Once upon a time, in the city of Baltimore, there was an auto plant… Joe wanted to model it, so he drew a track plan for it, built it, nailed it, and lived happily ever after.

If only it were so simple.

To be fair, parts of that fairy tale are rooted in reality.

1. In the city of Baltimore, there was an auto plant…—As we covered in this post, the Broening Highway Assembly Plant was a fixture on Baltimore’s east side for 70 years.
2. Joe drew a track plan for it…—I talked about the relative simplicity of the schematic, so a track plan was pretty easy.
3. …built it…—I did, indeed build the plan as designed.
4. …nailed it…—Alas, it is here that the fairy tale ends.

Now… The “They” that are coming in the title are problems, mistakes, things you didn’t consider, perhaps things you never even saw coming. Things requiring changes, essentially.

Truth be told, I’m pretty close to the “happily ever after” part of the fairy tale. No one said there wouldn’t be bumps in the road and overall, I have nothing to complain about. That said, I hadn’t even gotten to operating yet (more on that in a coming post) and I already saw a problem.

If you’ve been following along, you know that the plan for the GM plant was originally designed as shown at right. That view shows the tracks and the proposed structure footprints. On its surface, it looks perfectly fine.

The plan: 86′ boxcars into the building on the top track. A boxcar on the little spur below that. 60′ boxcars in the next track down. A tank car and a covered hopper for plastic pellets on the fourth track. And, finally, 50′ boxcars at the bottom.

The problem? There are actually a few, shown in the second image to the right, which is a 3D rendering of the track plan with rolling stock added.

1. Not Enough Cars—I’ve already mentioned that there isn’t nearly enough traffic going in and out, a problem we all face and one I’ve justified to some extent. But the structures and track lengths as designed just made it worse. Although the plan does a pretty good job or replicating the number of tracks at the prototype, they are, of course much shorter. So there simply wasn’t enough room for the large cars that support an auto assembly plant. I decided I wanted three 86′ boxcars to fit in the building, and as you can see, that third 86′ boxcar sticks out far past the spur, which in theory is “way out in the parking lot.” Same issue with the 60′ boxcars on the second track.
2. Sight Lines—You can’t see the tank car, can you? It’s there, trust me. Although the prototype plant had this canyon-like area in the building, which I thought was pretty cool and worth replicating, in reality you can’t see in there. You wouldn’t be able to easily uncouple the car in there, either. I would need to rearrange where the cars wnt and go with a more traditional structure shape.
3. Tight Quarters—As mentioned, that spur is supposed to be out in the parking lot. With my limited real estate, there wasn’t enough visual separation. While I really likes the idea of having some unloading going on in “the middle of nowhere,” this wasn’t cutting it. Something needed to be done here, too.

The verdict: There were too few cars, and although close to the prototype plant layout, too few spots. I thought the ops here were going to end up being a little boring. I could do better.

Changes were needed. Next time we’ll talk about them.

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