I'm planning on including the Walthers Cornerstone ADM Concrete Grain Elevator on my layout, but want to change it up a bit, since I have a little more room than it needs, and it seems to be a rather common structure on layouts. I was watching the "Mike Rowe Works" episode about processing wheat into flower. I noticed the core of the elevator was made up of white, concrete silos, like those in the Cornerstone kit, but they had also more recently expanded with additional galvanized, corrugated steel silos, like the Rix product ones (though taller). So now I have a concept (and prototype) for a concrete grain elevator that has been expanded with additional corrugated steel silos. I would also use the Rix expansion sets to make those steel bins taller. I think those types are good up to 90', from a supplier website. The steel silos would have to be situated on the other end of the house, or across the drive for the truck un/loading shed.
I've done what you are planning, but with the smaller wood cornerstone elevator, and also with the Cornerstone Prairie Co-op. With the wood elevator I used the Rix steel bins, and with the Co-op I used a Faller "2 grain bins" kit. I've also added the silos from an old Cornerstone elevator to my flour mill. My Concrete elevator has the extra silos kit (doubles the original) added, and I have another kit I'm probably going to add for a total of 24 silos. I haven't figured out a good way to incorporate the metal bins on that one.......they just seem too small.......I have 2 that are 10 rings high, one is 6, and 2 are 13 rings tall. At 13 tall, they start to look odd in my opinion. They seem like they should be larger diameter. I'd love to see what you do. There was an elevator near here that had an original wooden elevator but had added a dozen metal bins that were across the driveway, plus 4 tall ones that were along the tracks beside the main building. an elevator (like the Rix model) stuck out of the roof and piping ran to the bins.
Iowa scaled engineering makes larger corrugated bin than Rix does. IMHO bigger would be better if adding to the walthers kit. https://www.iascaled.com/store/GrainBins
Thanks for the ISE tip, bman! The N scale ADM silos appear to be ~20' diameter and ~90' tall. The Rix silos appear to be ~30' & 40' tall at the roof peak, and 24' diameter. The elevator is 60' tall. The silo wall heights are in increments of 11' (extra wall rings are available.) More to think about...
bman, followed your link and seen how nice these Iowa bins are. I was also happy to see they offered the decales for bins, thats really nice! As for the larger bins, I'm starting to see more and more of these going up in our area. I believe the larger farms are consolidating their grain storage at these. Thanks again for the link. Ralph
Looking forward to seeing what you do with this Jake. Adding the corrugated bins will definitely add a lot of interest to that kit. I expanded that same kit by adding all new silos and many more than the kit. I had originally planned to try and copy the same size but in the end, went way bigger.
The ISA bins are really cool with several different decal's you can get. The bins are also available with either wide or narrow corrugation. Also, custom sizes are also available. They also have prototypical corrugated pipe as well Larry
