St. Lawrence Cement

WM-N-fan

Member
In a few weeks I'm going to start St. Lawrence Cement. The prototype is a few miles from my home. I had a tour a few weeks ago. It is a Portland Cement Factory. I'm likely going to buy another Superior Paper, and use the kraft mill, which looks like the "mill" building, where stones are crushed and fed into the kiln. Then I'll take the smokestacks off. I'll likely use the main building of that kit to expand my other Supierior paper. I'll take the tanks off the roof, because they can be the 150 ft. long, rotating kiln, which I'll put a motor in. I'll also put red-orange see-though paper, and I'll put a smoke unit in the mill building, and smoke will travel through the kiln (coming out cracks, and into a model power smokestack, with the old brick stack replaced by one of the kraft mill's modern stacks. I'll likely use the remaining stacks on other buildings I have. I'll then buy a Glacier Gravel kit that will be modified next to the mill builing to get rocks from the quarry. The hard part is making the modern dome to store the gravel. The next thing, is scratch building the 150 foot round silo, where stones (now black) are crushed. I'll get Medusa cement's walkway, for that silo. Then I'll use the pipes that go over the tracks in Supierior paper, to cross the tracks (which actually is there) to a modified Medusa Cement kit. The I'll use some pipes, and cut two holes for covered hoppers in an ADM grain elevator kit, and use the main building for my next project... A modern Purina elevator that also is near my house.
The final parts of this project are easy; making the two small office buildings, the sheds for trucks, and coal, the company sign, gate, and steps to former immigrant houses (Where the first workers lived many years ago. The houses were burned down on purpose about 30 yrs. ago, but you can still see the steps) I'm also going to save space, where the old plant used to be, next to the Antietam Creek. The plant actiually diverted the creek, to form the quarry. The cool thing about this plant is some parts are brand new, most from the late 70's, early 80's and just a little bit from as early as 1915.

Your Thoughts Please.....
 
C

Catt

Sounds like quite a project.Be sure to post some pictures for us to see.
 

WM-N-fan

Member
I'm also considering sound clipping the kiln, which has heavy metal chains in it giving it a weird sound.

BTW, this plant has heavy rail action. It has it's own switcher, and about 4-5 cars daily. The plant has a 3 rail siding, that led to the old plant (now pretty much demolished), which had a huge railyard. Here's the cool part, at the end of the yard, there was a siding, that went under the WM (Now CSX) bridge over the Antietam, about the same level as the creek, and it slowly went into the quarry. In the office building, they have HUNDREDS of old photos.
 

Drew1125

Active Member
Ahhh,
A kitbasher after my own heart!
Sounds like a lot of fun!
You must have some serious space, if you're going to build those domes anywhere close to scale!
I've used that Superior Paper kit to build 2 factories on my layout, & plus it's provided me a wealth of detail parts for the whole layout.
 

WM-N-fan

Member
Actually, I'm going to have a few coneyors going off the board for now, until I finish most of my layout. Then Eventually, I will use my old table's 4 by 4 board, and lift it with bricks or wood a few feet below my current table and then level it up with foam, to the other table. Then make the dome, the quarry house and crushers further down. Then I will turn it into a 2 ft. deep quarry, with water on the bottom.
 

upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
I'll be very interested in seeing what your plant is going to look like. I am also looking into modeling a large cement plant although the prospect of a major kitbashing project is not something that I have ever tried before. I posted some pictures of the plant that I am considering modeling in The Real Thing forum here on The Gauge.
 

upguy

Oregon Western Lines, CEO
I had thought that too. I may have to look into purchasing one of the blast furnace kits. $$$ :eek:
 
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