October Sketchbook - Day 24, Somewhere Down an Industrial Back Road

Okay, so technically, this is not #Inktober because it isn't ink, but it does fit in with #Drawtober, so I guess I can get over it. Don't hold it against me too hard. I'm tired.

Industrial buildings, to me, are kind of creepy anyway. There's all this strange machinery, mazes of stark corridors and unmarked doors, dirty windows that barely let in the light, and all these dark, dingy rooms filled with hulking shadows.

Now imagine you're alone and stranded. The building stands empty and silent as the cold, damp wind howls through the broken windows. You squeezed through the gap in the broken door because you wanted to get out of the storm, but in looking for a dry place you got turned around, and now you can't find a way out. It's so dark you're almost afraid to move for fear of falling off some catwalk and landing in the machinery below. The building groans and rattles in the wind, creaking and moaning in a frightening voice. You want to call for help, but you know that no one will hear you. You're lost in an abandoned industrial site miles away from civilization. (Mwahahaha...) Oops. Sorry.

If my mining terminology serves me correctly, this particular building is called a tipple house. Mine cars or semi trucks loaded with raw ores unloaded onto an elevator that carried the ore up to the top of the tall building on the left. The ore was dropped onto sorting screens that ran the length of the long building on the right. As the screens vibrated, different sized holes in the screens allowed pieces of ore to be mechanically sorted by size. The sorted ore fell through the chutes below the building on the right and into rail cars or trucks. Given the location surrounding this particular tipple house (a cement plant), I believe it may have been used for sorting gravel. Gravel would be brought in by truck from the quarry and then sorted by size into smaller trucks to be used for different purposes, like paving, pouring foundations, or casting pipes.