Here are photos of my Clarkville project. I'm building an HO Scale diorama of an imaginary UPS hub that I've called Clarkville. While the model is imaginary, it is based on real hubs and how they are designed. The overall size is approximately 72X30 inches. I chose those dimensions so the diorama could be moved and perhaps displayed at train or model shows. Click on a photo to be able to read all the text. At the bottom of the pop up window, click on "original" to enlarge the photo.
Date(s): September 15, 2019. Album by steve solombrino. 1 - 30 of 30 Total. 358 Visits.
1 CHEMA This is only part of the Chelmsford, MA hub. Like most hubs, the property is crowded. Even though it may look like trailers and other equipment is just squeezed into any available space, the yard is broken up into specific areas. There are areas for inbound loads, outbound loads, staging for empties, dollies, tractors, out of service equipment waiting for shop time, extra package cars and some other functions. The doors of the building have specific uses. Some are only for unloading trailers and most are for loading trailers. Explaining all this with one photo is very difficult so I'll leave most of the details up to your imagination. Of course, those of us that use these hubs know what is where and understand what is happening all around us. Things are actually pretty well organized though at the busy moments, it looks like moving chaos. We'll, sometimes it devolves into moving chaos but usually things get sorted out pretty quick...
2 CLARKVILLE This is a rough drawing of the imaginary hub I am building part of. The area within the red box is the part I am modeling. This drawing only represents a part of the facility. Parking lots, staging areas and auxiliary buildings are left out. In fact, most of the facility is left out. A hub this size could take over an entire basement. The problem with that is a hub in not linear like a railroad. There would be no isles or access to most of the model. Almost all of it would be in the middle of a giant table and out of reach. That is why I chose to model only a small part that represents a number of functions that are close to each other. The other thought is that when one is on property, they can only see a small part at any given time. The choice I made will give the perspective of a Feeder Driver on the ground in that part of the yard. We'll see if I can pull off a model of what I see nightly as I visit hubs.
3 modified hubwithbox I modified a satellite photo of CHEMA to represent the imaginary hub called Clarkville. It is about twice the size of CHEMA. Clarkville has just over 400 doors. The part I'm modeling is within the black rectangle. It represents about 15% of the main building. I didn't try to depict the entire facility with this image, just the main building. As a result, the yard doesn't make make sense. Overall, I'm modeling about 5% of the total facility. The horizontal section of the H is the primary unload. Each side has 40 doors. The two vertical segments on the ends are surrounded by about 320 outbound doors. How does this imaginary hub compare to UPS's largest hub. The Chicago Area Consolidation Hub or CACH has 1200 doors. That makes Clarkville a large regional hub that is located in a densely developed area. It feeds packages to other distant large hubs like CACH, it feeds smaller hubs throughout the reg...
4 IMG 3559.1 The idea for this display is to provide a background for my UPS models. I chose a hub because just about any UPS equipment would show up on the property. If I chose a rail yard or highway, I would be limited to the equipment common to those environments. In addition, hubs have been around for decades so I could also pick certain time frames to represent older or newer equipment using the same display. I would only have to be careful to make sure the equipment matched a particular time period.
5 IMG 3560.1 Of course, one of the biggest problems I have in HO Scale is that there have been so many models available that are UPS specific or can be modified to accurately represent UPS equipment. I've spent decades picking up a few pieces here and there but over time the collection has grown to huge proportions. When a modeler is presented with materials to represent the real equipment touched and used everyday, the temptation is to model it all.
6 IMG 3561.1 I would like to depict action so there will be loads moving in the aisles, drivers conducting pre and post trip inspections, drivers building sets on the outbound doors and drivers fueling a tractor or two. The best part is I can change the "set" with an almost infinite arraignment of the equipment. The yard surface, fuel island and building walls would be "permanent" but I can constantly move equipment around and add or subtract equipment as well.
7 IMG 3562.1 In this view we see along the left, a row for staging. From top to bottom would be package cars, tractors and a fuel island. In the middle is staging for inbound loaded trailers. Along the top are some of the doors for outbound loads. On the right is one side of the primary where inbound loaded trailers are emptied. Along the bottom are more doors for outbound loaded trailers. Most of the imaginary hub is not modeled. The primary or inbound doors would be double what I've depicted. The total number of outbound doors would be a multiple of the total of inbound doors. The factor could be five, six times or even more than that of the inbound doors. Also missing would be lots of trailer staging, more package car and tractor staging. There would also be a converter dolly pit, wash house and perhaps a separate shop building. There would be a gate area for inbound and outbound moves and one or two guard shacks for the employee en...
8 IMG 3563.1 To the left are some outbound doors with trailers being loaded. At the top is the primary. Those are trailers being emptied into the sort. In the middle are staged inbound loads. At the bottom are some staged package cars. There are usually only a few in the yard of a hub. All the package cars are loaded and unloaded within the building so most are not visible even when they are all on the property.
9 IMG 3565 This is the center portion of the display. At the bottom are some staged tractors. To the right would be a diesel fuel island where the piece of paper in the corner is.
