What are these menus up top?
We have 5 categories of menu items up top to choose from.
· Category 1 -- Blast Furnace Department (a making of blog and built structures gallery pages)
· Category 2 -- Coke Ovens Department (a making of blog and built structures gallery pages)
· Category 3 -- Steel Making Department (a making of blog and built structures gallery page)
· Category 4 -- Rolling Stock (featured trains gallery page)
· Category 5 -- Company Town (built structures gallery page)
· Category 6 -- Locos (featured trains gallery page)
What is this?
A model of a steel mill in N scale (1:160) based on a US prototypical Great Lakes Operation
in the 1950’s. The main influences are Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrow's Point Plant and USS Gary
Works plant.
Why did you do it in N scale?
At the onstart I wanted to build a model that had little to no compression whatsoever
and this is mush easier to achieve with N scale. That fact coupled with my familiarity
with N scale pretty much sealed the deal.
Were Steel mills actually as large as your layout drawing depicts or did you go overboard?
Some mills were actually larger than what I depict. For instance, The ore yard at Gary
Indiana is about 5000 feet long and that in N scale would be 32' in length. My Open Hearth
is close to scale to those that were at Gary Indiana however I only have one. That plant
had 4.
Does this operate or is it connected to a larger overall model railroad layout?
It’s a stand alone model based on modules that do connect together however running it
live is not a primary concern. I am an Architect by trade so think of this as more of
an Architect’s model. The option to make certain parts live may be possible in the
future but again this is not a priority.
Had you worked in N scale before?
Yes in 1986 I started working in N scale at age 11 and had an operating model railroad
layout up until 1995 when it was dismantled for a move and sold off. I did not start up
the hobby again until 2005 and for this project.
Do you ever sell anything you build?
Yes, but not really Steel Mill related. Initially to raise some capital in 2007 for the project
I sold off the last remaining structures from my old layout which dated from 1986-1991. The
results seemed positive and thus I began selling once again in 2008 but this time built structures
created from spare parts. A project of this scale allows me to continually combine left over parts
from kitbashing exercises to build structures for sale. Every so often I pause from working on
my personal layout to build and sell these structures on ebaY.
I am new to the Steel industry and want to learn a little more about it before I
go ahead and plan a model of my own, Any ideas about how to approach the research?
The basics:
I think it’s important to first start with the basics and study the chart below which features
all the relevant departments of a steel mill and how they interact: (taken from The Making
Shaping and Treating of Steel book)
Now with that in hand it’s pretty essential to get a copy of Dean Freytag’s book “The History,
Making and Modeling of Steel” which has elaborate descriptions and layout ideas for a steel
industry based model train operation. If that’s not easily attainable there are many search points
online that can be used. Many of which are featured in my “links” menu item at the top of your
screen.
Online research:
Yahoo STEEL group is a place where people interested in steel mill modeling gather and converse
about all the facets of modeling this huge industry. Join here and see pictures of other modeler’s
efforts and ask any question you want. Also search past discussions with ease.
Satellite imagery is very important and is a powerful tool when researching plants. Google Earth
allows you to measure distances of buildings and see aerial layouts of the mills. Maps.live.com is
also a satellite program but a little different in that it has a “bird’s eye” function which
allows you to see the plants in 3D and in great detail.
At Google Earth and Maps.live.com some of my favorite USA searches have been:
Sparrows Point MD, Burns Harbor IN, Gary IN, Indianapolis IN, Indiana Harbor IL, Lackawanna NY,
Bethlehem PA, Rankin PA, Birmingham AL, Thomas AL, Cleveland OH, Weirton WV, Steubenville OH,
Zug Island, MI, and River Rouge, MI. To locate the heavy industry is quite simple. In the aerial
views search along rivers and lakes and look for the darkest dirtiest plots of land there.
Those are the mills.
In conjunction with online satellite websites one can use the Library of Congress’ HAER website
which features photographs and drawings of many steel mills. Key search terms to enter at that
site are Monessen Steel, Sloss Sheffield Steel, Thomas by-product Coke, Duquesne Steel,
Homestead Steel, Bethlehem Steel, National Tube, Steel mill, Cokeworks, Coke ovens, ET works,
J&L or Jones or Laughlin Steel, Corrigan and McKinney Steel, Rouge Steel Company, Fairfield Works,
and Woodward Iron.
Additionally there are historic construction photographs of the USS Gary Indiana plant here.
By searching “tracing” you will find drawings amongst the myriad of photos there. Also, from
the Chicago area there is The Charles Cushman Collection. By typing "Steel Industry or Mill"
several photos in color will appear from the 40's.
Located here at http://www.printroom.com/pro/dorsett55 are some great photos of the Pittsburgh
area mills before they were demolished. Also, as it relates to Pittsburgh one can search the
online Pittsburgh library website for historic maps with detailed mill structure layouts and
track plans. That website is here: http://digital.library.pitt.edu/maps/buildingsearch.html
and can be used to see such historic sites as Duquesne in 1900 depicting 4 blast furnaces and
Shoenberger in 1923 etc. Websites such as these exists for many cities and a simple google
exercise can be used to locate them.
A cool site called historic aerials in which you can search a myriad of years for the same mill
to see the changes: http://www.historicaerials.com/
Book research:
Some important Steel related resource books include: (all available on Amazon.com)
· Bernd and Hilla Becher various photo books (Excellent pictoral references)
· Bethlehem Steel- Andrew Garn (Excellent pictoral reference with some history of the mill)
· The Blast Furnaces of Sparrows Point- Lovis (Excellent pictoral reference with some
history of the mill, and good descriptions of in plant opeations)
· Steel Remembered- Dawsom (Excellent Pictoral references with history of the mill)
· Eliza- Perrott (Excellent pictoral references with individual interviews from
former workers)
· The Making Shaping, and Treating of Steel- USS (Reads like an encyclopedia of
Steel Making. Good way to learn all about the process department by department and how
they interact w/ each other.
· Bethlehem Steel Railroading - Nevin Yeakel (Excellent source for images and descriptions
of inter plant operations from the perspective of the railroad.
· The Design of Steel Mill Buildings and the Calculation of Stresses in Framed Structures
- Ketchum (This book gets a bit techy at times but has great graphic sections and plans
of various architectural features found in the mills and describes why and when they
are used.
· The History, Making, and Modeling of Steel- Dean Freytag (A book put out in conjunction
with Walthers first series of HO scale Steel Mill kits that describes the steel making
process and suggests layout types and building types).
Model kits:
Buying kits is another matter. Walthers makes a whole host of buildings for steel mills in both HO
and N scale. In HO scale Walthers is releasing a whole new series of steel mill related kits
between Jan 2009 and July 2009. 85% of my structures are Walthers I’d say. Online stores on ebay
typically offer cheaper prices and are listed in my links section at the top menu. I have found
local train shows to be gold mines for ocassional deals as well. Peachcreek.com is a good resource
when first approaching the topic of kits and rolling stock.
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