Questions on Steel Mills and Rolling Mills

[John]

And now you can add him to your layout: https://www.miniprints.com/product/dj-of-djstrains/

Thats just creepy .. it would be like me adding an Ed mini to my scale tree manufacturing scene 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Thats just creepy .. it would be like me adding an Ed mini to my scale tree manufacturing scene 

You should absolutely do that!

[GonzoCRFan]

Yes, I saw that one, and thanks.  It appears that the tracks that enter the rolling mill have a runaround track?  How would those be used? Pull out the loads and then push the empties in from the spare track?  The short stub end yards for cars in waiting are also perfect for modeling!

A bit late to the party, but hoping I can still offer some useful thoughts.

I'm not sure about the purpose of the passing track. The building that its stub end goes into is small by steel mill standards but would still have plenty of room to house something like a galvanizing line, which makes me think it's a loads-in/loads-out operation.  I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple lines in that building since 2 more tracks enter in the southeast corner. More coil processing would take place in the building to the northeast. The Bing aerials show a trackmobile in the yard with all the covered coil cars. The coils that are sitting outside are probably bound for the former I/N-Tek mill that does all their treatment/processing onsite.

[Rossford Yard]

A bit late to the party, but hoping I can still offer some useful thoughts.

I'm not sure about the purpose of the passing track. The building that its stub end goes into is small by steel mill standards but would still have plenty of room to house something like a galvanizing line, which makes me think it's a loads-in/loads-out operation.  I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple lines in that building since 2 more tracks enter in the southeast corner. More coil processing would take place in the building to the northeast. The Bing aerials show a trackmobile in the yard with all the covered coil cars. The coils that are sitting outside are probably bound for the former I/N-Tek mill that does all their treatment/processing onsite.

Not late at all! I still have questions, so many questions.....

It appears that the stub yard in front has both coil cars and gons or maybe flats with steel plates.  Would those go in and get processed?  Or do you think coils go in, get coated or galvanized or whatever, and then coils come back out?  I see several small stub storage yards of both steel slabs and coil cars around.  Switching would be easiest coils in, coils out, always covered.  But empty coils or steel slabs on flats in and coils out would be more interesting, even if it meant staging empty coil cars between sessions.

I also notice those (and some others) tracks to in the edges of the building.  Presumably this leaves more room on the floor for rolling, processing, etc?

[RockGp40]

It's been 22 + years since I worked at Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore (Sparrows Point) as an industrial paramedic, but the only two car types on the steel making side were the torpedo cars and the slag bowl carriers (and idler flat cars). The slabs, once formed in the blast oxygen furnace, were moved by slab haulers to the mill side where coils, pipe, rail, and assorted other forms were made. The side that faces the Baltimore beltway was the in house yard where the Patapsco and Back River RR would do their sorting. They had dozens of in house coil cars which were never interchanged (I'd bet they had friction bearing trucks). I never paid attention to the transloading of coils to the interchange traffic, but it had to have happened. Between plants were remote control narrow gauge trains moving coils between strip mills. I remember acid tanks getting parked inside the strip mills too as well as coke being delivered by CSX.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Those Sparrows Point slab haulers were bad a$$.

[Chris333]

The mill that was at the end of my street used trucks like that called a "Kress" (I think) to haul coils around.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

There are also cool coil movers like these.

[Chris333]

[Rossford Yard]

There are also cool coil movers like these.

I see so many coils laying outside in those aerials, so that may be the way they are loaded?  Seems pointless to leave them uncovered and then put them in covered coil cars, no?

[mu26aeh]

Lots of coils get moved in open cars, just depends on the material/intended use I guess

[GonzoCRFan]

Not late at all! I still have questions, so many questions.....

It appears that the stub yard in front has both coil cars and gons or maybe flats with steel plates.  Would those go in and get processed?  Or do you think coils go in, get coated or galvanized or whatever, and then coils come back out?  I see several small stub storage yards of both steel slabs and coil cars around.  Switching would be easiest coils in, coils out, always covered.  But empty coils or steel slabs on flats in and coils out would be more interesting, even if it meant staging empty coil cars between sessions.

I also notice those (and some others) tracks to in the edges of the building.  Presumably this leaves more room on the floor for rolling, processing, etc?

I reached out to a Facebook group I am on and the building in question is a re-rolling operation where they re-shape coils that didn't pass QC coming out of the main mill. So I was correct that it's a coils-in/coils-out operation. Probably using captive-service cars since some of the ones in the Bing images look way overloaded.

I see the slab gons but have no idea what the slabs would be doing outside that building. Loaded slabs going in one end of a mill that feed empty coil cars definitely maximizes the potential amount of rail traffic if your intention is modeling in-plant operations. Though at Indiana Harbor, it looks like slabs are fed directly in the side of the coil mill by transfer cars in underground trenches, which is seriously cool (#Ed'sLaw). As mentioned before, using gargantuan vehicles in lieu of rail service to move materials has come to prominence over the last 50 or so years. But if you have the real estate available to model the whole coil mill as rail-served, do as you wish and it will still feel prototypical.

I honestly don't know how they are loading coils from that storage yard into outbound cars, because the coil movers Ed posted the pic of carry the coils rotated 90 degrees from how they need to be loaded in the cars. But you are correct they would not need to be covered. They run in a daily unit train of open cars to their processing mill in New Carlisle, IN. They might have attachments for the coil movers that allow the coils to be rotated so they can be loaded correctly.

Regarding track positioning, keeping them near the edges of a building definitely helps maximize floor space for machinery, but every instance is going to be a little different due to the goal and constraints of whoever plans the original layout. This map of Gary Works got posted to FB recently and as you can see, there's no real rhyme or reason:

http://www.ejearchive.com/images_maps_1965/pages/65map_garyworks.html