Ready Mixed

Ready Mixed got their first cars from the IAIS on September 4, 2005: 

Their unloading pit is highlighted in the Google image below:

Loads of cement were spotted from the west (left) and the empties were shoved out toward the east.  Here are a few views of the unloading operation and that movement of empties:

At the time this was happening, I always assumed that the trucks were just being used as conveyors to move the cement to the plant's silos, but Clark Propst, a friend on the Proto-Layouts list who retired from the cement industry, suggested that they must have had a large job somewhere that they were trucking this to.

A total of 22 loads were received before this move stopped for the winter.  Conveniently for modelers, those loads moved in just 10 cars cycling between a dock transload from ship in Chicago to Ready Mixed in Council Bluffs.  Thankfully, I was able to shoot all 10 cars involved.  Unfortunately, only 40% are available in HO scale:

• 4 - NRLX Thrall 3250cf (no known model)
• 2 - GACX Trinity 3260cf rib-side (no known model)
• 2 - NRLX Trinity 3221cf (virtual clones of the American Limited and Walthers 3281s)
• 1 - GBRX ACF/ARI 3256cf Center Flow (Similar to Intermountain 2980cf)
• 1 - ITLX Trinity 3000cf rib-side (early Walthers "Trinity two-bay cement service" model)

I have two American Limited 3281s and one Intermountain 2980 on the way to cover my rolling stock needs.  For the semi tractor, I ordered a Promotex/Herpa Mack tri-axle dump truck that'll be modified to remove the dump bed and add a fifth wheel.  For the trailer, this Heil model has been ordered from Shapeways, to be modified to represent the tri-axle Fruehauf.

By the way, if you guys haven't checked out Barry Clements' Shapeways shop, he's got a ton of great models out there.  Here's a link to his HO offerings , but you can choose other scales using the menu on the left once this opens.

And Bill Brillinger, if you sensed a disturbance in the force, yes, this probably means there's another decal order spinning up for you.

Very cool...

Cool stuff, thanks for posting, and congrats on a new operating industry! 

I have one of Barry's trucks for the trans-load operation at my Monsanto plant. I'ts nice. 

Randy

On the layout

Finally, a couple glimpses of where Ready Mixed will sit on the layout.  First, a view of their lot looking east, to the right of the abandoned Wilson Concrete facility.  The mixer truck is in the Ready Mixed lot, and the MOW flat is on the Ready Mixed siding (referred to as the Steel Dock on the IAIS due to coil steel transloading that occurred there a few years prior to my era).

And here's a view looking west when Wilson Concrete was still under construction, with the Steel Dock track circled in red and the Ready Mixed lot being the big empty space on the left.

Joe - I get a kick about how

Joe - I get a kick about how different we model railroaders approach things.  I'm just a little less precises in my approach:

Era - anything without a roof walk.  But I did make an exception for a red, white and blue, BAR boxcar.  It was one of my favorite boxcars in my Lionel stuff when I was a kid.

Place - roughly the industrial area around 72nd & F. But I moved Airlite Plastics from it's location in North Omaha because I liked it and had a bunch of hopper cars.

Locomotives - 2 axle diesel. But my 3 year old grandson thinks the Lionel GG-1 is pretty cool. So the Kato N scale version might make an appearance now and then.  It may look funny switching out those hoppers.

OK - I may be more than "a little" less precise. 

See you later, gs

Welcome Ready Mixed!

I like your thinking on how this industry will go from passive to active on your layout. Small compromises in our adherence to era timeframe and prototype fidelity can payoff in big increases in operational satisfaction. I have made some of these "compromises" on my September 1956 B&O layout involving passenger operations, level of industry activity, and loco & caboose assignments to the sub-division. My operational "fun factor" has increasead 1000% over what it would have been if I had not been so flexible. 

Looking forward to more of these ideas and how they manifest themselves at "the ballast level".

Fran Giacoma

one down so new one steps up?

Do you know the reasoning behind one plant closing and a new one starting up at the same place? ,,,,,DaveB

Similar situation.

Joe, 

I've got a similar situation on the branchline I model. There is an active spur receiving shipments to a building supply business (they had service until the line folded). At the end of the spur is a still active transload seafood outfit. The spur goes all the way back to the seafood outfit and they have loading doors at 50' spacing. But I've never been able to confirm 100% that they received shipments by rail because well refers where on the branchline by the boatload for diary up the line.

