How Steel is Made & How to Model it. Part 1 Starting with Coke

[@musicman8942]

Thanks for the video - ex-steelworker here; worked for US Steel Fairless Works in Pennsy back in the 70's. 2 years Coke Works and 2 years Rolling MIll. You hit the nail on the head with regards to the Walthers kit. Not only is there no pusher ram but there are no door cars either. Don't know how they missed that. And depending on the era they're missing most of the topside piping, valves, etc. After the coke was quenched the hot car dumped it on to what was called the wharf which was a semi underground/ground level facility that had manually operated gates to drop the cooled coke onto a conveyor belt. For any coke that wasn't totally quenched the wharf operator had a water hose to put out any nuggets still flaming. Did NOT want to melt the conveyor belts. And through a series of belts the coke traveled the distance to the blast furnaces. Fairless had 3 of them. If people want a really detailed read on steel production try and find a copy of 'Making, Shaping and Treating of Steel' which was published by US Steel. Will be difficult to find.

[@cp368productions2]

As a person who is going to be modeling a steel mill and has found almost zero videos on modeling steel. I can say that these will be the best videos on the subject. I went by that old mill and took pictures of it from across the river on the road next to that rail line you can see just before the drone turns towards the mill and bridge. My steel mill is a long way off but will probably receive already processed coke as it is "located" 80 miles from Tonawanda Coke.

[@elsdp-4560]

THANK YOU...for sharing. Being a retired truck driver for over 43 years one of my enjoyable times was going into the steel mills, for about a year or so I hauled coke from LTV Warren Oh. to LTV Cleveland Ohio, three to four loads a day, in fact, that coke run is still going on today. Thanks, DJ for what you are doing with your drone, you are getting some really good footage. Gary

[@djstrains]

I get excited to show you guys these videos, because I really enjoy the views I have been getting. My favorite is the barges moving.

[@RWSBaden]

@@djstrains J&L Steel, Aliquippa works received a lot of coal via river barge as well. As a kid I remember seeing the boats pushing 12 to 16 barges at a time on the Ohio river. reminiscent of the barge traffic in this photo www.portpitt.com/

[@boylesterminalshops6841]

This is gonna be a fun series to watch

[@RocktCityTim]

DJ - your vids are like having a backstage pass to real railroading! Thanks again for great material.

[@jmahaneydroid]

Fantastic as always. Your experience and knowledge are so helpful. And the rail side of the business is very cool. Thank you! Glad you all had a great summer, too.

[@FloodManagementGroup]

Great video. Really nice aerial shots

[@bob_._.]

I worked for a while at the (now demolished) Interlake iron mill in Toledo. Although some did go into hoppers, the primary method to move coke from the ovens to the furnaces there was by conveyor belt with a tripper to dump it into the bins, so that's another modeling possibility. There were two sizes of coke, A (like the chunk you showed) and P which was about 3/4". Our coal and limestone came in by train, ore by lake freighter and the pig iron left by train or truck. Although you can't model it, the air looked almost like metalflake paint due to all the coke dust, but what could be modeled is the whole plant - and the surrounding neighborhood - was covered by a layer of the sparkly dark grey dust; there would even be a light layer on your car by the end of shift.

[@IHVA-ir9gp]

I spent 83/84 in Clairton in the 21" mill and 7-9 battery startup. Then I went back to ET for restart of the slab mill. Enjoy the videos of the Valley. Nice job

[@djstrains]

so glad to have you aboard!

[@ejejeff1722]

I recently acquired the Walthers n scale coke oven, blast furnace, electric furnace and rolling mill. This couldn't be better timing. Thanks DJ!

[@vincentvanpaepeghem4844]

Great video! I used to haul steel out of that area back in the 70s.

[@sapacif]

Great video. Should be required watching for high school students. Guess it's been a while since I was in high school.

[@TruckinGoat]

Lime hauler here. Love this because I never get to see how large it actually is being at ground level.

