Steel Mill Model RR Operations etc
This is from my Blog at Trainboard.com- Train blog under "Steel Mill Modeling & Operations". I have 12 members one of whom is a member of this forum. You can go there, click "Blogs" and you'll see Trumpetplayer- Spring Lake Iron & Steel. Before you read all this long blog, If I were to buy all of what I scratch built, I would have spent at least $2500.00 from Walthers or E-bay. My SLI&S is more like the mills you see on the Ohio River/ Mahoning Valley area in Ohio & Pennsylvania where space is at a premium. My mill area as of now is 4X12 feet. It will be about 10x12 feet. I have a 1400 page US Steel engineering book I bought off E-bay. If there is anything you'd like to know, photos, diagrams etc, let me know & I'll scan them and post them here. I have just completed my waste water "Clarifier" to clean & recycle the waste water from my coking operation. All I have to do is fabricate the safety railings out of fiberglass wall patching material.So I am always "adding" to this layout. My mill is a representation of a Steel Mill in 1968 and is not intended to a 100% accurate model of furnaces buildings etc.There is only one Dean Freytag and I am not he. But my emphasis is on operation in as realistic back ground as I can get. The below post is about Steel Mill Rail Operations. In reading this blog I can tell that some people may not know much about mill rail operations. So this will give you an idea here. My layout is under construction. So I cannot operate trains at this time. I hope to have a SL&SW "Railfan Day" in which I will post these"jobs" on my strobx1 channel on Youtube as soon as I get an inexpensive digital camera. I hope this will be helpful
Dave
SPRING LAKE IRON & STEEL
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"My Blog today will tell about Spring Lake Iron & Steel, mill railroad operations. First of all installing a blast furnace on your layout does not make a steel mill. Blast furnaces do not make steel. You need a “conversion furnace” in the form of an open hearth, Bessemer converter or the modern day Basic Oxygen Furnace. These reheat the molten “pig iron” to 3000+ F burning off the carbon, manganese, phosphorous and silicon. Now you can say that the blast furnace “represents” a steel mill and that’s OK. But technically you have an “Iron Reducing Blast Furnace”. “Reducing” is the “Steel mill” for melting the iron out of the iron ore. Are there stand alone blast furnaces with out a “conversion dept’? Yes! The famous “Sloss Furnace” is a prime example. It has two furnaces which produced “solid pig iron” (pig iron in ingots) and “hot iron” which is molten pig iron. I suspect that Sloss Furnace transferred “hot” iron to the US Steel Birmingham Works because in the “BING MAPS” it shows a torpedo car. Or the torpedo car was used to transport pig iron to the continuous pig iron casting machine. So you can have a stand alone blast furnace. This would receive coke (the charcoal equivalent of coal) which is the Blast Furnace fuel off site along with the taconite or magnetite and lime stone. You would then ship your “Hot” metal to a near by steel mill to be converted into steel or the solid pig iron shipped to other steel mills or cast iron foundries. But most modelers want an “Integrated Mill” which takes the Coke, Iron Ore and Limestone, reduces Iron from the ore and then processes the steel into I beams and coiled steel. Here are some facts about SLI&S if it were real. The Blast furnace divisions eight furnaces produce between 9600 and 12,000 tons of pig iron per day! The Conversion Dept produces up to 27,000 tons of steel per day. To get 27,000 tons of steel daily requires,
140,000,000 gallons of water (most is recycled)
24,000 tons of coal to make about 20,000 tons of coke
9,000 tons of iron ore
4500 tons of limestone
15,000 tons of scrap iron and steel
This is based on my Internet search and my US STEEL book I bought on E-bay. That is what is needed every day; 365 days a year! Now everybody knows about Torpedo and Slag cars. You will also need Coil cars to transport coiled steel. You will also need Gondolas, flat cars and Hopper cars. Not all steel is transported by coil car. Much is transported in open gondolas. That; will save you $$$ on E-bay and Walther's. You can cut ½” CPVC pipe to ¼” to 5/8” lengths and spray paint silver or nickel (actually nickel comes closest to the true color of coiled steel}. Place 6 to 8 of these spaced in the gondola. If you use a semi truck, remember that each of these coils weigh between 10,000 and 20,000 pounds. The weight limit in the USA is 40,000 GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight= tractor + trailer) so unless you want the trucker to pay out of his pocket (at $1.00 per pound over + Fine!) do not put more than one or two on a trailer. There is a weight limit per axle. Most tractors have a ratcheting “5th wheel” and the “dolly” on the trailer can slide back & forth. The weigh master at the “chicken coop” {Slang for weigh station} will let the trucker make a weight adjustment to redistribute the weight and thus comply. Just FYI the maximum GVW in Michigan is 180,000 pounds. This is the heaviest in the USA. But triple trailers are not allowed. Doubles are! OK. Now to get back on the right track. Rail operations are done by the Spring Lake & South Western. The SLISS mill railroad is manned by SL&SW employees whether or not they actually report to the SL&SW or SLISS. Rail movements are known as “jobs”. This is patterned after the C&O railroad my Dad worked for. Here are the jobs and what they do.