The diary that was active shipping out loads of cheese and butter and would get up 6-8 cars at once. 

When I look at photos of trains on the branchline, and see refers I can't say if they are for the dairy or the seafood transload...

My decision will come down to how much space I have for Seafreeze or if it gets skipped all together.

Ready Mixed

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

Randy - Nice to know that you found Barry.  He's got some models that, while not necessarily cheap, I've never seen elsewhere aside from brass.

George, that cracked me up!  Whatever's fun for you is the right way to do it.

Fran - I really appreciate your encouragement.  To be honest, I've been having doubts today about whether this is the right way to go, but I keep reminding myself that my earlier compromises mentioned above seem completely natural now, and fit well with my operations. 

Most importantly, I don't think many of us are likely to choose a one-month period and find everything we want in the ops that occurred then.  For example, if I backdated to April or moved forward to June to accommodate a time when the fertilizer dealers were getting cars, I'd have to either do without unit grain trains that ran in May and June, or do without some favorite locomotives that left the railroad in May.  As long as I stay "anchored" in May for the vast majority of my decisions and stick to my boundaries mentioned above for a very occasional compromise, my plans remain rooted in the prototype, which should keep my spending under control.

Dave, with all my talk about concrete plants lately, I probably wasn't very clear.  Ready Mixed - the plant being discussed here - was built sometime between about 1954 (when the RI yard there was replaced) and 1969, and remains active today.  Wilson Concrete, the abandoned plant that I recently completed, was built in 1972.  In about 2001, Wilson was purchased by Lyman-Richey, the parent company of Ready Mixed, and then torn down in 2006.  So I'm guessing that Lyman-Richey was just doing away with some competition.

Craig, that's interesting about that seafood transload.  Tough call!  Regarding the reefers you saw in pics, can you get any clues from the blocking at all?  For example, are any of them blocked next to cars for the building supply company, or positioned in such a way relative to other cars that it wouldn't make sense from the switching involved for them to be for the dairy or vice versa?

Blocking of refers.

Joe,

Unfortunately the blocking doesn't help. Woodinville (the "mainline" and holding location for the refers would have 12-24 refers sitting mixed with other inbound freight. One local (North Bend/ Maltby Turn) worked the branch, another local (Kirkland Turn) interchanged with each other at Woodinville. To,make things even more complicated, both the Kirkland Turn and the Maltby would leave the branchline and go get more cars at the bigger yards.

Point being refers (and other cars) came in from two directions to Woodinville for temp. storage. Once the North Bend/Maltby needed the cars they would dig them out of Woodinville, so then the next issue is that the dairy would be switched first, but it came past the Seafreeze place (trailing point on the return to Woodinville). So refers could pass the Sea Freeze place before possibly getting spotted, but then the returning train would have refers from the dairy on the way back. The photos I have seen all show refers but between the two locations, going both directions...

@Craig

Craig,

Off topic from Joe's posting (sorry, Joe!), but I just want to say you sure have brought back some memories for me, as I lived in Kirkland from the late 80's through 2010, and often saw the very trains you've described, including the blocks of reefers up in Issaquah.  Fond memories!

Al Carter, Mount Vernon, WA

Joe, you have so little self-control and will power....

ah, just jerking your chain....you are one of the most disciplined modelers I know.

Congrats on finding the perfect 'new' Customer to let you run a favorite rolling stock type....

Have fun building and running the new fleet

Thank you Loren! That means a

Thank you Loren! That means a lot. I honestly don’t try to be disciplined - that’s just where my natural preferences take me. I’ve found that if I get too loosey-goosey with my choices for the layout, my enjoyment level starts to drop, so I try to be really careful when “easing up” like this. Very easy for me to overdo it. 

Update

I'm making a bit of progress.  My Promotex/Herpa Mack CH dump truck arrived...

...and while there's a lot more to do, I got started by removing the bed, adding the fifth wheel, drilling out the frame, and moving the #1 driving axle to the raised position.

Intermountain and American Limited covered hoppers arrived, and I've begun the process of removing some of the factory lettering (only from the IM so far) in order to remark them.  The plan is to strip and repaint the mixer trucks, decorating them for Ready Mixed at the same time as I do the semi.

