Iron Ore Mine & Steel Mill in N

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
I'm quite familiar with those threads. You've done a fantastic job and have done all of us a great service posting your progress from one stage to another. It's always nice to have an additional resource like that when something in the instruction sheets isn't clear.

Thanks Dr. J

I plan to do another set of them in the future, which i will make a new set of threads for, maybe ill name them re-building the Walthers N Scale.... lol

My Plans are to combine at least 2 Blast Furnaces together, 4-5 Rolling Mills either in ONE Giant Mill 4 Doors wide and 3 Mills long or 2 Mills 3 doors wide and 2 Mills long, doing a Electric Furnace using 2 or 3 of the kits, and using 2 Coke Oven and Quenchers kits to make one big one to extend the Coke Ovens complete with a Coke Pusher. With the Mills and Furnaces all connected together by mainlines and CONFUSSING and eye catching mazes of trackwork :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: with the Coke Oven further up the mainline on the layout :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:. Ive had dreams about making this Steel Mill lol. I just dont have the room to make it right now :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 

DrGeologist

Canadian Down Under
I had originally planned on combining my two blast furnaces to make one large one. But after having a look at the asymmetrical nature of the cast houses I decided that it would be too much work to take this on.

I am planning on combining two rolling mills together as you did too give that nice elongate visual effect. I also have plans to bash together some kits to bulk out the electric arc furnace to create a larger bessmer-style furnace complex.

Hopefully by then I’ll have a bit more confidence in kitbashing, but for now, I’m happy to leave the two blast furnaces as they are.
 

DrGeologist

Canadian Down Under
A bit of an update:

Still working on the two blast furnaces… lots of fiddly bits, but getting it put together steadily.

Minor progress on ore dock and bridge crane.

Received the three car shop kits and have started to paint and construct for the blast house. Lots of windows!!!

Ripping up my foam in places now that I’ve changed the overall layout.

Ordered more rail and turnouts.


 

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
A bit of an update:

Still working on the two blast furnaces… lots of fiddly bits, but getting it put together steadily.

Minor progress on ore dock and bridge crane.

Received the three car shop kits and have started to paint and construct for the blast house. Lots of windows!!!

Ripping up my foam in places now that I’ve changed the overall layout.

Ordered more rail and turnouts.

Sounds Cool :mrgreen: :mrgreen: Any new pics?
 

DrGeologist

Canadian Down Under
I’ve finally come up with a track plan that I like. I’m sure it will mature with time, but at least I have a starting point.

01.jpg


The main line is highlighted in blue. It was important to me to have a design where I could have a looped main line that I can let a train go do its thing while I play around with a second switching engine.

From the main line, there’s a branch going to the ore dock and the blast furnace high line. There’s also a branch were the ore cars will get loaded by the bucket wheel reclaimer.

Separate to the main line is all the switching yards around the blast furnaces, mill and coke oven. The main role of the switcher will be to coal to the coke ovens, move coke to the furnaces, move pig iron to BOF, move steel to the rolling mill, and move the finished product back to the harbour for export.

Depending on how things go, I may end up adding a power station or boiler house somewhere to the layout.
 

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
Thats an AWESOME plan!!! One suggestion tho, it looks like you only have 1 way to get into all that switching and thats from the top center of the plan, maybe put another switch in on the bottom to get back onto the mainline somewhere?
 

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
Actually, upon looking at it more, i dont see a way that a train could get from the mainline into the main switching portion, the part with the loop at the bottom and all those tracks connected to it, it doesnt connect to the mainline anywhere or any tracks from any other track that comes off the mainline, did you do that on purpose? lol
 

inqzitr

New Member
agreed...

I don't see where you could exit/enter the facilities either. I was just spending some time of livemaps yesterday looking at the tacoma ports. I found it interersting how many interconnections, run arounds, loops, etc. there are in most of these plans. This makes sense, as the railroad's job is to move lots of materials as efficently and effectively as possible. A copule entrances would be good, but you could include these on the far side of the layout, as opposed to just coming back to the main without going through the yard. This will give the sense of spatial separation. Just some thoughts.
 

Kevinkrey

Member
Actually, upon looking at it more, i dont see a way that a train could get from the mainline into the main switching portion, the part with the loop at the bottom and all those tracks connected to it, it doesnt connect to the mainline anywhere or any tracks from any other track that comes off the mainline, did you do that on purpose? lol

Kinda like wheres waldo. But I found him. The three track yard at the way left has a connection to the other facilities.
 

DrGeologist

Canadian Down Under
...it doesnt connect to the mainline anywhere or any tracks from any other track that comes off the mainline, did you do that on purpose? lol

You're absolutely right Josh, I did do that on purpose. The main line is 100% separate to all the switching.

The only thing transported on th main line will be iron ore. This will be loaded at the far left region at the long branch lines there. This iron ore will then either be taken to the ore dock for export or to the blast furnaces.

I will be changing the rail yard area near the harbour so that it's part of the switching line and not part of the main line. This wil be the material handling area where scrap metal, coal and limestone are unloaded via bridge crane, and finished steel products can be exported.

I'll do up another track plan shortly with the modifed rail yard, and the industries put on, so you can have a better idea.
 

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
AWESOME!!! I had a feeling you did it on purpose :mrgreen: :mrgreen: hehehe

I like that idea of having switching separate from mainine running :thumb: :thumb: :cool:
 

Triplex

Active Member
I'm not sure. It seems that one grid square can fit about 10 tracks side by side or maybe a complete turnback curve. And that ratio is wrong. Usable curves aren't that tight, and real turnouts aren't that steeply angled.
 

DrGeologist

Canadian Down Under
It's a 50cm grid. It all works out fine. I've actually have most of it glued down now and wired up. I'll post pictures soon. I've been a bit busy with work though.
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
You're absolutely right Josh, I did do that on purpose. The main line is 100% separate to all the switching.

The only thing transported on th main line will be iron ore. This will be loaded at the far left region at the long branch lines there. This iron ore will then either be taken to the ore dock for export or to the blast furnaces.

I will be changing the rail yard area near the harbour so that it's part of the switching line and not part of the main line. This wil be the material handling area where scrap metal, coal and limestone are unloaded via bridge crane, and finished steel products can be exported.

I'll do up another track plan shortly with the modifed rail yard, and the industries put on, so you can have a better idea.

You might want to re-think the idea of keeping the in-plant trackage totally separate from the mainline. The plant where I worked had several points where common carrier lines had access to the plant. Cold rolled coils were loaded, indoors, directly into road-haul boxcars (oddly enough, mostly U.P. plugdoor boxcars). Bars and coiled heavy gauge rod went directly in specially-equipped gondolas (road cars, not captive in-plant equipment) for delivery to another cross-town facility for further processing. While much of the raw material was delivered by lake boats, all of the heavy processing machinery, cranes, and in-plant railroad equipment, along with scrap metal, came in by rail, for direct delivery to its end destination, as unnecessary handling increases costs.
On your trackplan, you could add plant access on that lone plant siding at the right of the drawing, immediately below the 3 track yard off the main line. Another access point could be the long, angled siding below the one mentioned above, or at the angled interior corner of the layout just north of the paired 3 track steel plant yards.
untitled-2.jpg


You can still keep your mainline electrically isolated from the steel plant trackage until such time as you need to make a pick-up or delivery.

Wayne
 
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