Asphalt Plant

I currently put up an asphlat plant on my HO scale layout. I have two sidings coming in from a spur to service the plant. Was wondering if anyone had any good ideas as to what type of cars to be running to make my scene realistic. My era is current, primarily CSX in the Northeast. What type of cars is the asphalt shipped in, gravel, (and how unloaded), etc? Any help would be appreciated...

Id be curious to know this as well. Theres currently one of these that was just installed at the end of a siding at my club. No idea what I should be putting down there but I am sure everyone else will just put whatever they want....

Asphalt is made from heavy tar, sand, gravel, and crushed stone. So, a plant would receive hopper cars with stone or gravel, covered hoppers for sand, and tank cars for tar. In addition, the plant would require fuel for heating the asphalt mixture so maybe fuel could be delivered in propane tank cars or conventional tank cars carrying fuel oil. As far as unloading the hoppers, maybe an elevated trestle or a sunken pit could be used.

Ron Mele

Ah crap. Were gonna need more tracks up there then!!!!

I should have maybe added a few more sidings then.... Thanks for the replies, any specific tank car types for the ashalt, should it be all black or some have a gray band around them? And for the hopper cars? I see that Walthers has now put out a CSX 40' 100 ton open aggreagate car but didn't know if any have been seen in the Northeast or should I stick with a 2 or 3 bay hopper or even a Difco side dump car? Didn't want to have to cut out a drop down pit for the gravel. Guess I'll have to figure that one out. But thanks again.

Ashphalt is generally shipped in coiled and insullated 20,000 to 23,000 gallon DOT-111's. The cars are put on steam lines to get the Ashpalt to flow through the bottom outlet. Either the Atlas ACF 23,500 gallon model, or the Walthers- Union Tank Design 23,000 gallon model will do. The cars are generally black, with black spil area's right arount the manway area, the glossy black areas. Generally they do not have much in the way of owner or lessor advertising on the sides.

Actually, the Ortner 100 ton aggregate cars are the ideal car for an asphalt plant. Tilcon sends crushed stone over the Providence and Worcester into Queens, NY and interchanges with the NY & A, who delivers the cars to the asphalt plant on LI..so they are in New England and an ideal fit...

Approach Medium,

You could "cheat" a bit...since there is only one small track in there, use the extra track at Dragon Cement to leave cars then the local switcher would just have to change out the different kinds of cars.

V

zablocki22 wrote:Approach Medium,

You could "cheat" a bit...since there is only one small track in there, use the extra track at Dragon Cement to leave cars then the local switcher would just have to change out the different kinds of cars.

V

Good idea. I can always count on you for a good idea.

Asphalt sand is not shipped in covered hoppers....the same cars that are used for stone would be correct. If you're short of space, don't worry about including the liquid aspalt unloading area.....99% of hot asphalt is delivered by truck......just include a holding tank that a truck would be able to unload into.

The stone used in make asphalt is mostly granite and arrives in 2 types crusher run which is the main base followed with a top coat of fine top which is a bit smaller than pea gravel. Which is most often crushed at the plant and transferred to a holding area where it will be transferred by a front end loader to a conveyor belt that feeds the batch house. Most but not all Asphalt plants are located inside a stone quarry and require no rail service to them for there stone but oil will be trucked in from an off site transfer facility.

A good example of this would be the Hanson Quarry in Skaneatales, NY were the plant sits in a quarry and has oil trucked in. There is also an asphalt plant off I81 in Phoenix, NY that has to have both oil and stone trucked in.

Most asphalt plants will have 1 or 2 front end loaders on site pending on the site of the operation with one machine shifting the stone piles around and the other assigned to work the batch house. Dump trucks will vary as you'll get a lot of small independent contractors, as well as local municipalities zipping in and out. Most State highway DOT's have portable asphalt batch plants.

The stone varies depending on location. In the midwest limestone is mostly used in the manufacture of both concrete and asphalt. Also depending on the type of asphalt being made there are various sizes of stone in each type.

Ohio DOT specs for #302 base is #1 and #2 stone with sand and asphalt as a binder and can be placed 8 to 4 inches thick
#402 Leveling is usually #57 stone and sand and is placed 2-4" thick.
#404 Top Course is #8 stone and sand. and is usually 2" thick.

IF they are making curb mix then the unlucky ticket writer (me) had to carry two 94 bags of cement up to the top of the plant to dump in the #404 top course in order for the curb to maintain it's shape.

At the plant I worked at all the deliveries were by truck with one endloader doing the pile cleanup and loading the batch plant.

I also was at a concrete plant located at a quarry and sand was shipped in covered hoppers to the plant.

Rick

The Concrete plant that I worked Vitale-Robinson Concrete I'll admit I was only there 1 1/2 years in the Precast department trucked its stone in from the surrounding area. We used to sort out the stones from the sand. Once done we sent the stones to a wash area then crushed them before going to the batch house to be mixed with cement. The Cement came in by rail to Syracuse, NY to Glen Falls Lehigh Portland Cement where it was then trucked in to the plant on average we would have 6-8 trailers at the ready with 4 trucks on the road every 2 hours bringing in powdered cement. Ready Mixed cement coming back was used outside to make Blocks and small round footer and patio blocks in it was more than 2 hours old. Cement less than an hour old was taken in side the precast building to be used in the making of Molds for Farm's.

There was a General Crushed Stone company in my area that had a rich Quarry full of Shale that had trace amounts of oil or tar in it. They used to crush the stone and run it threw a tumbler and mix it with sand and added a bit more tar in it to make asphalt. In the fall when the paving season was coming to a close they used to ship some of the shale out by rail to be processed at other locations that they had. When Bench Mark bought General Crushed Stone the mine close due to the city refusing them anymore permits the mine stopped and sat dormant till Bench Mark was bought out by Hanson Aggregates a few years later who then full closed and abandoned the quarry.