One of those tracks also feeds a 'fabricator' of steel parts,...that is represented by the 'rail rebuilder kit' from Walthers with the addition of a outdoors overhead crane out front. This structure could alternately be that Vulcan manufacturing kit from Walthers. I just happen to run across this image and thought it added to the 'industrial image' I'm trying to establish there.
High line missing
Your tracks are on the ground instead of up on the high line. This causes your mismatch as the skip is
designed to go under the track level of the high line.
Found this after dropping "bottle" from the search parameters and using only "torpedo"
It appears that in the steel industry they call them either "torpedo' or "submarine" cars, not 'bottle" cars.
Steel mills tend to be the odd ball. A blast furnace does not always have run through room for torpedo/bottle cars, while the track for slag pots may be a run thru track. In this case, the area used to tap a BF into a bottle car is limited to a 2-3 car capacity, depending on the BF volume per tap. The bottle cars may have run thru space at the next level, Bessemer convertor, open hearth or oxygen furnace. The ladle car tracks at the next level may be run thru, but may also have to serve several furnaces, so running thru the building may be limited if not restricted. If, at the second level, ingots are teamed instead of filling ladles, the ingot cars may have the same restrictions.
Many of the cars at a steel mill are also captive to the mill, with cars going back and forth between only two buildings repeatedly during the day. The flow is:
There is more that can happen, but the point is that in a steel mill certain cars are captive between two buildings and only leave this route for repair work. The only place I know of in the USA, where bottle cars run filled on mainline trackage is in the Chicago area, and even then, the cars cannot wait to long to be off loaded as the molten iron can solidify, which will require the car to be removed from service for major work. Sorry for the long post, but I felt it necessary to detail the steps in the mill.
- Raw material delivered by the main connection to a mill's yard, and emptied as required. Typically this is done within a day.
- Raw materials fed to the BF and tapped every couple of hours. Slag to slag pots/cars and molten iron to a bottle car(s).
- Slag cars are taken to a slag pit and dumped. Slag rarely solidifies to the car, so it may not be immediately.
- Bottle cars are taken directly to the next furnace for steel making and dumped into ladles.
- Slag and bottle cars return to the BF
- Ladle cars or ingot buggies are teamed (poured) and taken to the next stage.
- Ladles are emptied into a continuous caster, or for earlier periods the ingot mould is removed and the ingot placed into a holding furnace for the breakdown and rolling mills.
- Ladle cars/ingot buggies return to the second level furnace for refilling.
- Ingots enter one end of a building and are run thru a breakdown mill to slab form. slabs leave the opposite end or enter the rolling mill stands. At the end of the rolling mill stands, finished product may be loaded onto cars fed into the mill's yard for customer deliveries.
Here is an interesting article on ingot trains.
http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2018/06/ingot-train.html
Rick
This past Jan I had the pleasure of visiting a semi-annual 'open house' layout in Orlando Fl. It was a pretty interesting layout, and one scene in particular attracted my attention. it was a steel mill scene placed in a corner area in a diagonal manner rather than in conformity with the straight sides of the corner.
My thoughts were that it presented a lot of 'structure' in a fairly small space.
I am interested in such an idea as I hope to put a steel mill scene on my new relatively small layout
I liked this scene a lot, BUT I just don't think I have room for it,...particularly if I try to run two mainline curves behind it
RailroadBookstore.com - An online railroad bookstore featuring a curated selection of new and used railroad books. Railroad pictorials, railroad history, steam locomotives, passenger trains, modern railroading. Hundreds of titles available, most at discount prices! We also have a video and children's book section. ModelRailroadBookstore.com - An online model railroad bookstore featuring a curated selection of new and used books. Layout design, track plans, scenery and structure building, wiring, DCC, Tinplate, Toy Trains, Price Guides and more. |