Location and Orientation

I'm seriously considering locating a fully built blast furnace in the lower right hand corner of this benchwork plan. It would have to sit out from the walls enough to allow a double track mainline to circle around it. I sketched in a 30" radius lines to illustrate. (it might be nice if I could hide those as they passed to the rear)??

Those are 1"= 1foot marks along the edge, and the temporary blast furnace foot print I place there is 27" by 10". Of course the back drop in that corner could be more painted steel making structures.

I also have a small selection of a variety of steel making cars I could have hanging out front of the blast furnace.
 

Suggestions??

Birdsboro

CF&I had a small blast furnace operation at Birdsboro, PA on the north/east side of the Schuylkill river between the RDG main line and the river.  Its all gone now, but it had a very small footprint.

Here is a snip for http://www.historicaerials.com from 1946:

Here is from Google Maps today:

Fun fact.  One of the last camelback locomotives operating worked at that steel mille, the ex-RDG 1187, now at Strasburg.

Only the Blast Furnace Structure, then painted backdrop ?

I found another posting I had made on the subject awhile back.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/264966.aspx

If one were seeking to built a 'steel scene' WITH JUST the blast furnace itself, and then everything else as a painted on backdrop,....something like this...

09330000003054_fp

Now if I were to include just the basic blast furnace itself set inside the curves of the dbl mainlines....thinking

Tunnel Under Steel Mill Scene?

Quote:

quote by Bob

Here's a Howard Fogg painting of what I had in mind when I mentioned the tunnel. I recall passing through this tunnel during excursions on the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie in the 1970's. I tried to find it on Google maps, but it seems to be gone, possibly removed when the tore down the mill.
 

 I thought about this idea of a tunnel situation, and will have to give it more thought. The one problem I see is that my 20" separation between the double decks of my layout are already a little short of the blast furnace's height of 22".
 

How game are you??

Hi Brian,

Given that your blast furnace is totally together this may not be applicable

The easiest way to get some height reduction is to shorten the 2 vertical gas uptake pipes below the bleeder valve platform above the furnace shaft and the vertical section of the big downcomer pipe leading to the dustcatcher. I've modified your previous photo with the cuts marked in red. The vertical ladder to the bleeder platform will also need to shortened to suit how much height you take out of the upcomers, The stack might also need some selective amputation to meet your height restrictions 

I'm not sure that this will get you the +2" you need to allow your blast furnace to fit, but it may be worth looking at.

Your next easy option is to amputate the bleeder valve platform above the gas uptakes and have the top of the furnace visually "disappear" below the upper deck framing. The combination should get you the plus 2" height reduction you need and not detract too much from the "operational look" of your blast furnace

Good Luck

Additional Considerations

Just playing with ideas,,,

I'd love to fit this sort of a scene in,...one I saw this past Christmas season...

...more photos here,  https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/steel-mill-scene-in-a-corner-12209117

Perhaps raised up 3.25 inches over main lines?
But I still don't think I have room.

I can perhaps raise the height of my second (upper level) deck a few inches in this area, as I have not installed any decking yet?

@Oztrainz
I have considered the possibility of cutting off those very upper portions of the stock model. Thanksfor the suggestions and illustrations.

Do you think you're trying to

Do you think you're trying to cram too much stuff into too small a space?

Brian, if you ask the people

Brian, if you ask the people nicely at the club maybe they will cut out that scene and give it to you!

Cut Out that Scene...ha...ha

Why, do you think they are unhappy with it? I doubt it....ha...ha

But it has given me inspiration, and just today I believe I have found a way to do a similar scene on my layout,...but in a different corner. I'll spell it out with a sketch soon.

(I'll bet i have tentatively planned this steel scene, and the Balt city scene in at least 4 different locations on the layout so far,...and in some cases not even a physical structure, but rather a backdrop painting. Oh well, isn't that what this layout design process is all about)

Too much stuff

Probably so , but I guess that is just my nature.  I've collected so many structures, I need to use some of them 

Relocated Steel Mill

So now I relocated the steel mill scene to the upper right hand corner of the layout. I spread that Orlando version out a bit more and like that one I moved it all the way into the corner area. The trackage is not exact, nor the buildings, it is just a basic idea at the moment.

