Mystery canopy?

[velotrain]

http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/travelersjapan/imgs/3/f/3f718117.jpg

 

The large building on the right, partially behind the footbridge, has what I first took as a loading dock canopy. However, it has a couple of strange characteristics, so I wondered if anyone else might have thoughts on just what it might be.

 

Firstly, it doesn't appear to be level (parallel to the ground), as it is rising the farther back you look, unlike the roof of the grain unloading shed next to it.

 

Secondly, the support brackets seem to get shorter towards the rear, suggesting that the area covered is lesser there.

 

Instead of a canopy, could it be some sort of conveyor, perhaps a simple gravity-powered chute?

 

I'm sending a letter to Nisshin Flour, hoping to get some photos of this structure and the unloading shed, but if I don't hear from them (which seems likely) I'll need to make some guesses as to what's actually there.

[bill937ca]

Full page the image came from.

 

http://butsuryu.web.fc2.com/nisshin-seifun.html

 

it reads as if the plant is now closed which negates many online research sources.

Edited March 21, 2017 by bill937ca

[velotrain]

Full page the image came from.

 

http://butsuryu.web.fc2.com/nisshin-seifun.html

 

it reads as if the plant is now closed which negates many online research sources.

Not true - the rail line was closed in 1997, the year after that photo was taken, but the plant is still there and in fact is the largest flour producing facility in Japan - there is a huge ship unloading dock on the other side of those grain silos.

 

Were you perhaps reading about a plant other than Tsurumi on that site?

 

Even if it were true, it wouldn't negate the photo and my question about it.

[Jcarlton]

I just went and looked at the mill on google maps and the loading dock is actually still there squeezed between the grain elevator and a new mill building.  That structure looks to me on the 3D as if the you had the original loading dock and an extension added to it.  right now the only usable part of the facility is the outside of the extension which is used to load trucks. 

[Jcarlton]

Here's a track map of the branch of the Tsurumi Line from the early 1960's

 

[velotrain]

I just went and looked at the mill on google maps and the loading dock is actually still there squeezed between the grain elevator and a new mill building. That structure looks to me on the 3D as if the you had the original loading dock and an extension added to it. right now the only usable part of the facility is the outside of the extension which is used to load trucks.

Thanks for the input. How I wish I had an aerial shot of that area between 1985-1997 ;-) Heck, anytime after 1966 - the site Bill gives the link for mentions "From October diamond revision in 1966 Nisshin Flour commenced wheat transportation by Hoki 2200 in Okawa" I have many satellite images saved and am quite familiar with the current structural situation, but primarily due to the railway presence find the earlier arrangement more visually pleasing - certainly much more modelable ;-)

 

I'm uncertain of what you mean by the "new mill building", and over time I've come to question my thinking of the building with the "canopy" as having a loading dock. I am quite certain that the "alley" between it and the grain unloading shed was much too narrow for trucks, but I was kind of hoping there was a track there to give me an excuse to serve the plant with another car type besides the Hoki 2200's.

 

The former grain unloading shed has been heavily modified in the transition from rail to trucks, but I think the only new structure in that immediate area is the tallish building over the middle of what I call the grain unloading shed. The building to the immediate (south) side of it does have a new "canopy" between it and the grain unloading shed, but it's impossible to know what's going on at ground level.

 

Based on the earlier photo, I think those two structures have always had roughly the same length. One of the reasons I think that is because of the "knob" near the end of the grain unloading shed in the 1996 image, and that is still there - with what is likely a grain transfer chute now connecting to the adjacent building

 

 

For those who haven't seen it, this is what the elevator looks like from the Tokyo Bay side of the silos. There's also another - equally large, bank of silos behind the left end of those shown here. I suspect the two tracks curving to the right in what I think of as the "source" photograph lead to a second unloading shed serving that elevator.

 

http://kawasaki-guide.jp/wkphotokawasaki/kawasaki-s/pas_c360京浜運河北大川町・日清製粉-2.jpg

 

 

And for those who may like heavy-duty machinery, here's a detail shot of the ship pier cranes with their anteater-like suction tubes that get dropped into the load bays, and gobble up grain. Note how miniscule the truck-mounted telescoping crane looks by comparison.

 

http://copperdentalcl4181.blog.fc2.com/img/20160130233159140.jpg/