Functional grain elevator with working hopper car (4536 MOD) and ALCO diesel A+B units

[Murdoch17]

(I thought I had made a topic for this model by itself, but i can't find it. All I could find was it in a compilation thread from 2014.) 

I have recreated this grain elevator designed by my father way back in 1999. The building was built for the loading of hoppers like set 4536 (1991's Blue Hopper Car) or 10017 (2001's Hopper Wagon). This building has never been really well done officially, but it was touched upon in 3677 (2011's Red Cargo Train). However, grain hopper cars have been made at least four times in official sets, with the fourth model being in set 60098. (Heavy-Haul cargo train)

I enlarged the opening for the filling of the grain cars by two studs width-wise so that larger engines and cars can fit through, such a steam engines with working side-rods.

The building features a handle on the other side or operating the conveyor belt.

The handle turns the conveyor belt to drop 1 x 1 round bricks into the funnel and the hopper car below. Though if it gets turned the wrong way, they drop into the bowels of the building to pop out of the bottom of the building where the base-plate would go, onto the table top itself.

Here we see the hole I left in case "grain" went the wrong way on the conveyor belt, so it can fall out the bottom and not get stuck inside the model.

This is an updated red version of set 4536 (Blue Hopper Car) from 1991. This green version uses a click hinge and platform to dump 1 x 1 round bricks out of the bottom of the hopper.

The diesel locomotive model was inspired by Valgarise and his model called "Invencible".(see it here ) It looked like an nice big ALCO model so I copied it and built a matching booster unit in green as seen above. (although originally it was in black with a red base stripe when I first built it)

The front unit where the engineer sits is called a Cab (or A) unit, while the trailing unit is called a Booster (or B) unit, though they can be used in more groups than just two, like as an A-B-B-A set as used on the Santa Fe Super Chief. For my purposes, I only use a A-B setup at most.

Here is the original grain elevator that inspired my model. It was built around 1999-ish by my father.

Comments, Questions, & complaints are always welcome, and the elevator model (plus a half-dozen green hopper cars) should be built by Christmas / beginning of 2019. As you can see, the engine units have already been built.

Any thoughts?

Edited August 13, 2018 by Murdoch17

[patje]

 nice

I've been following you for a while now
and have to say you make cool creations

It's always nice if someone placing.  a ldd file
with it..
So you can see the way of building ...

thanks...patje

 

 

 

[Murdoch17]

1 hour ago, patje said:

 nice

I've been following you for a while now
and have to say you make cool creations

It's always nice if someone placing.  a ldd file
with it..
So you can see the way of building ...

thanks...patje

 

 

 

Thanks. I feel if i can show how I built something, maybe someday, someone will find it and be inspired to use it. I give the ldd files away for this reason: even If I personally never build it, somebody else just might. 

[Murdoch17]

(Sorry for the bump!)

Model remade, text updated and pictures revised. More to come later this year / early 2019!

[Roadmonkeytj]

I really like this alot ... One thing I would build to go with this is an unload pit.  So the cars can dump then a conveyor takes it underground into the elevator then you can use a lift conveyor to pull it out of the pit up to your main conveyor.