My Dad's realistic XXL Grain Elevator - finished 1/24/2020

[Murdoch17]

While I was at my dad's house yesterday, I took some pictures of his just-finished grain elevator model with a rake of four set 4536's (Blue Hopper Car) and my Bluebonnet Santa Fe F7 diesel A & B units. (Full disclosure: He originally was inspired by these instructions I suggested to him for the grain elevator not long after creating this topic.)

He just took the basic concept / look and RAN with it, making it much stronger and more modular than before. This modular format makes it easier to store in a custom wooden box like the ones behind the Grain Elevator. Inside these boxes is where he stores his modular buildings / train tunnel.

The American flag addition to the building's design was my @Roadmonkeytj's idea, and was relayed by me to my dad for building. It is seen on both sides of the building.

My dad revised majorly the shed where the hopper cars dump their grain load, making it much stronger in the process.

This was entirely of my dad's idea: this four-point joint makes transportation easier, leaving the elevator building section on a 32 x 32, and most of the grain storage blocks on a 16 x 32 size base-plate. Pretty cool, huh?

The model was inspired to-be-built by the Alton, Illinois, riverfront grain elevator, as seen above. Unfortunately, the letters were not a possibility due to not having enough silos / base-plate space to spell it all out.

As usual, comments, questions and complaints are always welcome!

Edited January 25, 2020 by Murdoch17

[Roadmonkeytj]

I feel like you should make the silos wider ... And add this treatment!

[Murdoch17]

15 hours ago, Roadmonkeytj said:

I feel like you should make the silos wider ... And add this treatment!

SNIP

Well, @Roadmonkeytj I tried to add the flag, but on both sides, and inspired by set 10042 from 2003.

See the first post for how it looks now. (I also recolored the model to mostly white, as it looks better that way, plus it's cheaper by quite a bit.)

Edited November 13, 2019 by Murdoch17

[sed6]

Very nice! I grew up in the burbs of west St.Louis, Chesterfield specifically. Been over to Alton many times. You're welcome to copy or modify my semi if you like. 

https://bricksafe.com/pages/sed6/lego-intermodal-shipping-container-crane-and-truck

[Man with a hat]

Nice! Instantly recognisable.

And realistically it should be even bigger .

[Murdoch17]

My father's grain elevator is done, and he asked me to post it on the relevant sites. See the first post for more details.

Here we see Santa Fe 327 A & B units hooking up to an empty grain hopper train for the long journey back to the line-side farmer co-ops of Kansas, Nebraska, or elsewhere in the grain -growing portions of the country.

[Pdaitabird]

Wow...that's massive! 

[Murdoch17]

On 11/13/2019 at 7:34 PM, sed6 said:

Very nice! I grew up in the burbs of west St.Louis, Chesterfield specifically. Been over to Alton many times. You're welcome to copy or modify my semi if you like. 

https://bricksafe.com/pages/sed6/lego-intermodal-shipping-container-crane-and-truck

Thanks for the link @sed6! I grew up in Saint Charles, and used to go over to Alton on the way to the apple picking farms way over in Illinois when I was little. Seeing these grain silos always made me think I was almost there!

On 11/14/2019 at 3:51 AM, Man with a hat said:

Nice! Instantly recognisable.

And realistically it should be even bigger .

Have you seen the first post recently, @Man with a hat ? Because it got a whole lot bigger since the last time you saw it!

23 hours ago, Pdaitabird said:

Wow...that's massive! 

Thanks @Pdaitabird!

[Roadmonkeytj]

I think it looks great well done ... Like how the silio link together.  I've driven past this bin many a time on my way through StLouie lol

[Paperinik77pk]

It's a really great (in any possible sense ) building!!! I love the flag!!!

[ScaleCarModels]

Nice job on the grain elevator! The scale and attention to detail are spot on. The train in the photo looks great also. I live in St Charles and have driven by this area many times. It's cool to see more structures like this being built in LEGO.