Steel Works

[Anonymous]

Hi, everybody! I have a question for everyone. On my layout my main industry is A steel Works. I have a blast furnace, rolling mill, and a few other buildings. I have many coke cars, hot metal cars, and slag cars. I also run a unit train of coal and ore. I was just wondering if anyone else modeled a steel works? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Plus, what is your major industry and why? Curious.[:D][:D][:D]

[Anonymous]

I did. Here's a link to some pics of my former layout:
http://trainweb.org/ironbelt

[ndbprr]

Having spent my career in the steel industry I guess I am biased. Most steel mills are several miles long and wide and maybe modeling in Z scale one could reproduce that in a basement. I will have the Fairless works of US Steel near Trenton New Jersey in this layout but only in the distance and on the horizon. Every railroad that switched a steel mill has a yard to service the mill and that is what I will model. Maximum car exchange with minimum space requirements.

[dknelson]

By all means get the Dean Freytag book published by Walthers a few years ago on modeling the steel industry. It may be out of print but I see it at swap meets. Also Freytag's second book, the Cyclopedia of Industrial Modeling, is mostly about modeling the steel industry. It is almost essential to have a complete Plastruct catalog as a companion book.
Dave Nelson

[Adelie]

If you haven't already, you can check out the Peach Creek Shops in Laurel, MD (
http://www.peachcreekshops.com/page.php?id=steel). They are a fairly good-size train shop, almost exclusively HO, that has an ongoing steel works project. A lot of pictures and a few resources on their web site.

[ericsp]

While not an integrated steel mill (steel works) I plan to add a mini-mill to my layout when I can expand it. For those who do not know, a mini-mill is a place where scrap metal is taken and melted in an electric arc furnace (it does seem like I have heard of a few with basic oxygen furnaces).

[Anonymous]

Here's a link to a Yahoo steel list if you're interested in steelmaking and modeling.
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/STEEL/

Plans are for my layout to include an iron mine & blast furnace representative of the ironmaking industry that was important here in the 1900s. I'll be focusing on the era around WWI, in Delaware & Hudson territory.

Wayne