SLAG JOB. Takes slag pot cars from the blast furnace to the slag dump to dispose of the “waste material” known as slag. After 12 hours, this can be mined and processed into Cement, Black top etc.
HOT JOB. Takes the loaded torpedo cars from the Blast Furnace cast house to the Conversion Dept, takes empty torpedo cars back to the blast furnaces.
COKE JOB. Takes 20 car 2000 ton cuts of hoppers loaded with coal to the car dumper & coal blending silo from Steelton Yard. Returns empties to Steelton Yard from Coking Dept. Can take loaded hoppers with coke directly to the Blast Furnace Dept.
BLOOMER JOB. Takes loaded ingot buggies from “teeming” dept (next to Conversion Dept) to Blooming Mill & Ingot Stripping. Here ingots are stripped of their molds; the molds are sprayed with a “Parting Compound” to prevent steel from sticking to ingot mold. The red hot ingots are put in a “Heat soaking pit”. They are reheated yellow/white hot then transferred to either a forging hammer or rolling machines to make “Blooms”{chunky candy bar shaped steel), Billets which are 2ft square/round by 30ft long or slab steel which are up to 6ft wide by 30 ft long. This is called “semi finished steel”. There is also some “acid pickling” to remove scale in this process
“ROLLING JOB”= takes the billets or slabs from the blooming mill to the Rolling mill. Here the semi finished steel is put into a “reheat furnace” and reheated yellow/white hot. Then it goes through a series of rollers to make I beams Girders etc plus coiled steel.
MAIN YARD= this switches the rolling mill. Takes loaded coil cars, gons, or flat cars to and from Steelton Yard.
MILL TRAMP= this train goes all over the mill picking up and setting off cars where needed. It also spots mill hopper cars under the “dust collector” for transport to the Sintering Dept. The “dust” contains 10% iron= FE2 (Ferrous Oxide, or Iron Oxide or “rust”). These are palletized and reintroduced into the blast furnace
UTILITY JOB 1&2= this is an on call job doing what ever else is needed. Frequently works the Sintering Dept.
HIGH LINE JOB= This takes the Coke, Iron Ore and limestone from the materials yard to the Blast Furnaces Stock House or Skip hoist hopper. There are three tracks on the high line and three branches of the high line servicing the three banks of Blast furnaces. These are open in between the rails by the stock house. Each of the three tracks is for one material only.
MLM&LE. Muskegon Lake Michigan & Lake Erie. This is a common carrier line picking up loads and setting off empties in Steelton Yard. It also carries in raw materials.
TRANSYLVANIA (ARR reporting marks TVRR) 50% owned by SLI&S. Brings raw materials to the mill. It does carry some finished products out.
STEELTON YARD. Named after the Algoma Central yard in Sault Ste Marie Ontario Canada. It is owned by the SLI&S/SL&SW, MLM&LE and Transylvania. It has an engine house and sanding fueling facility servicing SL&SW,MLM&LE and TVRR locomotives. All dispatching is done at Maintenance Building A= Railroad Division. Although there is a small yard office and Signal Tower with an agent on duty. SL&SW is a SLI&S Wholly owned subsidiary just like the Philadelphia Bethlehem & New England was to Bethlehem Steel or the Lake Erie & Eastern to Youngstown Sheet & tube in Youngstown Oh.
I am a member of the Blog “To all HO Steel Mill Modelers”. One of the things that came up was a lack of understanding Mill Rail Operations. Go to YOUTUBE. Type in “STEELEMANJULES channel” and TODD ENGINE Channel. I hope this has been helpful."