Here's the trailer I ordered (photo from Model Railroad & Space Models by Barry Clements on Shapeways):

Given how severely I had to compress this space, I've been giving some thought as to what areas of the Ready Mixed lot are most representative of their operation, as it's a sizable facility.  Here's the Google Maps image, flipped to match the view on the layout.  The yellow highlight shows the location of the cement transload on their siding:

After a lot of deliberation, here's how I've decided to compress it, including only the concrete plant itself with a much-shortened conveyor, the aggregate pile that feeds that conveyor, and a second conveyor extending toward the aisle, feeding the aggregate pile from a truck dump.

The semis would have to back into the transload with the above arrangement, but that appears to be exactly what they did on the prototype, circling the aggregate piles counter-clockwise and then backing into the space next to the transload.

In order to provide more room for everything, I'm going to have to extend the lot further toward the aisle.  Now if I could only remember what color I painted it!  I guess it's not a huge deal if it doesn't match exactly, as the prototype lot has expanded through the years.

Routing

Fascinating they brought cement in from so far away and it was cost effective... but that not neither here no there any idea what other railroad was involved in the move since the IAIS doesnt serve any lake docks in Chicago?

Other railroad

Hi RWeebel - That was Chicago Rail Link.

Vehicles complete

Yesterday I completed the "supporting cast" for Ready Mixed - the vehicles that I'll need for the transload operation, and most - possibly all - I'll need for the plant itself.

First up, here's one of the prototype pics of this scene that's driving a lot of what I'm planning:

And here's the scene so far:

While far from an exactly replica, this Atlas Ford pickup made a decent stand-in in my opinion.  It's a few years newer than the truck shown in the proto pic above (though still fitting within my May 2005 era), and it's an extended cab, but with vehicle options being what they are, it didn't bother me too much to use it.  It was by far the easiest model of the five I built here, only needing disassembly, repainting, and new Ready Mixed logos for the doors.  (I'm sorry Bill Brillinger, but my inner cheapskate won out this time, and I printed my own on printer paper. )  I just grabbed Ready Mixed logos off their web site, resized them for HO, printed, and sanded the back of the paper until I could see the logo on the other side, then I glued it to the model using Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue.  I didn't realize until I started posting these pics that I forgot to do the license plates on all these vehicles, so that'll be a task for the next phase of this project.  Weathering was with PanPastels.

Here's the completed Herpa tractor with factory details, a new horn, and new paint and logos applied, along with the Shapeways trailer.  The trailer frame was extended on both ends to allow for a longer hitch platform up front and the addition of a third axle and associated fender extensions in back.  New bracing was also added to both ends to match the prototype, and the ladder was replaced with one built from Central Valley ladder stock and moved to the side of the trailer.  I think the only other modification was to replace the too-heavy hose hanger on the front of the trailer with wire.

After primer and paint, I applied logos using same method mentioned for the pickup above, then added reflector striping along the sides of the front and rear fenders.  The last step - the addition of the red trailer stripes on both sides of the trailer - actually turned out to be the most difficult part of this project.  I have no idea what the three "bumps" are supposed to represent on the prototype's stripes, but modeling them with red stripes from a Microscale UP diesel set was really a challenge.  In the end, I just applied the various decal segments overlapping one another just a bit, then came back once they were dry and sliced off the overhang with a new Xacto blade and scraped away the excess.

Here's a prototype pic of one of the Ready Mixed mixer trucks. 

...and here's a closer view of the kitbashed Athearn models.  I didn't think to shoot mixer trucks during my era, and since I don't know if Ready Mixed trucks all had the extended frame shown above at that time, I didn't bother to modify the models to represent it.  I did shorten the front bumper frame to remove what I believe was pumping equipment represented there on the Athearn model, and also added the raised wheelset on the back of the mixer drum from Walthers mixer trucks I cannibalized for the Wilson Concrete plant.

As with the vehicles shown above, these were both repainted and got homemade Ready Mixed logos.

There's still a LOT more to do on this scene obviously, with aggregate piles and a scratchbuilt batch plant in my future, but for now, I plan to only take it as far as finishing a few touch-ups on these vehicles (e.g. adding license plates, as well as the numbers I forgot on the mixer trucks), adding the dump pit, auger, and "driver's lounge" for the transload (shown below)...

...and finally, adding new reporting marks and weathering to the cement cars dedicated to this service.

(Note in the proto pic at the top of this post that the Ready Mixed employee has chosen to forego the luxurious driver's lounge and is instead relaxing on the patio using the bucket seen on the right in the above pic.  Yeah, I think I'm obligated to model that! )

Fabulous as always

Great work Joe.   The whole idea is great. The trucks really turned out well.  Great eye.  Like one of the other comments, your era discipline is incredible.  Nicely done!