I moved the double mainlines out a bit more, and straightened them a bit more. As I have mentioned before those dbl-track mainlines are set onto a stone arch bridge that was located in the Balt suburbs (photos attached). That dbl track bridge is rising up to +4 inches as the tracks leave the shed to enter the helix going up to the top level. That stone bridge also provides a single track connection over to the other side of the layout as an alternative to skip the trip up the helix, and make another trip around the bottom level.

I have not bothered to move the turntable yet, but obviously it will need to move just a little bit to the left.

Interestingly I had in the past been a little concerned about the overall height of the blast furnace to fit under that top deck. Well now it sits at ground zero on that main deck, and the top deck in that area just happens to be greater than the 'normal' 20" for that level. That's done to provide additional height for that upper balloon loop to clear the upper helix tracks.

So I have a nice dbl-track mainlines passing between the steel mill and the turntable/roundhouse scene. 
And I can get some halfway decent trackage in the steel mill scene. I might even be able to provide a track under one of the arches of that stone bridge (like the hopper car in that photo) for a small diesel loco to utilize in accessing those steel work cars

Bridges in Scene

I wonder if I could do both? ....Steel trestle over on the right near the mill, then stone arch over on the single track left hand side in front of Balt City scene in that other corner (thin section buildings and painted backdrop).

Baltimore & Steel

Baltimore & Steel

...a little background of why I am trying to put both on my new layout...

Ever since Walthers came out with that steel mill kit there have been untold number of stand alone dioramas and full layout versions done on this theme. And it has fostered numerous other sub creations as to types of steel cars, ingots, etc, etc. I've visited a number of home layouts with steel scenes, and seen John Glabbs experiments with them.

I recall that Baltimore city had a known history of being a 'steel town',....the great big Sparrows Point facility
Images of Sparrows Point Steel
 

 

There was a time when Bethlehem Steel’s gigantic plant at Sparrows Point dominated life and the economy on the lower east side of Baltimore County. Everybody knew somebody who worked 'down at the Point'.

Just so happens that Balt was also the birthplace of the American railroads,..."The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) became the first chartered railroad in the United States"


So on my new proposed layout I want to have the lower deck level depict the city backdrop of Balt, and concurrently the steel aspect. Problem is I am limited in size I can devote to a large industry such as a steel mill.

Just yesterday I think I solved that problem. I've found a place in the corner. It was inspired by a compact scene I had witnessed this past Dec upon an open house visit to a club in Orlando FL

Steel Mill Group on Yahoo

Quote:

CSX_road_slug

Quote:

There's a Yahoo newsgroup for steel mill modelers, some of them do O scale - one of them even built his own coke works!  Only thing is you need to join the group before you can view the photos.  But that is the place to go if you want to meet hardcore steel modelers in all the different scales.  Here is the link:

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/steel/

I went to join this group today,...and was greeted with this "OATH" page.
I wondered if I was going to be asked to pledge my first born before I continued on to read the rest of the legal stuff? Is this a result of other 'oath allegiances' being asked by our politicians ?

I was just interested in talking with someone about my planned steel mill scene on my new layout.

Anyone else know anything more about this group, and its status on Yahoo      (before I take some sort of OATH of allegiance)

Steel Group has moved

Hi Brian,

Following repeated problems with Yahoo the Steel Yahoo group is now locked and exists as an archive only.  All content was moved to its new location under Groups.io at  https://groups.io/g/STEEL This move happened relatively recently. The group is largely focused on the US steel industry. I think I may be the only Aussie on there. The relocated group is relatively active with a couple of posts.every day or so.

Please go knock on the "new front door", No oath is required as far as I know,    

Thanks for Reference to New Site

Thanks John,

I think I belonged to this group before, but did not participate much. At least it seem to recoqnize my email and password. But now it tells me I need to wait for confirmation. No problems. At least I don't need to make an OATH....ha....ha

Do they have a gallery of photos? I did not see a link to that, but perhaps that comes with membership approval?

Bridges in Scene

Has anyone got a few examples (photos) of those steel viaducts they are suggesting? Remember this double track bridge would start out from ground zero down lower on that right hand side of the room., then gradually rise to 4 inches high as it gets to the rear wall of the room/shed where it exits to the helix structure.

So the tracks are only 3.5" to 4" high in front of the mill scene.

 

Help with Details

My steel scene/area is pretty small. Obviously I cant fit all of the Walther's sub structures in, but perhaps those 3 main structures that the Orlando layout included.

Is there anyone willing to give me a few ideas as to how to arrange those structures, and the tracks within that area?

