the middle front board set seems to be up a bit).    

The other end has the boards removed from the front of the rear pile.  Many loose boards will be scattered alongside the flumes with beets moving down the flume. The front pile is just being built so it is completely covered by boards.

With the [unfinished] trestle bridges in place, you can get a feel for the beet dump.  The bents don’t look spaced too far apart now.  There will be walkways and railings added later which will hide the bents even more. I may add darker weathering to the ties.  But beets are dusty, dirty things so I imagine the trestle will also be dirty and dusty.  We’ll see how it plays out overall.  

Beet gondolas and hoppers in place!  Still lots of details to add – beets everywhere,  bumpers at the end of the trestles, flume outlet gates, boards along the sides of the dump, etc. I definitely will add a number of worker figures doing typical highline jobs with shovels.

I just couldn’t resist dumping a spoonful of beets on the pile just to see how they were going to look.  It’s sort of like laying the first couple of feet of track and running an engine back and forth on it just to see it finally work.

I keep on the lookout for suitable model sugar beets.  I’ve been using “cracked wheat” from the grocery store bulk bins for most of the other beet piles and loads.  It has the right texture for a pile of beets from a distance but does not have the appearance of individual beets.  I also have small grain rice that has the right shape but wrong color so it would need painting.  I found “bulgur wheat” while browsing in a Eugene “hippy” grocery store recently. I think it will work out very well. It has the right size and shape and a good color.  I’m pretty excited by the possibilities.

George

That is spectacular! Really enjoying following your progress.

 Growing up in central California I fondly remember seeing the old beet gons every season lumbering along on the way to their destination but I never actually saw the plants they were headed for so this is very interesting.

Beets

Millet scales out pretty well but it needs a flat finish, and the size is almost too uniform.

Very Intersting

I like the approach you have taken with the trestle and dump. I often find myself planning to build everything in exact detail, even if it will never be seen. The approach of figuring out what you can omit before construction can really improve poductivity.

I also got a good laugh about the "Hippy" store in Eugene as I sit here in town visiting family. It is always amazing and interesting what you will see when you are in Eugene.

Getting Closer

I’ve been doing more work on the Windsor highline and the associated factory area.  Gee, there is an awful lot of detail required to put this together.

I’ve weathered the flume water inlets a little with some light rust effects.  The flume cover boards are now secured in place.  The beet forms and beets are in place.  I need to fill in some beets towards the front edge of the larger pile.  The idea here is to show a full pile with beets being fumed from the other end and a pile of beets just being started (nearer the camera).  The large pile covers the middle bents while the small pile only covers the foot of the bents. The will be a five foot high fence of 4x12 boards on both the front and back of the flume area where the little vertical piece of wood is now.

There is a lot of new detail on this end of the flumes. The front three flumes are covered with boards and the new pile is just starting to cover them.  The rear three flumes have the cover boards removed and beets are flowing in the flumes.  The boards are removed a few at a time and the beets pushed into the flumes. There will be a number of worker figures here working on the beets.

I’ve added some head gates on each flume.  The three in the front are closed, blocking any water flow.  The three in the rear are open allowing beets to flow into the sluice ways and into the factory.  The gate with white handles is to keep the beets going  the right direction.   Once I get some figures positioned along the flumes, I will add some diagonal bracing to the rear bents.  There are 80 boards across each flume.

The 4x12 fence will hide the front piece of wood and the blue edge of the Styrofoam.   

Note the “machinery” under the corrugated building in the background.  I wanted some lumpy looking things under there, mostly hidden from view. The majority of things are Athearn Blue Box engine motors and gear box pieces parts, painted dingy grey. They look kind of like blowers and vents.  If you squint.  

This end of the highline has an assortment of buildings to give the impression a busy place. The gray metal buildings are old Suydam mine buildings from my 1978 era layout (nothing much goes to waste).  They represent a lime kiln and beet pulp processing facilities.  Most of the real factory buildings were brick but modeler’s license goes a long way.

The sluice way has a rusted corrugated metal  cover over it – we don’t want any workers falling into the sluice and getting processed into Soylent Green.  There will also be a railing in front of the sluice at the end of the flumes.  The building with the slanted conveyer  sends the limestone and coke to the kiln.

