Welcome

This blog presents my thoughts, information and activities in my model railroading world.

Friday, June 29, 2018

Cannery model planning

My next model will be a cannery.  This cannery processes vegetables and fruits as in season.  I am modeling it as a very old cannery, well weathered and deteriorated but still in operation.  My inspiration is the photo below.


This photo is from the early 1900's and apparently the staff is gathered for the photo.  My model will have substantial door openings in the main building to allow viewing of the canning machinery inside (I hope).  As you can see these early canneries had large manual labor with lots of women doing the work.  This will allow me to use some of the many female figures I have.

These old canneries had lots of interesting machinery and I will model some of these machines.


Above is a fruit and tomato washer.  It should make an interesting model.  This machine had revolving shafts and paddles to clean the fruit and vegetables.


Above is a processor or steam cooker.  You can see a basket containing products being loaded into the processor.

I have started building the main structure.




1 comment:

Jim Klug said...

The cooker pictured is called a vertical basket retort (as opposed to a horizontal retort.) The basket contains cans already filled with product. After the baskets are loaded into the cooker, the hatch is closed and steam is added to the vessel. After the appropriate time in the cooker the cans are sterilized. The hatch is opened up and the baskets are removed. The cans are cooled in a cool water bath and removed from the baskets. At that point the cans can then be stored on pallets "brite" in the warehouse or they can be labeled at that point if they are dry. New systems now are continuous versus this batch method of thermal processing.