I've attached a dwg with the scale marks at each 1" equals 1'

Steel Mill questions....

So you have a blast furnace but what I didn't catch was what you wanted the additional structures to be? From the pictures of the club it looks like to me one of the additional structures is an open hearth furnace producing ingots of steel from the iron and some type of rolling mill taking the steel ingots and making outbound steel loads. Would have to ask to be sure. I saw no evidence of a coke works or byproducts plant, so assume you want don't want that or have the kits. Saw no evidence of a blower house for the blast furnace so assume that is also somewhere else.  So here is what I see....

You have a blast Furnace

so inbounds need to be....Coke,Iron ore, limestone

outbound can be.... pig iron for open hearth furnace or Basic Oxygen Furnace or a transfer run somewhere else on layout, Slag going to dump to be processed into road materials, and  dust going to sinter plant.

at open hearth inbound pig iron, scrap, additional ingredients depending on type of steel being made..... out is steel poured into molds with possible addition being a mold shop or ladle shop..

A Basic Oxygen Furnace is a huge building which dwarfs a lot of other structures and considering your space I wouldn't do.

At the rolling mill you take the ingots maybe put them in a soaking pit to maintain the heat and when needed take the ingot and either create pipes, plates or coils as outbound loads.

depends on your era

Basic Kits from Walthers

Happened across this rendition on an older posting on another forum.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/169279.aspx

Nicely done, BUT still way to large for my space

Moved Location of Steel Mill

I had originally thought I might place my steel mill blast furnace and whatever associated structures up in that right hand corner of my layout. BUT now I am totally convinced that I will place it down on the left hand corner next to the entrance way door and below the freight yard scene.
 

Anyone want to make some suggestions about the arrangement of the mill structures, which ones to include/exclude, track plan etc?

I am pretty firmly convinced that the blast furnace needs to be where I/ve indicated.

new Steel Idea

Now over to the steel mill portion of that corner of the layout. I really don't know what I will finally do here, but here is my newest idea. I will NOT utilize the electric furnace, but basically stick with the blast furnace and rolling mill, and rearranged thusly.
 

Here is how I quickly laid out the track there. (the two big blobs of white are the foot prints of original sized rolling mill and blast furnace offered by Walthers)
 

My basic condensed version assumes the Rolling Mill assumes two roles,...accepts molten metal from the blast furnace, and turns it into basic shapes it ships out on the other end??

NOTE: I think that mirror I show at the end of the blast furnace should make that scene appear much deeper,...and hide the dble mainline behind it.??

That's not quite how it works...

Hi Brian and all,

That's not quite how it works in the real world -  A blast furnace makes molten iron at about 4% carbon - steel shapes are about 1% carbon - that's where the steelmaking shop comes into it, reducing the overall carbon in the melt and then adding other alloys like manganese to give you the correct chemistry for the steel so that you can roll the steel into shapes without it falling apart in the rolling process.

And, yes, I know of times when the chemistry or heating was wrong and everything ended up as small pieces in the scale drain under the rolling mill, but that's another "war story" for another time.  

I'm assuming you are using bottle cars (aka torpedo ladles) to move molten iron away from the blast furnace? Perhaps a more realistic option may be to turn the rolling mill into a mechanised pig mill producing slugs of solidified cast iron, or, a spun pipe plant producing cast iron pipes. This would give your liquid iron in/solid shapes out scenario. But the insides of either of these plants would look nothing like a rolling mill.  

The real problem is "scale of operations". I've worked on blast furnaces including some of the bigger ones in the southern hemisphere. The Walthers blast furnace looks to be a mid-sized furnace. Lets call it 2000 ton/day capacity. The ones I worked on were producing better than 4000 ton/day. Assuming no scrap losses (and there will be) That's 20 100-ton wagons of "output" a day to be moved from your mill each day.  Because of the limited amount of space under the roof of the mill which limits how much solid stuff you can hold under the roof, you would need to be able swap loaded wagons for empties wagons quickly without stopping whatever process is under the mill roof. 

On the input side of the blast furnace - It takes much more than a ton of inputs (coke/ore/limestone) to get a ton of molten iron out of the bottom of the furnace. If you are modelling the high-line traffic to the raw material bins, then this high-line trackage is also going to be a pretty busy place. 

Remember Rule 1 - It's your model railroad empire and the level of reality applied is up to yourself and yourself only.