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Great looking grain bin models. Rix and Walthers both make them too. These look like they could be next to a larger elevator for additional capacity, and they appear to be appropriate for the mid 1940s on my layout. They are coming soon to my towns.
I also started watching the grain elevator video , dated 1981. Surprised to see the doors on a 40′ boxcar being boarded up to hold loose grain loading, like decades before, and decades after covered hoppers appeared. Also, how low tech the whole operation was, the inside of that elevator and office looked unchanged from 1910 or so.
Also, the GRAIN DUST everywhere, in the air and settled many inches thick everywhere. Problem 1 – fire and explosion. We had a very large elevator explode in the late 1970s. There are stringent agricultural dust regulations in effect today in many places. I’ve been involved with it in coffee processing facilities. Problem 2 – rats. There aren’t any I saw (yet) in the video, but between the grain and the dust to dine on, it had to be a rat paradise in there. And in the corners of those 40′ boxcars too. I did see one cat on duty in the office but 100 cats would probably be unable to keep up with the problem in that elevator.
