Industrial Yards

Cement kilns are used for the pyro-processing stage of manufacture of Portland and other types of hydraulic cement, in which calcium carbonate reacts with silica-bearing minerals to form a mixture of calcium silicates. Over a billion tonnes of cement are made per year, and cement kilns are the heart of this production process: their capacity usually define the capacity of the cement plant.

Most Portland cement  is made in a rotary kiln. Basically, this is a long cylinder rotating about its axis once every minute or two. The axis is inclined at a slight angle, the end with the burner being lower. The rotation causes the raw meal to gradually pass along from where it enters at the cool end, to the hot end where it eventually drops out and cools.

At the input end blended raw material enters the kiln via the pre-heat tower. Here, hot gases from the kiln, are used to heat the raw meal. An industrial smoke stack burns and gets rid of unwanted byproducts. At the far end of the kiln is the cooled Clinker house where the finished  product is released from the kiln. the product is then transferred to a storage facility where it can be loaded onto hopper cars or tractor trailer trucks to shipment to the various cement plants.

This particular plant has a short  rotary kiln designed to fit a customer's limit space. Contact us with your footprint and we will be happy to quote.

Every inter-modal yard starts with  a truck terminal check-in structure  with an associated office building. Our terminal design includes two  lanes one for incoming and one for outgoing traffic. There is a check-in booth located in the center between the two lanes. The terminal office  is our standard yard office design 

A customer needed a crane that would cross over two tracks and be able to move 15 inches. I started with a Walthers HO scale heavy duty crane kit, designed a superstructure along with a control booth.

I have since redesigned the crane way. The crane assembly is now a custom design with a YCC-202 single sheath block. The motor house slides back and forth on plastic wheels and the block can be manually raised and lowered. There have been more gantry cranes built since the original. Some have both sides stationary while others have one side moving along a O gauge train track. If you  have a custom design you would like built please contact us for a quote.

Please note the moving cranes are  top heavy so the foundations need to be glued to your layout table.  Rubber cement can be used if you do not want the connection to be  permanent.