The “drivers lounge” would’ve a great addition, either the bucket or the soccer mom chair in the other picture  

Steve

Steve

Thank you Steve!  I really appreciate that.

The "drivers lounge" is still planned for this scene when I add the dump pit and auger - hopefully in the next few days once I figure out how to create all the components.  It was already in place on the prototype a month before Mr. Bucket showed up to load, so I thought it'd be fun to model both.  Such a cool scene with the guy just sitting there contemplating life, ignoring all the plush seating options in favor of his bucket.

Looking good!

The trucks look very realistic.  Apparently this site mixes batches of concrete and also sells bulk cement to someone? or perhaps they have another site somewhere without rail service and just tranfer the cement? ......DaveB

Dave

Thank you very much Dave.  That's a good question about the cement.  They definitely make batch concrete, as our driveway and some recent retaining wall repairs were all sourced from there.  However, I haven't yet learned why they transloaded from rail to truck back in 2005-2006.  My long-standing assumption was that the cement was for this plant, and the trucks just saved them from having to make expensive modifications to get the cement from the siding to their silo.  However, a friend on the Proto-Layouts list who spent his career at a cement plant said they were most likely trucking this to an on-site mixer somewhere for a very large job.

I've tried stopping by to ask, but haven't yet caught them when their office has been unlocked.  In the process of posting about these vehicles on Instagram today, I found an account belonging to their parent company, so I may try asking there.  In our post-9/11 world, I feel like outsider questions about industry - even something as innocuous as a concrete plant - might be looked at with some concern, but at least they can see what I'm up to from the pics in my IG feed.

Great job on the trucks

Joe, great job on the trucks and explaining the steps you took to modify them to suit your needs. The transloading dry bulk trailer came out really nice with the extension of the frame and additional rear axle. I would not have known you made the modifications unless you told us. The cement mixers are a very close match and capture the look of the prototype perfectly. Your next cement industry is coming along nicely, I can't wait until you finish the entire scene and post some photos.

Thomas Klimoski

Modeling the Georgia Northeastern Railroad

Mack CH model

Joe I doubt the Mack in your picture is a tri dem tractor. Seeing where the trailer pin would be located in the picture tells me it's a tandem. Cement trailers weight out not cube out. The trailer would also be a tandem not a tri axle. I've driven plenty of Mack's in my life and only low boy tractors or heavy haul tractors would have a third lift axle. All the weight added by the lift axle and the third axle on the trailer would limit your cement load by about 3000 lbs. Otherwise a very nice job. ----------- Ken 

Tom

Thank you very much Tom.  This plant might be one of those projects I’m still working on a year from now. 

Ken

Hi Ken - Thanks for your message.  I went round and round with myself over that same question, but I think the prototype answered it for me.  I certainly could be wrong, and I welcome correction, but with what I see right now anyway, I think the evidence supports both tri-axle tractor and trailer.

First of all, regarding the tractor, I'm pretty sure that the first driving axle we see in the 2005 pic below is in the raised position.  Note its proximity to the fender, which is fixed to the frame, as well as what seems to be either bare tread, or at the very least, tires that didn't seem to make contact with all the concrete dust that the rear axle tires did on the way through the Ready Mixed lot.  Also, the fact that the fender extends over only the first axle, which seems to be consistent with other Ready Mixed tri-axles I've seen more recently.

Also, just above the railhead, at the position of the yellow arrows on either side of the pickup tire, you can see the tires from the tractor's third driving axle, with the wheel and sidewall visible above the left arrow and the tread above the right.

As for the trailer, that's a bit tougher since I foolishly didn't shoot the wheels, but in my research, I've not yet found a tandem-axle dry bulk trailer that had more than one set of backward-angled supports under the front of the hopper.  The trailer above clearly has two sets, which seems to correlate with the extended frame of a tri-axle.

Finally, while again not conclusive evidence, every other dry bulk cement trailer owned by Ready Mixed that I've seen since I started paying attention (which granted was recently, more than 15 years after my era), as well as every tractor (both Macks and their newer Peterbilts) has been a tri-axle, including three I've seen in traffic in just the last few days. I believe the Macks have been of a similar vintage to the one in my 2005 photos above.  Below are a few examples:

From a Google Maps view of the plant, this view of what I think is a Mack based on the horn location and the lack of a chrome visor over the windshield that seems to be common for their Petes: