What connects buildings at a factory?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the types of structures that could connect buildings in an abandoned factory setting, particularly focusing on what could support the weight of individuals crossing between large structures. The context is fictional, as participants are exploring ideas for a story involving a policeman fleeing from crooks in an industrial environment.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants suggest that catwalks could serve as the suspended platforms connecting buildings.
  • Others propose underground tunnels as alternative connections between structures.
  • A participant mentions overhead cable racks as a potential structure, though they express uncertainty about the terminology when applied externally.
  • Another participant distinguishes between cable racks and catwalks, noting that cable racks may not be safe for supporting a person.
  • One participant discusses pipe racks, indicating they may hold pipes and could potentially support weight, depending on their design and safety margins.
  • There is a suggestion that the accuracy of the factory structures in the story is important for realism, with a warning against generic plot devices.
  • A participant humorously reflects on the risks associated with running across industrial structures, sharing a personal anecdote from their experience in a security role.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a variety of opinions on the types of structures that could be used, indicating no consensus on a single term or structure. The discussion includes multiple competing views on what would be appropriate for the fictional setting.

Contextual Notes

Some participants note that the terminology for structures may vary regionally, and there is uncertainty regarding the specific capabilities of the proposed structures to support weight safely.

Who May Find This Useful

Writers, particularly those interested in creating realistic industrial settings in fiction, may find this discussion beneficial for understanding potential structures in abandoned factories.

Newai
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In a short story I'm writing, a scene has a policeman running for his life from a couple of crooks. They're at an abandoned factory/mill/plant, and the cop makes his way up a few floors of a building, where he goes out a window and crosses over to another building. I've been looking at photos of factories and see an amazing network of pipes and wires. But what could I use at a factory that would support the weight of three men on a suspended platform running from one building to another? These don't really have to be buildings, and it could be any plant or factory. Probably a chemical plant. I just need to get them crossing on a suspended platform between two large structures at some kind of abandoned industrial setting.

This photo is a good example of what I have in mind: http://www.dreamstime.com/chemical-plant-image6400423

Any idea what those platforms are?
 
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Catwalks.
 
And underground tunnels.
 
Newai said:
In a short story I'm writing, a scene has a policeman running for his life from a couple of crooks. They're at an abandoned factory/mill/plant, and the cop makes his way up a few floors of a building, where he goes out a window and crosses over to another building. I've been looking at photos of factories and see an amazing network of pipes and wires. But what could I use at a factory that would support the weight of three men on a suspended platform running from one building to another? These don't really have to be buildings, and it could be any plant or factory. Probably a chemical plant. I just need to get them crossing on a suspended platform between two large structures at some kind of abandoned industrial setting.

This photo is a good example of what I have in mind: http://www.dreamstime.com/chemical-plant-image6400423

Any idea what those platforms are?

The thing in the picture, when indoors, is sometimes called an overhead cable rack. Not sure if they go by the same name when they're exterior.
 
I'm pretty sure Jimmy Snyder is right, though the term is more commonly applied to model runways in fashion shows now. In theaters, I know, there is usually a cat walk backstage, high up to allow access to the lights, their electric lines, and various curtains and their pulleys.
 
Yes. Catwalks.

Cable racks, if they're what I'm thinking of, tend to be smaller, too small to support a man safely. They may look similar to catwalks, but they're completely different function.


Newai, the way to write good fiction is to be accurate. Go find the type of factory in your story. See what kinds of structures they actually have. Make it realistic.

The way to write mediocre stories is to use the same plot devices dragged from other stories, polsih them and reuse them, whether or not they're accurate or appropriate to your particular story. You might as well just write "the cop ran into a random generic abandoned factory."

One of the best short story writer scenes ever to appear in a movie was in "Throw Mama from the Train". Billy Crystal reads an excerpt of a story by one of his students:

"The Captain said 'Dive!'"
"And the guy that drives the submarine pushed the lever that makes the submarine dive. And the submarine dove."


It is an awesomely funny scene. And a cautionary tale to all writers.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Newai, the way to write good fiction is to be accurate. Go find the type of factory in your story. See what kinds of structures they actually have. Make it realistic.

Not where I live, unfortunately.
 
Newai said:
Not where I live, unfortunately.

Well, the other rule of story writing is "write what you know". :wink:
 
well, the small stuff is generally called cable tray. not sure if that is the general term for the bigger trestle-looking stuff. or what tray for pipes, as opposed to electrical cable is called. maybe ask the chemE guys.
 
  • #10
DaveC426913 said:
Newai, the way to write good fiction is to be accurate. Go find the type of factory in your story. See what kinds of structures they actually have. Make it realistic.

The way to write mediocre stories is to use the same plot devices dragged from other stories, polsih them and reuse them, whether or not they're accurate or appropriate to your particular story. You might as well just write "the cop ran into a random generic abandoned factory."

One of the best short story writer scenes ever to appear in a movie was in "Throw Mama from the Train". Billy Crystal reads an excerpt of a story by one of his students:

"The Captain said 'Dive!'"
"And the guy that drives the submarine pushed the lever that makes the submarine dive. And the submarine dove."


It is an awesomely funny scene. And a cautionary tale to all writers.
Have you been writing novels behind our backs, Dave?
 
  • #11
zoobyshoe said:
Have you been writing novels behind our backs, Dave?

Haha no. I toyed with writing for a bit. Everyone does.
 
  • #12
Newai said:
Any idea what those platforms are?

Pipe rack. Similar to a cable rack, but they hold pipes instead. (What, you expected some incredibly complex latin name for them?)

