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Ore almost always goes straight from the mine to the mill. In modern days, the ore is processed on-site into the pellets before it is loaded into ore cars, though. Between the mine and the mill there is no other industry that uses it, per se. However, it must be noted that iron ore rarely gets to the mill exclusively over rails. Almost all American and Canadian iron is transloaded into ships for transport over the Great Lakes, as the mines are at one end and the steel mills at the other. The iron railroads transport the ore some miles to the waters edge, where it is transferred to ships via an ore dock with rails on top, or rotary dumped and loaded via conveyor in more modern times. The ships either bring it direct to steel mills, or transload it back to rail for inland mills. There are a few operations where the ore travels all-rail, either short distances or more notably when the water freezes up in winter. The iron industry has almost always behaved this way, as trains cannot possibly match the efficiency and low cost of ships. If you want to model both ends of the process (mine and mill), it is far easier to leave out waterways entirely. Unless, of course, you have a gym sized layout. All of the larger layouts that represent iron hauling only have one end, either mine to dock or dock to mill. Small and medium sized layouts would be best just hauling iron ore from mine directly to the mill. Older era layouts would have the mineshaft and loader for the mine, with steamshovels for small stockpiles; modern layouts would have floodloaders (with or without balloon track) and front end loaders for huge stockpiles. Steel mills have generally used rotary dumpers to unload. Thanks for the question.
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