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I didn't know they were empty, but I was just guessing. The blast furnace is on one side, then cross the bridge in the video to the rolling mills. I figured they had just poured the hot metal and were running it to the other side to make coils out of it.
I'm not so sure they're empty.
Quote from: SAH on March 15, 2007, 05:57:41 PMI'm not so sure they're empty. I base my assumption on knowing those things area. Heavy as hell when fully-loaded, and b. Lacking air brakesSo I sure as hell wouldn't want to be lugging 4 or 5 loads with a single engine. But I could always be wrong, since I don't know how their mill actually operates.
When I worked at Bethlehem Steel in Sparrows Point, MD, the Patapsco and Back River RR used a slug as its spacer. The switchers they used got that much more tractive effort and kept the engineer/conductor that much further away as they would initially pull, then push the bottle cars from the L blast furnace to the BOF.....Oh, I wish I could go back to that era and watch more closely knowing what I know now.
I have a Q in to the family "expert" on these matters. If I get a response (not a guaranteed thing) I'll post what he says.