How to keep massive logistical operations secret.

[kato13]

As many of you know I approach my project first from a logistical prospective (in many cases sacrificing some aspects of gameplay). The sheer amount of materials needed is staggering. Keeping such movement secret compounds the situation.

Here are some solutions I have come with are

Semi Public Caches
Every time the COT built a retail location underneath they placed basic life saving materials in storage under it. This thread has more information.

Ground delivery distributions centers
If the COT can run a business like UPS, placing massive underground vaults at their distribution centers seems like a good solution. Perhaps such centers can be built upon abandoned mines. Thousands of trucks moving in and out of such a facility would draw no attention. If one half of one percent of materials routed through such a facility was spirited off to the underground catacombs (via a specific barcode and conveyor belts) a huge amount of useful material could be stored there.

Looting of the upper levels would be expected of course but if the centers were closed before war day that could be kept to a minimum (as looters would expect the facility to be empty).

I am less likely to persue the option of air shipment distribution centers (like FedEx's Tennessee facility) as anything near airports is probably a (or near a) nuclear target.

Railway yards within Tunnels
I have always thought that the project needs to move a majority of its materials by rail. COT purchases and expansion of railroad companies is to be expected. If a few rail cars a day could be delivered to several facilities for many years massive stockpiles could be established. In order to hide these transactions I felt railway tunnels would be a natural place for them to take place as everything would be away from prying eyes.

Options I have consider.

Full train swap. Train A pulls into the tunnel and stops to be unloaded (perhaps on a railroad siding). Train B pulls out of the tunnel apparently continuing Train A's trek. This would be confusing to maintain from a record keeping perspective and marking perspective but it would be repeatable and would allow A LOT of equipment to be transferred and things could happen rather quickly. You would also need a very long tunnel.

Multiple Car swap. The train pulls in and 10 or so cars are swapped out. Perhaps 5 empty ore loaders to haul away excavated rock and 5 loaded cargo cars are dropped off and 5 full ore loaders and 5 empty cargo cars are hauled away. If this were to happen daily for 10 years you could build a massive reserve.

ISO container (CONEX box) swap. Using cranes hidden in the roof of a tunnel full ISO shipping containers could be removed from a train and replaced with empty ones (or ones filled with excavated materials). This option would probably allow the train to have minimum interruption, but seems like a difficult engineering solution.


These are just some basic ideas but I would be very interested in hearing any comments or other creative logistic ideas.

[natehale1971]

I like the idea of the COT having a UPS/FedEX type cover for their logitical operations. They know when the end comes, all they have to do is create the major private courier service, build facilities around the country (inculding their own private airfields where they know nukes wont fall since they WILL need airfields to move supplies after the project goes active).

The below ground facilities are like an iceberg... the above ground warehouse is 10% of the facility... the extensive underground faciliites would be built like the underground missile control complexes that where suppose to be able to survive an indirect or direct hit (i cant remember which)...

You can also have the storage facilities hidden inside mountains where trains can be switched out.. The Project could build its own semi-pirvate railways that would go to isolated areas, where Morrow Industries would have 'planned' to build a community but they made mistakes on their business plan and went out of business.

This would allow them to put airfeilds and depots in isolated areas.

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

I like the idea of the COT having a UPS/FedEX type cover for their logitical operations. They know when the end comes, all they have to do is create the major private courier service, build facilities around the country (inculding their own private airfields where they know nukes wont fall since they WILL need airfields to move supplies after the project goes active).

The below ground facilities are like an iceberg... the above ground warehouse is 10% of the facility... the extensive underground faciliites would be built like the underground missile control complexes that where suppose to be able to survive an indirect or direct hit (i cant remember which)...

You can also have the storage facilities hidden inside mountains where trains can be switched out.. The Project could build its own semi-pirvate railways that would go to isolated areas, where Morrow Industries would have 'planned' to build a community but they made mistakes on their business plan and went out of business.

This would allow them to put airfeilds and depots in isolated areas.

Yeah, I thought the same way, I used to work for Fed Ex Ground in accounting and I think the hub system and distribution network would make a nice backbone for The Morrow Project.

We have an abandoned tunnel or two on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, they would also make nice places to hide things. We have Iron Mountain in Boyer's, PA that was featured as a storage area in "Allegheny Uprising" for Twilight: 2000 that would be nice as well. I have a friend that lives next to it, he plans to get me a tour of the place and I see their trucks all the time roaming around.

Like Fed Ex, an auto parts company would be nice to be able to store things like parts and other things you would need to rebuild civilization. Where I work at, the various stores might stock different things depending on the area, one store I run to where I have to fetch parts has more parts for farm equipment and tractors than we do since they are in a more rural area.

Chuck M.

