Fantastic Steel Mill Layout Tour via video


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beiland

Well-Known Member
BRR Layout Tour: Scott Woods' B&LE/Union RR Steel Themed Layout




Sure gives folks an idea of how the USA produced all that steel that was needed to build that huge amount of war material and vehicles needed for WWll ,...and not just against one enemy, but 2 enemies spread across the world. WOW !!


(this video is really well done)
 
Redoing Track Plan for Electric Furnace and Freight Yard

Redoing Track Plan for Electric Furnace and Freight Yard (the ever-changing track plans !!)
I just finished cutting and mounting my alum-trim/deck-edge supports for the upper decks and mounting those LED tube lights into them. I had to get a little creative to increase the lengths of those 5 foot alum extrusions into 6'+2” long ones while retaining the open slot to contain those LED tubes,...and still be stiff enough to provide that very straight edge. (last 2 photos)
This project has brought me closer to laying tracks on all three layers, first the lower staging deck, then the middle main deck, and finally this upper deck. That staging level at the bottom is very straight forward and already totally planned out.
But the middle deck with its steel mill and freight yard was still unfinished in my mind. Originally I was not even going to include the electric furnace, but rather a modified rail rebuilder structure there.
image-20200927114904-1.jpeg


Then I put the electric furnace in place of rail rebuilders
image-20200927114948-2.jpeg

I had also contemplated 2 locations for the diesel service building, ….then most recently just eliminate it all together.
I had also not figured out how my freight yard tracks were going to terminate (and or exit) down at that end. I needed to do something about this. These are my current experiments, ....how to provide for a ladder of turnouts for my yard tracks...
image-20200927115114-3.jpeg

(just so happens I was able to re-include the diesel service building along the edge of that yard exit ladder)

image-20200927115201-4.jpeg



So I moved the electric furnace over just a bit, and now need to figure out the best track plan to service it??
image-20200927115248-5.jpeg



In my original track plan I displayed a lot of track connections between the blast furnace and the rolling mill. But in reality iron ore went into a blast furnace with coke and limestone and became iron. From there the iron went into one of the following, Bessemer furnace, open hearth furnace, or basic oxygen furnace and became steel. From there it went to ingots or a continuous caster and from there was shaped into useful things in rolling mills.

Perhaps I need to do a whole new look at this situation, and make the primary connections between the electric furnace and the rolling mill ??.....(going to cause lots of consternation)
surprise
devil
HELP!
 
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I went back and looked thru this GREAT video I had posted a reference to.
Wonderful video on steel mill, .....and at this particular time frame a look at the arc furnace, (with rolling mill right behind it). The furnace bld is built with an open side so interior is very visable, and there are 3 tracks entering the building.




and another explanation of a BOF furnace...


rolling mill...


another view of tracks feeding an arc furnace...
 
Been playing with redesign of the track plan for several days now,...like working a puzzle.

Here is my latest configurations,..
1601386126761.jpeg



1601386151799.jpeg
 
Willie,...one of the reasons I went thru and picked out certain short clips....that is if you enter the video at the address I give, then only watch for a short time,...then move on to next clip.
 
Ever since I learned that the blast furnace does not produce 'steel' (but just molten iron), my steel mill scene has been on an ever increasing size. Naturally it is by its nature a very LARGE industry that most of us never have the room to model it in all of its glory.

As I looked thru a number of images and videos of steel making in those electric furnaces I came away with this basic view. Correct me where I might be wrong?

The 'charging ladles' as you term them are like transfer ladles,....they move molten iron from the torpedo cars into the electric furnace 'oven/ladle' to be combined with the scrap steel that has also been loaded in them. Then the electrodes cook that mixture in its oven, and subsequently empty that into charging ladles that pour it into steel molds. So those charging ladles do double service? They are the ones that are moved around, and poured, via the overhead crane(s)??

That used electric furnace building that I have came with some interior parts,..including the oven itself up on an elevated platform, and 3-4 charging ladles, and the overhead crane. It looks to me as though Walthers intended for that overhead oven to be located up over the single track that brought hot iron into the building. Then according to a few other images I found, it appears as though the steel mold/ingots get loaded up on that track just off center in the building, and the scrap steel arrives on the rack against the wall of the building on the other side.

Speaking of those steel molds / ingots. It appears as though modern steel making doesn't make use of those older style ingots??,..such as these


images


1602067548115.png



I've seen a number of modelers that make use of these style ingots, some even making them of glowing plastics. But I don't seem to find that may modern references to this style steel mold??
 
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I like those last pics, especially the second one!
The one thing I didn’t notice is a magnet for unloading the scrap cars?
I go into a steel mill here every week and I can tell you there’s no such thing as too much grime or noise!
 
From what I understand the scrap steels are packed into this 'transfer ladles' outdoors, then brought into the furnace area to be loaded into the furnace's 'brewing ladle',.....so any magnetic cranes would be outdoors. ??

Thats why I proposed this scrap pile outdoors,...next to the holding track for trash gondolas
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What is this add-on structure?

This is one of the photos I took of a steel mill scene when i visited the York, Pa model railroad club a number of years ago. I'm wondering what is that orange tank structure at the rear of the steel making furnace?
Steel%20Mill%20at%20York%204.jpg
 
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