Anyone recognize this structure type?

[velotrain]

http://utanilog.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2007-04-20&pagename=nice

Last photo from bottom - bright green structure on the right.

 

Could those be stacks of folded sod in front of it? . . any other ideas?

 

This is in the Showa Denko Kawasaki Mill near the Okawa station, and I believe I read this now-closed plant produced fertilizer among other things.

 

I don't know if it is a temporary structure or not, but I'm fairly certain that it is of a type that can be erected in a very short time - perhaps a week or even less.

 

I'm wondering what it might be called (kanji is fine), as I'd like to locate some other photos of similar structures. I'm quite certain there are no commercial models for it, and I'm trying to decide if it would be worth my while to try to replicate it.

 

I'm having a hard time trying to identify and source model structures for this plant - other than vertical cylindrical storage tanks, which are thankfully plentiful. I may just wing it, but I'm not quite ready to quit looking at the prototype for ideas - although there are just as few photos as for the interior of Nisshin Flour, and like it all are taken from the track gate.

 

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For anyone interested in freight trains and urban industry, this site has some really excellent color photos in little "essays" about specific industries. This link brings you to a blog entry showing what to do with those Tomytec thick, wavy petrochemical pipes ;-) They do a very nice job framing the railway entrance to the plant, but could also work to camouflage the entrance to a staging / fiddle yard.

 

http://blog.livedoor.jp/koukendaisuki/archives/51768930.html

[Khaul]

Nice blog entry! That's the Kanagawa Rinkai Chidori line.

 

By the way, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZBivdDMWE

Edited March 26, 2017 by Khaul

[Suica]

These look like temporary tent warehouses.

[velotrain]

Thanks, Suica. There's a lot of new structures in there since Showa Denko left.

[cteno4]

Great tomytec prototypes.

 

Not much has been done on real refinery kits. Most are just a few parts with cracking and distillation towers. The meat of most decent sized refineries are the 3+ story cooking plants that are the big mainly just skeletal frame works with many pipes cracking columns, separators, distillation columns. I've never seen that done at all in a kit. Plastructs old kit had all the elements but laid out on the ground. You really can cheat on them and just make a grid structure with i beams and cram it full of different colored piping! Pipes are easily made from all those plastic sprues from kits. Even precolored in many cases!

 

I have not seen curt's new refinery addition on his layout yet, but he worked for Exxon and wanted something prototypical so im expecting one of these custom made by custom model railroads. I will be going out to visit him (he moved way out in the country) in the next few weeks.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

What about the Walther's North Island refinery?

 

I've always though that to do something that passes as an actual refinery would take at least 20 sq. ft. (if not a lot more) and would cost a lot of cash to build - even if using sprues.

 

I recall reading that the Plastructs product was not a kit at all, but just a lot of raw materials with some vague instructions as to what to do with it.

[cteno4]

The walthers is even simpler than the plastruct. Yes the plastruct is just pieces of plastruct styrene bits you need to chop up as needed.

 

Smaller refineries like the one pictured could be compressed into a few square feet. Big refineries thes e complexes are many stories high and huge, but that one looked much smaller and compact.

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

But still complex to build convincingly ;-)

[cteno4]

No just a lot of work, but would not be hard as it's mainly just a superstructure, lots and lots of pipe, and some walkways. Not a lot needed internally as you don't see very far into all the pipework. Used sprews are perfect for the pipework.

 

This is what pissed curt off as the models available never looked like a real refinery of even small size he had seen.

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

I have a vivid memory of being on a cross-country train trip when I was seven, and waking up in the night to see a large refinery next to the train, with hundred of lights, and seeming to go on for miles.

[cteno4]

Yes they can be huge. TV loved using abandoned ones for sets!

 

The lights so look like fairy lands! All the towers as well. They use to at times burn off excess gas as well on towers and I remeber going by the Martinez ca refineries at night in the car as a kid and seeing the big Bunsen burners going, but I thinnthat only happens now in an emergency when they have to release gas or something will explode.

 

Ive a big box of sprews saved up to some day make a multistory structure to go along with the wlakthers and tomytec stuff I have.. Pack in a wad of 0402 leds and it could really be a cool feature! Put in a vapor cig in the distillation columns and way cool.

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

I had forgotten about the burn-off towers!

 

Quite something for a kid to wake up to in the middle of the night.

 

I recall it seeming quite unearthly.