Another view of the Armorcast plant, the path in the foreground is part of the Schuylkill River Trail, a recreational path using mostly former railroad grade. My exercise runs past here have allowed monitoring the demolition of this huge complex. The products here were tanks -- as in Sherman, and later Patton -- so it may be good it's redundant!
That brought back some memories from back in the late 1960s of going up the SureKill Parkway on the way to see the guys at the GE facility.
Sad to see that the Armorcast plant is now considered to be "redundant." I am not sure that this is a good thing in all ways. There are no steel plants left in the United States making really good high quality steel. There is one major steel plant left making mild steel for consumption here in the United States, but it is competing with Pusan Steel and some others. Their main advantage is lower transportation costs for their product.
I have commented elsewhere on an aluminum plant out here in Spokane which has been mothballed for years. The management found that they could make more money for their stockholders by just reselling their long term low cost electrical power allotment from the BPA to the guys down in California.
If Pearl Harbor were to happen this coming weekend, I do not think that we could duplicate what we did back in the early 1940s.
The building's shape, the 4 chimneys in a row all say " a past industrial era" This picture captures that era so well and it looks like you got there just in time.
Thanks for the comments. The demo crew doesn't appear to be working on weekends, and I did not go inside the perimeter. I would have liked to, but looking at the condition of the structure, sitting there with chunks wrenched out of it, I wouldn't even think about going close, or Zeus forbid, inside. The west end points toward downtown Birdsboro. "Armorcast Drive," the former access road now shared with the Schuylkill River Trail, comes out across from the Turkey Hill gas station in the middle of the dogleg on route 724, found between a Rita's and a brick office building. I believe a large portion of the east end of the plant is already down, a crane has been seen towering over there since at least June, but I didn't find a way to get near that end (not owning a machete!) There is an interesting elevated perspective from 724 looking down over a ball field, but I was too tired to figure out a place to park and hike over for that view. I had thought waiting for a killing frost might reduce the jungle along the fence, but that appears to have been optimistic. There's a bunch more shots in my PBase gallery (http://www.pbase.com/dw_thomas/armorcast), (but some use the technology whose name dare not be spoken). On the public side of the gate at the east end of the drive, just after an electrical substation, there is a gravel drive angling up and to the right which is the SRT (and marked), but also access to a small parking area for trail use or the ball field. There's a large, somewhat messy area on the north side of the drive that includes drop-off for recycling and a compost recycling operation. So it's not totally off limits to the public, as far as outside the fence goes. I parked near the ball field to begin my expedition. I plan to monitor activities and take some more shots along the way. They have been at it for months, so it could go on a long time. DaveT Edit: Dang! This editor trashes line breaks! Trust me, there were paragraphs!