[natehale1971]

Operation like a FedEx/UPS company would allow the updating of Caches as well. Because FedEx/UPS trucks are so common, most people don't even take interest in them when they see them on the road. And the fact that Morrow Industries would be using them as a cover would allow them to operate the wide ranging network that the project would need, and allow them to keep it functioning without anyone batting an eye. Thus the project could update boltholes and caches pretty much on a regular basis...

[natehale1971]

I had came up with the creation of a shadow internet like network that the Project would be using, that would have been created by the same guys who created the internet predessor (DARPANET). I had MPNET being composed of both secured landlines (much like the US Military and federal government have as a secured back-up for important classified communications and linking of those special computer networks)... The 'nodes' of these lines would have the ability to deploy powerful wifi antennas that would be used by field and speciality teams to maintain their communications and logistical needs.

But that's neither here nor there... We need to come up with the answer to a very importnant question...

Just what would the name of the UPS/FedEX cover be?

[kato13]

Was also thinking today that the COT should own a truck rental company like Ryder. It would be another way to diffuse interest in the comings and goings of trucks. Until the 1993 WTC and Oklahoma city bombings people paid very little attention to such trucks coming and going.

[sic1701]

Regarding the idea of trains switching out in some sort of tunnel or underground rail yard, modern diesel locomotives put out an astounding amount of exhaust (and older units from the 70s and 80s, which would be when the most work was going on, would produce even more exhaust) so what would be needed is an infrastructure of ventilation ducts and gigantic fans to keep the air fresh for the workers as well as to allow the engines not to choke on their own exhaust. Such ventilation equipment installed on an out-of-the-way mountain would arouse suspicion. The very first item to be installed in such a facility should be an massive air purification system, unless the ventilation is camoflagued so as to appear a natural part of the mountain, or emplaced under overhangs.

Another idea would be purchasing a seldom-used rail line (which would then be a private and wholly-owned subsidiary of Morrow Industries, Ltd, naturally) in the mountains where plenty of tunnels abound and assembling a tunnel-boring machine in a large tunnel, unseen from the air, then creating a side-tunnel and excavating an increasingly larger subterranean space for storage and operations; the occasional train run on this line would have empty coal cars either topped with black tarps to suggest to satellite imagery that they are loaded coal cars, or be painted black. A trainload of empties would enter the tunnel on one train; simultaneously, a loaded train with the cars filled with excavated debris would prepare to leave the opposite end of the main tunnel. Any satellite or aircraft watching this progression would see a "loaded" coal train entering the tunnel and then see that same train leaving the other end of the tunnel after a suitable interval. Locomotives involved in this transaction would be painted with identical markings so as not to raise suspicion when Locomotive 1234 enters the tunnel but Locomotive 5678 leaves...

The train could continue on the Morrow main line to a point where it intersected with another railroad, then taken to a Morrow-related destination where the excavated materials could be used or dumped (i.e. landfill, or another Morrow excavation which needed tons of rock to cover it up). And over time, suitable strengthening could be made of the rail line so as to allow Class A railroads some trackage rights and then get their hands on really good stuff via intermodal traffic and manifest trains. As well as the occasional trainload of military equipment and vehicles being transported from a military installation to a firing range (I am thinking, for example, of a mountain redoubt between Fort Riley, KS and the NTC at Fort Irwin, CA).

Might even give Morrow Industries a tidy little profit...thus paying for the excavation out of other operating funds to help hide from government oversight until such time as the revamped line can, via trackage rights, pay for itself.

Additionally, rail fabrication equipment, concrete tie stacks, vast stocks of rail equipment can be stored in the mountain and then rolled out after the nuclear strikes to help fill in gaps in the U.S. rail network, or at least the portions that the Project requires initially.

Finally, to take a page from United States railroad history, a few thousand Chinese laborers can be frozen in the mountain and then thawed out to gandy-dance their way to prosperity in the post-apocalyptic frontier.

[Traveller]

As a matter of 'Hiding In Plain Sight'...

My project use 'Idustrial Landfills' as sites for building some base, etc. The logic was that such landfills are ususally in semi-isolated, out of the way locations; have vasts tracks of disturbed, half-buried dig sites; arouse no susupsicions by having a large number of industrial vehicles coming and going with unspecified loads (ie, building materials); and have a constant presence (ie security) aobut them that is expected and usually goes 'unnoticed' by the public at large.

Best of all, landfills eventually reach 'capacity', and are then filled in, levelled off and 'closed' to the public with the usual 'Contaminated Ground' warning posted all aobut. Excellent cover for the kind of facilities that the Project would want to establish...

Cheers!
John

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

But that's neither here nor there... We need to come up with the answer to a very importnant question...

Just what would the name of the UPS/FedEX cover be?

I just had a whimsical idea

Transportation Management & Planning, Inc.