Recently I purchased The Model Railroader's Guide to Steel Mills by Bernard Kempinski (c. 2010, Kalmbach Publishing).
Before purchasing this wonderfully detailed book, I was "kind of interested" in modeling steel mill operations. Now I'm very interested. Based on what I've seen in this book, it would be very easy to construct an entire layout centered on one steel mill.
One of the references the author refers to heavily is a HAER (Historic American Engineering Record, available at the Library of Congress website, loc.gov) survey completed in 1995 on the Pittsburgh Steel Company's Monessen Works in Monessen, PA which was along the Monongahela River just south of Pittsburgh. The Monessen Works was a very large steel mill that by 1920 occupied a 2.3 mile, 160 acre stretch of riverbank along the Monongahela River. The complex consisted of three blast furnaces, a 12-furnace open hearth steel making facility, a coke plant, rod mills, wire-drawing mills, a barbed wire mill, three galvanizing plants, a nail plant, and a wire fabric mill. Of course, all that is left of it today is the coke & coke by-product plant.
The HAER on Monessen Works includes several excellent engineering drawings of key facilities of the steel mill, in particular the blast furnaces and open hearth mill. Most steel mills in the early 1900's were constructed using the same methods used at Monessen, and the Republic Steel plant in Cleveland was no exception. Armed with the HAER drawings and Kempinski's explanation of the iron & steel making process examined through a model railroader's lens, I think I can now create an accurate and operationally sound version of the Republic Steel Bolt & Nut plant on my layout.
Here are a couple samples of the HAER engineering drawings on Monessen Works. These are for Blast Furnace #1 which was completed in 1913. There are similar drawings for the open hearth.
These drawings will really come in handy for modeling purposes. The blast furnace at Republic would have been of similar construction since most blast furnaces during that time period were constructed the same way.
Unfortunately, the Walthers HO scale blast furnace kit is discontinued and out of stock.
Unless I can find one at a reasonable price on Ebay, this baby will have to be scratchbuilt with Plastruct components.
Before purchasing this wonderfully detailed book, I was "kind of interested" in modeling steel mill operations. Now I'm very interested. Based on what I've seen in this book, it would be very easy to construct an entire layout centered on one steel mill.
One of the references the author refers to heavily is a HAER (Historic American Engineering Record, available at the Library of Congress website, loc.gov) survey completed in 1995 on the Pittsburgh Steel Company's Monessen Works in Monessen, PA which was along the Monongahela River just south of Pittsburgh. The Monessen Works was a very large steel mill that by 1920 occupied a 2.3 mile, 160 acre stretch of riverbank along the Monongahela River. The complex consisted of three blast furnaces, a 12-furnace open hearth steel making facility, a coke plant, rod mills, wire-drawing mills, a barbed wire mill, three galvanizing plants, a nail plant, and a wire fabric mill. Of course, all that is left of it today is the coke & coke by-product plant.
The HAER on Monessen Works includes several excellent engineering drawings of key facilities of the steel mill, in particular the blast furnaces and open hearth mill. Most steel mills in the early 1900's were constructed using the same methods used at Monessen, and the Republic Steel plant in Cleveland was no exception. Armed with the HAER drawings and Kempinski's explanation of the iron & steel making process examined through a model railroader's lens, I think I can now create an accurate and operationally sound version of the Republic Steel Bolt & Nut plant on my layout.
Here are a couple samples of the HAER engineering drawings on Monessen Works. These are for Blast Furnace #1 which was completed in 1913. There are similar drawings for the open hearth.
These drawings will really come in handy for modeling purposes. The blast furnace at Republic would have been of similar construction since most blast furnaces during that time period were constructed the same way.
Unfortunately, the Walthers HO scale blast furnace kit is discontinued and out of stock.
Unless I can find one at a reasonable price on Ebay, this baby will have to be scratchbuilt with Plastruct components.
Although the Walters blast furnace kit is a decent model it has a flaw or two. One that is totally incorrect is the cold blast main going through the stack, WRONG! Another is the cold blast main being cap off on the end that should be connected to the blower/boiler house. As far as Bernard Kempinski's book on steel mills, as one who worked in railroading and steel mills for 30 odd years I fine there are quite a few errors in it.
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