I’m working on the walkway supports for the trestle.  The walkway will be a pair of 2x16 boards supported by a kludged structure.  I’ve chopped up some Plastruct “1/4” truss” pieces to make the triangular support.  It is glued to some 2x10 styrene strips with an 080” styrene reinforcement.  They are glued to the longer ties on the trestle.  Plastruct HO railings will fit across the supports then the wood strips for the walkway will be added.  I had to make 120 of these supports.  Took a while.  I had to buy the railings directly from Plastruct since no hobby shop carries more than a couple of then at a time -  I needed 16 packs.  

A view of the highline so far.  The coke pile is in the left front and the coal pit is in the right front.  Behind the highline (left to right) are the lime kiln, beet pulp processing building, pulp dryer, pulp storage bins and the pulp warehouse.  Once the trestle railing is in place, the supports will be painted grey with rust colored trusses and faded white railings - they won’t stand out quite so much.  

Note to other modelers – if you are going to make a highline, make it shorter.  There’s a lot of work here. It makes me appreciate the guys modeling the enormous Great Lakes ore docks!

Windsor Beet Highline – Finale

My interpretation of the Windsor sugar beet unloading highline is complete except for whatever minor details I think are appropriate (to be determined after living with it for awhile).  It was a long project completed over  6 months of part-time effort.

The final phase was adding the railings and walkways on the trestle structure.  Even though they are not a duplicate of the actual structure, I think they serve the purpose  of keeping workers from falling into the flumes.  The railings were assembled from Plastruct parts glued to the uprights. A grey undercoat was dry brushed with white to give a weathered appearance.  The walkways are 4x12 strip wood stained with India ink and alcohol.

The entrance to the highline is a ramp up to the trestle level, on a curve like the prototype.  Shown here is GWR No. 101 pulling a hopper after being emptied.  I think my next project will be to paint and decal some of the steam engines I’ve been collecting.  This is a Bachmann 0-6-0 that I modified with a working front coupler.  The GW had two of these switchers with slope-back tenders. 

This is the water inlet for the flumes.  Bob the Water Tender is standing by waiting for the beet pile to be finished so he can turn on the water.  This also shows the fence along the flumes that allow the pile to get high enough.  It is constructed from 4x12s with track ties and 4x4 supports.  The hopper car was built by a friend and donated a long time ago. It represents one of the used hoppers purchased from another railroad.

Here is a close-up of the flumes.  This shows the water flowing and moving beets from the rear pile into the factory. The boards that covered the flume when the beet were unloaded are stacked along the flumes.  The orange pipe in the rear is the 3’ diameter water pipe to the inlets.  The beets were covered with acrylic glaze to get the wet effect. 

Here is more detail under the trestle.  Some of the workers are poling the beets along the flumes to keep them moving.  Beets are recalcitrant beasts and need constant herding.   The three loafers are standing on the covered front flumes and better watch out for falling beets.

This is the other end of the flumes with head gates and a diverter valve to direct the beets.  Corrugated steel covers the sluiceway leading into the receiving building.  Jack the Flume Master stands by the fence making sure all is going smoothly.  I think I may need a ladder or stairway at this end to get up to the walkway.  The building in front is the conveyer building for coke and limestone.  Small piles of each need to be added here.  The mobile crane to the left helps load the material.

A long shot of the competed highline, all 42” of it.   The buildings behind are (from left to right) the lime kiln, the beet pulp plant, the pulp drying building, the pulp bulk  bins and the pulp warehouse.  Beet pulp is leftover from sugar beet processing and is mixed with molasses as cattle feed.

Very Very Nice

I can smell it from here!

Thanks

 Ken,

Thanks.  I noticed you were also modeling sugar beet related things when scanning through some Google images. It sure is hard to find detailed photos of this stuff. Do you have other sources?

Looks Great

George,

    That looks fanatic.  The whole thing is coming together very well.

Thanks

 Thanks Mike.  After spending all that time, I do feel a little fanatical about it.

I hope you can use some of the ideas in your beet factories. I'm going to start working on the Loveland factory next.  First up is a kitbashed water tank for teh factory then building up the sugar silos.  Next is the wet hopper - maybe something you can use.

possable kitbash

George,

     Here is a kit that might be worth looking at. David has an HO scale sugar mill.

http://www.bergennationallaser.com/

Inspiration

George, your blog has been an inspiration to me as I build my (modern) Colorado Central Railroad, a freelance effort based in north central Colorado circa 1959.  Your crowning jewel for me though has been your high lines at Windsor -- just fantastic.  I hope I can do half as well on my sugar beet factory at Brighton.  Thanks.

Ric Zimmerman

http://www.coloradocentral.weebly.com

Thanks

Thanks Ric. Good luck on the Brighton facility.  Post photos when you make progress.