I want to model the Military Depot in Mechanicsburg PA somehow on my South Penn layout. The actual real depot is ginormous-- forget big, forget huge-- I think its measured in Parsecs… and I only have a few feet I want to give it on the layout. I am fully aware that I cannot give it but a lick and a promise, and nothing like what the facility really would be in “real life”. However, I would like to figure out a way to get some of the feel and flavor, as much as possible, within the space available.
The prototype has a jillion rail-served warehouses, an area that has rail / truck transload facilities, trailer-on-flatcar facilities, special loading (essentially team tracks), the remnants of an ordinance-removal facility (which would have been active in the era I model), administrative and maintenance buildings, several steam power plants, and a mid-sized rail sorting and holding yard to support the facility. Here’s the Google Maps overhead view of what it looks like today:
Google shows a huge area covered with very similar buildings. Those buildings look like the characteristic of the facility. Each building has only one track.
I would put two partial buildings (like Walthers background buildings) in the background and run a track into each of them. The foreground is reserved for the yard, a gate with guard etc.
Well now. I just so happen to work right beside the Navy Depot. You are right: It’s huge. Pretty much everything that ships to Afghanistan and Iraq comes out of there. Food, boots, clothes, equipment, tools, military hardware, you name it…
Not sure in what capacity I could help you though; Guards tend to frown on people taking photos of their gates. “outsiders” just can’t walk in unless on official business (with permission) and/or military IDs.
Did you know that during the Cold War the Soviets had this base on their top ten list to be targeted with nukes in the event of hostilities?
If you do have questions about the area surrounding the base I may be able to guide you some though. Lots of rail traffic in this area.
I’d be interested in hearing about anything you can think of to tell me about it-- especially the rail traffic. I also found the base’s web site and links to its previous name and older history. Apparently it was really big in WW-II, and marshaled practically everything sent to/from Europe during that conflict.
That wouldn’t surprise me.
In a similar vein-- did you know that, supposedly, the number one target on the soviet nuclear hit list was a “super secret conference / war room” located at the exact center of the Pentagon… which, if you ask anybody who’s ever been there happens to be a hot-dog stand (Canteen) and the spot where folks mosey out for lunch…
Yeah, I was thinking perhaps something along those lines-- but even that is going to be a pretty deep scene. I could set the buildings on an angle maybe-- that’s kinda my primary idea-- set it up sort of like a ‘port’ facility, except without water. And while I don’t mind just doing a few buildings, I think it wouldn’t look right if it didn’t look like it was part of something much, much larger. And I’d like to try to squeeze in some more of the operational aspects too, like the team tracks, truck transload, etc. I think maybe the hardest part is the transition between the ‘modeled’ and the ‘backdrop’… ??
I think putting the buildings at angles would make the scene much deeper than some buildings flat on the backdrop, especially if you want to put more than one car in a building. The building only needs to be wide enough for one track plus some extra. If you run a bunch of 1-track-width buildings flat on the backdrop, you can model the team tracks and transloads in front of them. This would be putting those elements in parallel, which is something Byron Henderson has written about for delivering more operations in a given space.
And you can make those few backdrop buildings appear to be part of something much larger by continuing them and some dummy tracks all the way to the end of the benchwork. This would imply that the depot goes on thataway. You can even put in some dummy turnouts & tracks and run them into the backdrop (maybe they vanish behind a stack of crates) to imply that the depot extends behind the backdrop.
I think there are ways to make the flats on the backdrop look convincing. I’m thinking about that power plant on the MR layout that was featured a couple of issues back, and the buildings on Stein’s layout, and others.
Your plan on sliding the industry support yard back towards the curve seems reasonable. I would figure out how many cars you want this depot to handle. This will give you an idea of how long (and how many) your yard body tracks need to be.
I would make the scene deep but not the building. I would make the building only a couple inches deep against the backdrop but make it several feet long with multiple doors. I would make as much as possible of the foreground open space with a fence to create the illusion of space. Maybe make one end of one building and hide a staging track or two behind the building. If you put too many buildings or break them up, it will destroy the illusion of a monolithic building.
That’s a good idea-- do either of you (you or odave) know of any pictures online with a similar setup I could see for some inspiration? Not necessarily a military depot, but of the long / shallow concept? Or an issue of MR if you know of something in there right off-- when I get home this afternoon I’m going to see if I can find the one odave mentioned.
John : I’m not sure with how familiar you are with the Harrisburg area or if you’ve traveled 'round these parts much. I live in Hershey (East of Harrisburg) and my commute west is about 23 miles to Mechanicsburg. I follow the railroad basically the whole way to work! Here in Hershey there is much rail traffic around the chocolate making industry…
Now as you travel west on Rt. 322 you parallel the NS mainline as it passes through the new 'Rutherford" inter-modal yard. The line follows 322 until the road branches off. You’re now on I-83 south and the tracks parallel that somewhat as the pass through Harrisburg and onto the Susquehanna River Bridge. The line also branches North and Southward along the river with the points north being the Enola freight yards and the famous Rockville Bridge further up river. But continuing westward the lines run to various industries around the west shore communities of Lemoyne, Camp Hill, New Cumberland and Mechanicsburg. There is a big ADM facility that generates lots of traffic.
