Silo Sizing

[scoobydo]

Hi guys.
I wanted to build a module for taking pics of my locomotives.
I saw this pic of a diesel in front of one of Attebury Grain's Silos.
It is the one in Saginaw Texas. Now, i don't want to build anything that huge.
However, I did like the dimensions of the Silos.
I was wondering about the scale.
I went on Google Earth and found the silos. Luckily there was a train in the map that looked like an SD70Ace. I took that as a reference point and placed it next to the silos in photoshop.
From this crude method, I found out that the engine length held about 2.5 silo containers.
Long story short I figured this to be about 4 inches for scale purposes.
Does that sound about right for Silos, or are all silos different sizes?
Also if anybody had any info on how high this silos are, that would be great.

 

[RCH]

This particular prototype is huge; in fact, it's among the largest in the world.

I live near this particular elevator complex and I've always been fascinated by it, so here's some information I've come up with on it:

First, good aerial photography and GIS tools are available here, courtesy of the North Central Texas Council of Governments. This link should take you to a closeup of the northwest corner of the elevator. According to the scale bar on the image, The silo diameter scales out to roughly 34.69 (or 34'-8"), or 4.78" dia. for an HO scale model.

Now, to figure the height of the silos (this is all very rough, so take it for what it's worth), measure the length of the shadows of the covered hoppers and the shadow of the silos. The height of the hoppers is a known amount (I've assumed that the hoppers in the photo are ACF 2970s, and are approximately 15' tall off the railhead), so you can arrive at a ratio between the known length and measured length. The shadow they cast scales out to 19.96' long. The shadow length of the silo scales out to 205.82'.

So, the ratio can be expressed like this: 15'/19.96' = x/205.82'
where 15' is the known hopper height
19.96' is the measured hopper shadow length, and
205.82' is the measured silo shadow length
x (the silo height) = 154.67'

The height of the silos, for an HO scale model, is roughly 21.3". That's a big model!

Good luck on your photo diorama and be sure to post some photos as you build it.

 

[Irongrave]

as for what to use, 2" PVC is a good stand in for a model railroad

 

[scoobydo]

This particular prototype is huge; in fact, it's among the largest in the world.

I live near this particular elevator complex and I've always been fascinated by it, so here's some information I've come up with on it:

First, good aerial photography and GIS tools are available here, courtesy of the North Central Texas Council of Governments. This link should take you to a closeup of the northwest corner of the elevator. According to the scale bar on the image, The silo diameter scales out to roughly 34.69 (or 34'-8"), or 4.78" dia. for an HO scale model.

Now, to figure the height of the silos (this is all very rough, so take it for what it's worth), measure the length of the shadows of the covered hoppers and the shadow of the silos. The height of the hoppers is a known amount (I've assumed that the hoppers in the photo are ACF 2970s, and are approximately 15' tall off the railhead), so you can arrive at a ratio between the known length and measured length. The shadow they cast scales out to 19.96' long. The shadow length of the silo scales out to 205.82'.

So, the ratio can be expressed like this: 15'/19.96' = x/205.82'
where 15' is the known hopper height
19.96' is the measured hopper shadow length, and
205.82' is the measured silo shadow length
x (the silo height) = 154.67'

The height of the silos, for an HO scale model, is roughly 21.3". That's a big model!

Good luck on your photo diorama and be sure to post some photos as you build it.

Thats awesome! Thank You.
That is pretty massive.
If shadow length is affected depending on the time of day, how does one account for this?
In any event, thank you for your help, this will definitely get me started.
I plan on putting my own logo and made-up company for mine.
I will definitely post when I am finished.

 

[RCH]

Thats awesome! Thank You.
That is pretty massive.
If shadow length is affected depending on the time of day, how does one account for this?
In any event, thank you for your help, this will definitely get me started.
I plan on putting my own logo and made-up company for mine.
I will definitely post when I am finished.

Good question. But in this case, I had a reference point (the ACF covered hopper). You could figure it out without any reference objects assuming you knew:

1. time of photo
2. date of photo
3. scale of photo

Short of that, there's no way to know without a reference object.

I regularly look at stuff like this as part of my job, so this is pretty much second nature to me. Thanks for kick starting me on measuring this elevator -- I've always been curious about its size.