Meadville’s railroad yard became a mile-long stretch of heavy metal Wednesday.

More than 260 pieces of mobile military equipment — including about 70 cutting-edge Stryker combat vehicles — were moved to a staging area at the yard as Northwest Pennsylvania National Guard troops, including about 100 soldiers from Crawford County, continued preparing to ship out for training and eventual overseas deployment.

“This is the largest (ever) movement of military vehicles in northwestern Pennsylvania,” Capt. John Boyko, Erie-based 1-112 IN(SBCT) Battalion’s logistics officer, said Wednesday.

The equipment will be shipped by train from Meadville to its pre-deployment destination at Camp Shelby, Miss., a large training site operated by the Mississippi National Guard.

At 7 a.m. today, with pre-staging completed, loading of train cars will begin. In sets of 15 cars at a time, the equipment will be prepared for transport. When each set of 15 rail cars is complete, that group will be moved to another part of the Meadville yards so another 15 cars can be taken to the load zone. In all, 67 cars will contain the equipment, and they will roll in a one-train shipment to Mississippi, departing Meadville on Saturday.

Capt. Boyko and other local guard members were busy early Wednesday preparing for the move by conducting safety briefings and sectioning off spots for the Strykers and Humvees, Hemetts (high mobility truck transfer units) and some 5-ton trucks also included in the transport.

Almost every Stryker in the northwest unit is being shipped out for training and deployment. A 19-ton, eight-wheeled, light-armored vehicle, the Stryker — currently in use in military operations in Iraq — has been heralded by many in the military as a bridge for the gap between light and heavy forces.

A Stryker Brigade Combat Team can be on the ground in any part of the world in 96 hours, according to officials.

“A lot of people say it’s a taxi cab for the battlefield,” said Lt. Frank Egan III, executive officer for the Corry-based Bravo Co., adding “you can’t beat it” when it comes to the protection it offers from improvised explosive devices and other weaponry on the ground.

“It’s an outstanding vehicle,” said Boyko. “Most units like it because you can go places no one else can.”

The Pennsylvania National Guard is the only state guard to receive the cutting-edge vehicles. The guard’s northwest battalion has facilities in Meadville, Erie, Bradford, Ridgway, Corry, Butler, Punxsutawney and Torrance.

Some of the vehicles began to arrive about a week ago and were placed in a large parking lot in Cambridge Springs, set up as a pre-staging site at the still-under-construction National Guard base, new home of Pennsylvania Army National Guard’s 56th Stryker Brigade.

A local center and maintenance buildings are being built on about 10 of the 50 acres of state-owned land near the State Correctional Institution at Cambridge Springs, a women’s prison. A grand opening ceremony for the new facility, which will house about 70 Strykers, is being planned for mid-July, according to officials.

Stryker Brigade site to be operational by summer