I promised member gatrhumpy in the Layouts and Layout Building forum in late June that I would post some photos of the newspaper production plant rail ops and newsprint warehouse where I work. Hopefully this will provide everyone with some interesting prototype information for a simple and easy to model industry.
These photos were taken at the printing plant where the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are printed in Sterling Heights, MI about 20 miles north of downtown Detroit. It was a tour stop during the Great Lakes Express NMRA National Convention that was held in Detroit in 2007 so some of you may be familiar with the site. Following the tour of the plant I was asking around the building for some feedback as to how the tour went. Our staff was suprised because those attending the tour were more interested in the rail operations rather than the printing side. Well duh, I could have told them that! But I do have to admit, the printing process is pretty cool too, especially when the presses are up to speed and cranking out 70,000 papers an hour per press.
This plant is representative of a major metropolitan newspaper production plant and happens to be located remotely from the building where the editorial staff and business offices are located in downtown Detroit. There are other major papers with one or more remote printing plants similar to this one. Other major papers often have their printing facility adjacent to their editorial and business offices in the heart of a downtown area. So you really can’t go wrong modeling a printing plant in or near any major city on your layout.
Newspapers, especially the large major metro papers, buy lots of newsprint and need a large facility to store it in. Up until the late-90’s we also had a remote newsprint warehouse along the Detroit River on the outskirts of downtown Detroit. Trucks would haul the newsprint from this warehouse to our two printing plants that were in operation at the t