[@edg1754]

Great video, and perfect timing! Walthers has just announced they are re-releasing the steel series.

[@IHVA-ir9gp]

Spent time at Clairton in the 21" mill, 7-9 Battery start up, and big block and then went back to ET to work Blast Furnace, BOP and 44" Mill as a foreman in Central Mtce. Thanks for the photos video

[@djstrains]

very cool

[@joegold6122]

Great information. Keep up the great work. Jt

[@Tremor1975]

Great video DJ!! I model CSX's ex-CRR North End ca. 1989-1991 and move tons of coal!! I'm good FB buddies with Steve Mckeown and always loved the steel industry. Pentrex's Pittsburg Mainlines really impressed me. I notice at the 10:50 or so mark that the background hill must be Realistic Background's one they used for their town backdrop! Keep up the great work!

[@TheSwitchList]

Great stuff DJ - thanks. -Rick

[@dougcostello9064]

Great video. Thanks!

[@JoeG-firehousewhiskey]

This is awesome, the amount of knowledge you have in all of these topics

[@djstrains]

I'm glad you like them, my friend.

[@thomassalerno5203]

Thanks for the great video...I also model the steel industry i and around Pittsburgh. Cannot wait to see how steel making & finished product & bi-product is transported so I can incorporate it into my layout. Keep up the incredible real & detailed presentations!

[@pbeccas]

I really enjoyed this vid DJ. Hope you cover a few more industries in the future. Super interesting.

[@RWSBaden]

Hi DJ, That is some great drone video, two thumbs up. The one thing to remember with a lot of Tomix (Tomytec) products, they are actually 1:150 scale. For the majority of their structures they work just fine on a 1:160 N scale layout. The one thing to avoid is the Tomix 1:150 figures, there is a noticeable difference in size compared to 1:160 figures. Cheers, Rich S.

[@stevemckeown4120]

Really well done great video, now i need to weather ET roofs more

[@RonStanek]

Some good steel mill videos.

[@fiercetrains4052]

thx so much

[@simonalexandercritchley439]

Things go better with coke! thanks for another good one D.J .I understand some of the process ,coal to coke, iron ore,lime/blast furnace ,b.o.f ,rolling mill,etc ,but I am not sure how to arrange these and ancillary buildings on my layout along one wall of the garage.It is about 30 inches deep and on 2 levels (HO)

[@waltersobchek2465]

Wow very nice once again-Thank you!!

[@natecofga4679]

Now there's a great backdrop idea, a theme park with a working roller-coaster.

[@djstrains]

haha

[@cbgadget4740]

Great informative video, throughly enjoyed 👍👍👍😎😎😎

[@moregltfirephotography4857]

nice i see the CSXT coke express on the Pittsburgh sub

[@PrenticeBoy1688]

That industrial office modern looks like a number of buildings in the Youngstown, Ohio area.

[@jolliemark6294]

As always good information....thanks for sharing....Jack

[@TouchoftheBrushModelWeathering]

Awesome video DJ thank you so much for all the information keep it up !

[@djstrains]

very appreciated!

[@martinbatistelli]

Walthers has announced that they are re-releasing the HO steel mill models.

[@nathandelay]

cool and awesome DJ

[@CentralPaRailfan]

Awesome video! Looking forward to part two!

[@djstrains]

working on it now

[@scottpool4777]

Yes very good thank you.

[@IMRROcom]

what is iren? :)

[@djstrains]

next to irek in the middle east

[@PrenticeBoy1688]

Stillers, Giant Igle, very Pittsburgh!

[@everettrailfan]

One thing I've always wondered about is petroleum coke. Is it anything like the coke used here? Around the Seattle area where I live, BNSF ships petroleum coke from the BP Cherry Point Refinery down to the Port of Longview for export in covered 3-bay Trinity hoppers (almost identical to grain hoppers except for the round loading hatches on top instead of the flat lateral ones that run the length of a car used for grain). Why would they use covered hoppers? We also get roughly monthly petroleum coke trains from Laurel, Montana, that run up to Roberts Bank in Vancouver, BC, for export, and those are transported in the standard open 100 ton hoppers (GATX and, more recently, BNSF hoppers).

