Cement and concrete production can be an interesting line of business for model railway operation. Cement is produced in long rotating killns and often loaded into a train of tank wagons from overhead pipes. Just one long siding, holding maybe 5 tank wagons, with overhead pipework and an industrial style backdrop could represent the manufacturing and loading point.

Trainloads of cement arrive at major distribution depots. Here powder cement is transferred to road cement powder tankers or bagged and loaded on pallets for sale through builders merchants. Often there is a large concrete plant at these locations, also requiring loads of aggregate and sand, from where wet concrete is loaded into the familiar mixer lorries.

Where a major building contract is being undertaken (eg. a major bridge) a temporary concrete mixing plant is often used and cement can be supplied by rail to a nearby terminal for transfer to a road powder tanker. This could easily require just one or two wagon loads to be delivered at a time by a Speedlink or Enterprise freight service.