Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Warehouse Wednesday: AP Leamington

Years ago, Automotive Products (AP) was Leamington Spa's biggest employer. My dad endured a job there for many years as did many of my school friends parents. 

The place was massive but always a bit of a mystery. Cameras were banned from the site in case you snapped photos of something under development. Or because the management thought they stole souls or something. However, in 1990, during an official open day, we grabbed some photos around the factory, which I present today.

AP Pipe bridge

None of these have any great artistic merit, but they do show some interesting and modelable details. The first is a simple pipe bridge. Presumably putting the pipe in a trench was more expensive than over the top on a support high enough to clear lorries driving around the site.

AP stacker trucks

The second is a row of stacker trucks beside an anonymous building. Looking at the other photos, quite a lot of the site was like this - brick walls and pitched roofs with metal frame windows. If someone produces a resin cast version, with only minor modification, most of the plant could be built. 

I like the red cabinet nearest the camera. I think this contains a fire hose and should be a part of most industrial models. Nice and easy to make too.

2 comments:

Mikkel said...

Hi Phil, just wanted to say I enjoy your warehouse posts - very useful. It can be difficult to find photos of the less imposing medium- and smaller structures when you live in Denmark! I've got a couple marked as inspiration for future scratchbuilds.

Phil Parker said...

Mikkel - Thanks very much! It's always nice to know people are enjoying this sort of thing. I'll try and find some more suitable photos.