Bethlehem Steel Shortline Railroad C&BL Large Pics

Here is some shots of a route I have been working on for over a year. It is only about 30% done so it will not be released anytime soon. Bethlehem Steel operated many shortline railroads. The one I am currently modeling the Conemaugh & Blacklick RR is located in Johnstown, PA, my home town. The neat thing is I worked in the steel industry and this is a working steel mill.


This is the yard in front of the Open Hearth Furnaces



Leaving the yard heading toward the Blast Furnaces



Working in Ore Yard



The Ore Yard at Sunset.

More to Come........:hehe:

Wow , realistic sreenshots, great ruote

Bethlehem Steel!
Your awesome Sethmcs. Beth. Steel was another favorite company, because my favorit railroad served it. The Lehigh Valley.
Cheers,
Sean

Steel Making Starts with Coal

Thanks for the Comments. LVman someday I plan on modeling your favorite Bethlehem Steel Shortline the Philadelphia Bethlehem & New England RR but for now....Steel making starts with coal that baked in ovens at 2200F called coking ovens.


Coal is crushed mixed and fed into the ovens to be baked into coking coal.



Once the coal is baked a coke pusher pushes the coke from the oven into a railcar.



After the hot coke coal is pushed out of the oven it must be rapidly cooled to harden the coking coal to withstand the pressure of the blast funace.



The Quencher dumps cold water on the hot coke to rapidly cool and harden the coke. Needless to say that this is not a environmently friendly process.

More to Come....:hehe:

A Few More Words About Coke Ovens

Coke ovens are actually coal refineries. By heating coal in the absence of oxygen the coal is distilled with volatile gases and impurities removed as gas. The gas is removed from the coke oven and processed in biproducts such as coal tar, ammonia, sulfur and sulphuric acid.



Loading Coal Tar

The processed coke oven gas is used to heat the coke oven.

More to Come......:hehe:

hoorah! its about time someone did it! if you need any pics or track maps, i'm the guy to ask. well done! :clap:

you also failed to mention about where they dumped all the slag, and that its still there.......

Next the Sinter Plant

campbell5149 said:

you also failed to mention about where they dumped all the slag, and that its still there.......

Click to expand...

Ah, yes, the slag. There is a place for that too.:hehe: But we are getting ahead of ourselves with the story. Next in the process of making steel is the Sintering Plant.



The Sintering Plant takes iron ore and fluxes such as limestone and fuses them together under intense hot flames.



Loading iron ore into the Sintering Plant



Finished Sinter ready to be charged into the Blast Furnace.

More to Come.....:wave:

Blast Furnace Basics

Iron Ore, Coking Coal, Sinter, and Limestone are taken to the stocking bins to be hauled up a conveyor called a skip to the Blast Furnace. Air is preheated to 1400F through the Hot Stoves before being mixed with fuel to heat the Blast Furnace to 3000+F.





In the intense heat chemical reactions take place that causes the iron in liquid Hot Metal form to go to the bottom of the furnace while the Slag rises to the top. The furnace is tapped at different points to take out the hot metal and slag.


The Hot Iron Metal is placed in Torpeto Cars to be transported to Open Hearth furnaces to be made into steel.



The Slag in dumped into Slag Cars to be taken......
Did someone ask what happens to the slag?:hehe:

More to Come......:wave:

Very cool

i just drove by the old bethlehem steel up here. nothin left but a few warehouses that are now used as manufacturing. btw, all the slag is still on the banks of the niagara river......

Where are we going to dump this slag?

Where are we going to dump this slag?

Slag train outside of H Blast Furnace.



Not in my backyard.



Not in the river! That's not the Niagara River! That's the Conemaugh River.:hehe:



Not in the scrap yard! Someone might see you there!



I believe a good place is right round the bend.



Not on the PRR mainline!



The Park Hill Slag Dump containing 150 years worth of slag. Funny most people don't realize that slag does have economic value and can be used to reinforce concrete.

More to Come.....:hehe:

This looks amazing! Hope it makes it

yes that river was much too narrow to be the niagara.

where did you get teh slag cars? Love the route by the way

very cool I hope you provide a session with thins, cause I think I'd forget a step....

peter

K4driver said:

where did you get teh slag cars? Love the route by the way

Click to expand...

Thanks for the comments everyone.:wave:

K4driver --Maddy25 made the Slag Car, Torpeto Car, and the wonderful 52' Mill Gondolas that are indespensible for steel mill operations. All are on the DLS. The slag car and the torpeto car uses LODI to guide the loading animation. You place a track object on the track to tell Trainz which direction to load and unload. There is a description of LODI with slag car on the DLS.

Search: Steel Industry Slag Car, Steel Industry Torpeto Car, & 52' Mill Gondola.

Next Step Open Hearth Furnaces

Blast furnaces make hot liquid iron. Open hearth furnaces make steel.


Hot Liquid iron is transported from the blast furnace to the open hearth furnace in torpeto cars.



Load of hot metal leaving H blast furnace (Bethlehem Steel lettered their blast furnaces. My model has E,F,G,H,K,L blast furnaces.)



Almost there!



Charging the Open Hearth Furnace with hot metal.

Hot metal from the Blast Furnace is combined with scrap and is heated under temperature controlled conditions usually for at least 6 to 8 hours. Oxygen lances feeding liquid oxygen into the process could speed up the the melt time considerably. Actually Bethlehem Steel had about half of their Johnstown open hearths fitted with oxygen lances which is similar to the more modern Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) practice. At this point the chemistry of the steel being made comes into play. There are hundereds of grades of steel with different purposes. I will not attempt to explain that but if you are familar with the Pittsburgh Steelers emblem the blue stands for carbon steel, the yellow for sulfur steel and the red stands for alloy steel.


Ingot molds

After the iron is transformed into steel in the open hearth furnace, the furnace is tapped and the liquid steel is poured into ladels. The ladels fill ingot molds shown above this process is called teaming.



The hot ingots are "stripped" of their molds and aloud to cool somewhat. The ingot hardens from the outside in. So the hot ingots go to the soaking pits and are reheated until outside temperature equals the inside temperature.

Apology - This product asset does not exist in Trainz at present.

A shameless plea - oh, Maddy25 please make this, please,please!



The best substitute for "Real" steel ingots are these alumimum ingots shown above.

Next lecture....Scrap

More to Come......:wave:

For those who enjoy Steel Mill Routes

For those who enjoy steel mill routes in Trainz please visit Railworks Model Layout Design Team Steel Mill Project http://www.angelfire.com/ultra2/railworks_aus_nz_com/

Most of the wonderful steel mill assets on my route came from the hard work of the team of AD602000 (Pete) and Annastazia (Tony).

As I said before, I originally bought Trainz2004 deluxe for a friend. I put it on my computer and drove around...ho hum. But then! I discovered something that I had a real passion for Steel Mills! I found Pete and Tony's website and downloaded their routes, learned surveyor and gained a wonderful new hobby Trainz. That was sometime in 2005!

Thanks guys for introducing me to the wonderful world of Trainz.:Y:

I believe all of their steel mill assets and routes are on the DLS.

PS many others have contributed greatly by creating the assets that made my route possible. I am on the third verision of C&BL railroad. Each newer verision is better than the old. I used to think it was me getting better at route building but soon I realized it was the great improvement in the quality assets available. So thanks to all content creators....and I know who you are.....and will name names when appropriate.:hehe:

Great shots, and I too love industrial layouts.

Is that Australian thing supposed to be a Baldwin AS616?