Upson Nut & Bolt part IV

I was doing some more research on the Nut & Bolt plant when I discovered the incredible photo below on a retired website called Teaching and Learning Cleveland, which was run by Cleveland State University at one time. This is a photo of the Upson plant circa 1910 according to the citation, although the web page where the photo was located does not identify this as being the Upson plant.

“Industrial flats at bend in Cuyahoga River at Cleveland, Ohio, circa 1910,”Teaching & Learning Cleveland , accessed October 8, 2016, http://exhibits.clevelandhistory.org/items/show/549.

The photo is very large and a lot can be seen in it. The open hearth furnaces were built in 1910 and it is obvious that they are not yet built in this photo because the towering stacks for the open hearth are not present. If you look closely though, you can see what appears to be the gabled roof of the open hearth building being constructed in the background behind the right leg of the ore bridge. Therefore I would concur that the photo probably is from circa 1910. Had another photo been taken 20 years later from the same spot, Terminal Tower and CUT would be visible in the background above the ore bridge.

From a modeling standpoint this photo is very valuable. The blast furnace can be seen in the background above the ship along the dock. The boiler house with its large stack is just to the right of the ore bridge and its elevated coal dumping line is clearly visible along the left side of the building. In the foreground the Erie boxcars are sitting on a siding along the Erie line which interchanged with DK Yard just to the right of the photo and accessed the Upson plant from this end (south end). New York Central accessed the plant from the opposite (north) end from DK Yard.

Most importantly though, the high line which fed raw materials (ore, limestone, coke) to the blast furnace can be seen leading up to the blast furnace just under the center span of the ore bridge. From this photo it is obvious that the ore bridge did not feed raw materials directly into the bins of the high line as I originally thought it might have and which was common for some blast furnaces around the country. Instead it appears that the ore bridge loaded raw materials into hopper cars (a few of which are parked to the right of the ore bridge) and the hopper cars would have then been switched over the high line for discharge into bins that would have fed the skip hoist to the blast furnace. Had the plant continued operation, in later years the hopper cars may have been replaced by self propelled materials cars ala Bethlehem Steel style. Also of particular note is the ore bridge itself, which has one leg along the pier and a shorter leg above the concrete retaining wall leading to the high line. Going by the piles of raw materials, it appears that ore and limestone were both delivered by ship, which would have meant that coke was delivered by rail and most likely would have been pushed straight over the high line off the siding.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to compress this into a layout module or two...