10 IMG 3564.1 This is the right side. A diesel fuel island would be at the bottom where the paper, pencil and tape are. The top is a continuation of the primary with inbound loads being unloaded. The middle trailers are staged inbound loads. To the right are outbound loads being loaded. Sets of double pups are built just about anywhere there's space. Some are built on outbound doors like this and others are built in the trailer staging areas.
11 IMG 3566.1 I needed a lot of kits for the large number of trailer doors. I'm also hopeful to begin building a layout so some of the extra parts can be used as background flats representing a warehouse and/or distribution center. We'll see.
12 IMG 3571.1 This is the building side along the left of the diorama. There is a personnel door, outbound trailer doors, a another personnel door and a roll up door for package cars to pass in and out of the building. This is only about half of what this wall would look like in a real hub.
13 IMG 3572.1 This is the right side of the diorama with windows for the feeder dispatch area, a roll up door for package cars, a personnel door, doors for outbound loads and another personnel door. This would be only about half of this section of the hub.
14 IMG 3573.1 On the right is the rear of the diorama. There are 40 trailer doors and three personnel doors. This represents the primary sort or where loaded trailers are emptied. The real hub would have an H shape. This would be one side of the horizontal line in the letter H with an identical wall on the opposite side of the hub or in this case, off to the non modeled area to the right.
15 IMG 3574.1 The top is the left half of the primary wall. At the bottom is the left wall for outbound loads. The modeled wall panels will be mounted on plywood backing panels that will bolt to the frame. All the wall panels will be removable.
16 IMG 3575.1 This is the right half of the primary wall.
17 IMG 3751.0 04/13/2022 I've assembled the base frame, cut the yard base and the supports for the walls. I've mocked up the assembly to check the fit. This is the right side of the facility.
18 IMG 3750.0 This is the left side of the facility mocked up to check the fit.
19 IMG 3826 Here, the walls are mostly finished. The windows represent the Feeder Dispatch office. The two large doors are for package cars to enter and leave the building. The walls will be mounted on plywood. The white surface is the yard waiting to be masked out for the stripes. There's a lot of work yet to be done.
20 IMG 3827 A closer look at the mostly finished walls.
21 thumbnail IMG 0224 Here's the left side with the yard surface painted white for the stripes. There's a whole lot of measuring and masking yet to be done before any color is added. There's concrete pads and aprons with everything else being asphalt paving.
22 thumbnail IMG 0223 Here's the right side with the dispatch office in the corner. A whole lot of measuring went into the design so that the painting will work the first time. All the equipment will fit in the yard with lanes wide enough for prototypical equipment to maneuver. As a retired Feeder Driver, models that don't leave enough room for vehicles to operate drive me crazy.
23 thumbnail IMG 0230 (2) Here's the yard surface with paint and all the masking removed. The three wall panels are removable and are bolted to the frame when installed. Some may ask why the apron stripes go onto the pavement beyond the concrete aprons. The building was built before 53 foot trailers were allowed. After the 53 footers came on the property, drivers couldn't see the end corners of the stripes while backing on doors. The 53s blocked the view. The next time they painted the stripes, they were extended to reach about 53 feet from the doors so they now reached beyond the aprons that reach about 48 feet from the doors.
24 thumbnail IMG 0236 (2) Here's the diorama roughed out with some equipment. You can see how it all fits now. The concrete pad along the front of the photo is for the fuel island and tractor staging. The fuel island will be at the right end of that pad. There's lots of details to be added like yard lights, service covers, drains and bollards. Most of the equipment needs a lot of work to bring it up to where I want it. Overall, the diorama and equipment are presentable at this stage but I want to bring everything up to a higher level of detail. I'm quite pleased so far. Seeing my vision and years of planing pay off is great.
25 IMG 3840.1 Here I've added some details. I've temporarily placed some overhead lights in the staging row and placed the parts for the fuel island to make sure it all fits. The equipment mix is for about 2012.
26 IMG 3841.1 This is a view down along the primary with the dispatch office at the end in the corner. All these trailers need work to improve their looks. After pulling somewhere over 24 thousand trailers during my career as a Feeder Driver I feel that HO models need a lot of work to improve them.
27 IMG 3835.1 Here's some of the doors along the primary next to the dispatch office. What I like about this diorama is even though no equipment moves by itself, I can continually rearrange, add and subtract models to make the scene different. I can even change the era.
28 IMG 3845 Here's the fuel island temporarily placed to see how it will look. There's a number of 3D parts, some scratch built parts and the twin screw Mack is a Pinicle kit bashed from a Volvo. While the tractors are presentable I'll be bringing them up to a higher level of detail and fidelity. As a retired Feeder Driver, these models drive me nuts as they come from the factory.
29 IMG 3844 Here we're looking down the aisle behind the trailer staging row with the fuel island on the left and beyond is tractor staging.
30 IMG 38291. View from a road tractor while waiting for the shifter to pull that door so I can drop my load on that door.
