Operations and the Steel Industry
text and photos by Curt Regensberger |
|
Just when it looked like the steel industry in the United
States was history the steel mills that survived
are doing better than ever, thanks to the high worldwide
price of steel. The railroads being the main
means of transportation for the steel industry are welcoming
the success of the American steel industry.
 I would like to share with you my switching operations on my
railroad The Streator Connection. The
switching operations center on the Steel mill which is
mostly made up of the Walthers kit, I have scratch
built a few structures within the mill. A steel mill
receives raw materials in various cars and ships
finished goods in a variety of cars. A steel mill has an
enormous appetite for coal, scrap and iron ore.
Coal is brought in and converted to coke at the coke oven,
the coke is then mixed with iron ore along with
limestone at the blast furnace to make molten steel. The
molten steel is transported to the electric
furnace via bottle cars. On my layout the electric furnace is within the same
complex as the blast furnace; however some steel mills have
these facilities miles apart which require the
bottle cars to travel the railroad mainline. At the Electric
furnace scrap is melted and mixed with the
molten metal to form steel.
 The finished product at the steel mill is naturally steel,
the steel can be in the form of beams, pipe or
coils. My particular mill produces steel coils; these steel
coils leave the mill in gondolas or coil cars.
A by-product of the coke making process is tar, so my steel
mill has a tar loading facility which loads
tank cars. Another by-product of the steel making process is
slag, slag is used a cheap fill for building
projects, slag is shipped from the mill in hopper cars. I
have various industries that receive coil steel,
I have a pipe plant that receives coil steel cars and ships
pipe out in gondolas. I have an auto parts
plant that receives coil cars and ships out auto beam plant
those coverts coils of steel into steel beams
and ships these beams out in gondolas and flat cars. I also
have a large trans-loading facility for
unloading coils as well as pipe and beams from rail cars to
trucks.
 When I operate I send out unit coal and ore trains from
staging to the steel mill. A dedicated local is
built in the main classification yard and takes loaded
gondolas of scrap, loaded hoppers of limestone
along with empty coil cars to the steel mill. The local then
returns with loaded coil cars, tank cars of
tar and hoppers full of slag. The cars are classified in the
yard and then sent to the various industries
mentioned earlier around the layout that use steel. I also
have a large scrap yard that ships gondolas of
scrap for use in the steel mill which the mainline locals
bring into the classification yard. The steel
mill has its own yard which the local drops off and picks
cars up. The mill has its own switch engine that
moves cars around the steel mill. My locals are made up of
one engine, usually a GP-38 or GP-40, my only
piece of brass, a Conrail transfer caboose brings up the
rear of the steel mill local.
 To try to add realism I tried to separate the industries
that use or supply products of the mill by
placing these industries where a scenic divider separates
them from the view of the steel mill. To
generate scrap for the scrap yard, I use Walthers industrial
dumpsters 933-3516 at my industries to
collect scrap metal.
|