Of course GoogleEarth would be your friend to see exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not very knowledgeable about the Carlisle area as far as railroad related stuff goes as I have little reason to go there much. I can get you pics of pretty much anything along the routes if you want me to photo something specific for you.
I happened to see a 5 unit lash up the other day. NS on the front, followed by a CSX, then a BNSF, then a Conrail unit and lastly a UP engine on the end. Wish I would have had a camera that day! Almost drove into the river gawking at it LOL!
Mmm - I am looking at the corner around 6th street and J street on the map.
Here is a proposal, loosely based on that corner, with a little extra stuff added. Not necessarily the best way of modeling this area, but one possible way.
I’m away from my magazine stack right now, but the power plant was a fairly recent article. I think Cody did it. Another long & shallow example is the cold storage warehouse & paper products place on the WSOR Troy Branch of the MR layout, which was the featured series starting in January 2008. Trackplan can be found in the database.
And fascia flats are another option. They’re a narrow slice of a building in the foreground, suggesting that the rest of it is in the aisle: “where’s the rest of the depot? You’re standing in it!” You could also just put in the spur track and not model the building, if reaching over it is an issue.
You asked for suggestions… and space is a problem… well this is what I am planning on using for my weapons depot. I figure I can put these guys side by side … nice and tight.
The power plant article was in the February 2010 issue, “Build a big industry in a small space”, starting on page 34
The April 2008 issue shows the narrow backdrop buildings on the WSOR Troy Branch layout, starting on page 66.
I got a better look at the depot using Bing’s Bird’s eye view, and if you want to stay faithful to the shape of the warehouse buildings and where the tracks go in, a diagonal alignment may be the way to go. But those buildings will eat up a lot of space, so maybe modeling only the front portion of the building (space for 1-x cars on the spur) would be better. If deviating from the prototype is acceptable to you, then I think representing them as backdrop flats would be more space efficient.
Hmmm - bigger buildings, more open space along front, still would want the diiagonal alignment for look and feel.
How about a army supply base scene roughly along these lines? Double spurs in front of an almost 3-foot long warehouse at an angle, hint of a couple of streets, room for some boxcars, some tank cars, some flatcars with tanks or trucks or whatever, and a coal fired steam plant, plus a bit of a holding yard.All tracks reasonably accessible.
You can spot specific loads at specific doors on the warehouse, and play games with re-spotting “partially unloaded” cars from the outermost track by the building to the innermost track when you pull emptied cars from the innermost track.
That is indeed one of my current challenges-- figuring out what all is even “available” along the route (Pennsy Tpike basically) to consider modeling. It had to have been there in the 1950’s. That’s one of the principle criteria. Interesting, “railroady”, and able to fit into my layout space, which is pretty long but not that deep.
Thanks for the drawing that’s really cool. I saw another one, probably originally done in MR, but I saw it in one the the 'Industry by the tracks" books… which was a lot like that, except made more use of the depth the corner provided. I’m thinking kinda the same-- but I really like your general concept. I think just moving it around the bend a little will increase the apparent depth and usability of the scene without compromising any of the other aspects. Which means I can probably also get another set of delivery tracks around on the other side of the warehouse, which I think would fill it out nicely.
I have a similar scene (concept) that I’m going to do nearer to “Pittsburgh”, although its not military but rather a meat-packing / stockyard / cold storage refrigerated warehouse / grocery distribution complex, that’s going to have a lot of the same complexities in track-work I think. But at least I think it will have more area to work with and that will make it easier-- if Pittsburgh ends up being where I think its gonna be on my layout. Everything on that end is still a little fluid at the moment, but I think it will end up in the vicinity of the center-post / turnback which will give it approx 9 feet plus around 4-6 feet on each side, and nice deep shelves to work with-- 36 inches easy, could maybe even go as much as 48 in that spot. But its way away from where the military depot is located and also on the upper deck, so I can’t even fudge to make it go there.
I’m more interested in capturing the “feel and flavor” rather than the absolute appearance. I don’t care if anybody looks at it and says “Hey, I’ve been there”. So I’m open to copious re-interpretation of what it is. The only real thing that I have in my mind’s eye, aside from what I posted at the outset, is that I’d kinda like to be able to watch the trains roll down between some of the buildings, suggesting perhaps that they stick-out towards me, perhaps on the diagonal and maybe from out of the corner. Of course I could also model some “short warehouses” that way, and do the long ones as flats, and on the backdrop. That might leave enough room for the unloading tracks and other stuff I wanted-- and the ‘open area w/fencing and gates’ that was suggested earlier.
The Turnpike area isn’t really very railroady IMHO unless you get closer to Philly. If you’re in Northern VA., you are only a daytrip away. D.C. is 2 hours from here> PM me if you decide to visit this side of the Mason-Dixon and I can point you on some pathways to check out!
Maybe. I had a second look at the first track plan suggestion I posted (the one you linked to above) for reach and access, and that made me suggest a variant where all the tracks would be in front of the buildings, rather than being between the buildings 24+ inches in from the fascia.
I see you are thinking about making scenes as deep as 48" on another part of your layout, on an upper level of a multilevel layout. That seems pretty deep. On a single level layout you can play interesting tricks - like Paul Dolkos’ interesting Y-shaped bench for his Baltimore harbor area in MRP 2010 - where the operator/builder can step into the “water” between two piers at the end of a pretty wide bench to reach things towards the rear of the layout. Not so sure how that will play on a two level layout.