They may or may not support the weight of a person. Depends how tightly the racks were designed to the current configuration. Considering the cost of building the racks, it would be cheaper to accommodate some amount of future expansion/modification than to have to completely rebuild your rack system every time the system is modified. Plus, one would expect there to be a certain safety margin, just as on bridges, etc.

But, then again, cops don't worry about how much weight the rack can hold when they're running for their life. Damaging the pipes and causing them to leak who knows what type of gas makes life more exciting for whoever follows him.

In fact, cops don't worry much about anything like that. When I was stationed at a space radar site in Alaska, the security guards used to run across the wave guides once in a while during their training exercises. Only once in a while, because the reaction they got from the tech personnel was always strong enough to make sure it would take a long time to forget. Not only were they risking taking an entire sector off-line, they were risking injury if the wave guide collapsed completely.
 
  • #13
BobG said:
they were risking injury if the wave guide collapsed completely.
Of course, we wouldn't know if they were injured until the wave itself collapsed.
 
  • #14
BobG said:
Pipe rack.

Well, that's good because that is the current place holder I have so far. I was also toying with a collapse since it's abandoned, and that suits the results of the story here.

Thanks, everyone!
 
  • #15
DaveC426913 said:
Haha no. I toyed with writing for a bit. Everyone does.
That's true. In fact, the oft-repeated rule "write what you know," itself, suggested a plot to me once: the premise of the tale is that a character decides to become kind of writer's "procuror of experience". He's got access to some kind of huge lot where he can stage car wrecks with junkers and blow up safes and set stuff on fire for the benefit of writers who wanted to see these things in person to be able to describe them. (It's the kind of business one of the mythbusters could go into after their show runs its course.) He keeps it as cheap as possible, of course. Usually he has to invite at least ten people at, say, $200.00 a head, to view a given "event", but a rich best selling author like Stephen King, could afford a special request.

Anyway,the plot heats up when the experiences being offered start to escalate. He starts hinting he can show them more than they would think to ask for. Could be flopped the other way though; the experiences being demanded start to escalate with the procuror as the hapless victim. Once something sufficiently illegal is staged there's the leverage of threatening to turn the other into force more.
 
  • #16
I write murder mysteries.
 
  • #17
Newai, what you showed us was an image of what we in Maine and New England would call pipe-bridges. They are much sturdier than cable-racks and could probably easily bear the weight of a cop and a pursuer or two that want to catch/kill him.
 
  • #18
Jimmy Snyder said:
I write murder mysteries.
Same here. The research experience is killer!
 
  • #19
zoobyshoe said:
Same here. The research experience is killer!
I'd like to cancel our lunch-date, Zooby. I have to do research for a survivalist manifest.
 
  • #20
turbo-1 said:
I'd like to cancel our lunch-date, Zooby. I have to do research for a survivalist manifest.

K. Raincheck.
 
  • #21
zoobyshoe said:
K. Raincheck.
How to avoid Zooby-ambush: Rule 1 - don't have lunch with one. Get a "raincheck"? "Forget" to reschedule.
 
  • #22
turbo-1 said:
How to avoid Zooby-ambush: Rule 1 - don't have lunch with one. Get a "raincheck"? "Forget" to reschedule.

Very clever of you. But you've forced my hand: I must now peruse the Acme catalog.
 
  • #23
zoobyshoe said:
K. Raincheck.

turbo-1 said:
How to avoid Zooby-ambush: Rule 1 - don't have lunch with one. Get a "raincheck"? "Forget" to reschedule.

You guys are killing me. But seriously, when I worked at a chemical plant as an electrician, I would have to walk on the pipes and large conduits very often. Once on an 8"pipe while carrying a 2hp motor. So in his story, the pipes better be really rusty to fail.
 
  • #24
dlgoff said:
You guys are killing me. But seriously, when I worked at a chemical plant as an electrician, I would have to walk on the pipes and large conduits very often. Once on an 8"pipe while carrying a 2hp motor. So in his story, the pipes better be really rusty to fail.
Good to know. I already feel better about the thought of being cornered by the cops in a chemical plant.
 
  • #25
zoobyshoe said:
Good to know. I already feel better about the thought of being cornered by the cops in a chemical plant.
I HATE when that happens!
 
  • #26
turbo-1 said:
Newai, what you showed us was an image of what we in Maine and New England would call pipe-bridges. They are much sturdier than cable-racks and could probably easily bear the weight of a cop and a pursuer or two that want to catch/kill him.
Pipe bridge or pipe trestle seems to be common terms.

http://image.shutterstock.com/displ...-on-pipe-bridge-against-blue-sky-14250112.jpg

http://www.mcevoyengineering.co.uk/images/pipebridge1.jpg

Or generically - steel works.

http://www.mcevoyengineering.co.uk/jobportfolio.html
 
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  • #27
zoobyshoe said:
Good to know. I already feel better about the thought of being cornered by the cops in a chemical plant.

I'm wondering if you could really navigate on a pipe in mid air like the one above this guys head? :biggrin:

[PLAIN]http://www.processingface.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Fotolia_6380401_XS.jpg
 
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  • #28
dlgoff said:
I'm wondering if you could really navigate on a pipe in mid air like the one above this guys head? :biggrin:

[PLAIN]http://www.processingface.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Fotolia_6380401_XS.jpg[/QUOTE] Maybe -
 
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  • #29
Astronuc said:
Maybe -


Wow. The OP may have to rethink his story if he sees this.
 
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  • #30
Thank you, Astronuc. I like "pipe bridge." Google images has some of what I had in mind.
dlgoff said:
Wow. The OP may have to rethink his story if he sees this.
That guy is wild. But my characters are old farts, so making them do parkour might turn it into a comedy.
 

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