[@RicArmstrong]

I live outside of Pittsburgh and its a great Rail town. Have you ever seen the tracks that run under the park in North Side near the Aviary?

[@djstrains]

the trench!

[@richardterek3744]

Use to work there when they had the open hearth back in the early 70’s. Punching out checker chambers and shoveling out in the sewers.

[@JBryan352]

Hey DJ. Just a heads up Walthers is bringing back the steel mill series in 2020... I dont think it's for N scale... Sorry however I do know for a fact it's in HO. I plan on redoing the blast furnace I have. Messed the stoves up haha.

[@dexterdog62]

Great video... but I’m a Pepsi guy...

[@stanleym2679]

great video, helps a lot in building a layout, question, turntables are fading away, now on a layout instead of turntable there is another procedure in turning loco around it looks like a triangle tack layout did you have this in one of your video's and what do you call it ,thanks keep up the grat work

[@djstrains]

WYE

[@Mike-tg7dj]

I'd be interested to know what becomes of the by-products? All the coke producers want is what's left after those by-products are cooked off. I can think of one big one coal tar, you mentioned ammonia and do they sell them off? It's a bummer about the railroad. The "company" is trying to do more with less. That's why you see the long trains with the lead locomotive in the front, DPU in the middle and a power unit at, the end. Your CEO's bonus is riding on making this work and the messed up part of it is guys like him don't care who they step on to achieve their goal.

[@williamfindspeople4341]

Are there blueprints available for scratch building the coke plant? I very rarely use any model kits on my layout. To scratch build anything with success you need lots of photographs and blueprints.

[@djstrains]

i don't know of any.

[@TheOneTrueDragonKing]

Hey DJ, I primarily model in O-Scale and I was wondering if you knew of any recommendations for kit suppliers and builders for coke buildings in that scale. Also, would you mind explaining the terminology you used here? What exactly is a "quench car"? What about a "battery"? Also because I model in three-rail O, I'm thinking of putting a fan-driven smoke unit down the stacks of the various plants. I'm also planning on adding a glow at the base of the furnaces and ovens and a glow trail to simulate a slag dump. Also, I plan on using real loads and animated processes, both on the cars and on the factories. Also, if I get a large enough space to do this, I'm not going to settle for fake "model water" - I plan on using the real deal, with radio-controlled model boats with real cargoes powering up and down the rivers. One of the big benefits of running 3-Rail O-Scale is that it's far ahead of other scales in terms of animation.

[@djstrains]

coal is put into these rows and rows of batteries (which look like metal lockers) There it bakes for 16 hours at a couple thousand degrees. When all the impurities are removed by that heat, the hot coal is now Coke. Basically, (visualize it this way) they use a big machine to push from one side of the locker all the coke out of the now open door of the other side of the locker. But the coke falls into a quench car which looks like a slanted hopper car. From there, the quench car goes under the quencher (which is a tower that sprays tons of water on the hot coke to cool it off. the quench car then dumps the cooled coke into a underground conveyor belt.

[@TheOneTrueDragonKing]

@@djstrains Ok, in that case I wonder if I could use a smaller-scale railcar as the quench car in a model. How small would it have to be, in comparison to the rest of the O-Scale layout? I'm thinking N-scale or Z-scale, but I might be wrong - you're the best source I have on this.

[@djstrains]

This is the best thing I ever bought on the subject: amzn.to/31NzPAT

[@JoeRocket1504]

Kennywood

[@dirkmontgomery5983]

Scrap cars and trucks end up getting shredded and back at your still millS

[@dirkmontgomery5983]

Any junkyards out there I wanna see them Do a Vidio on them if you can

[@djstrains]

see video on 4 industries you can model.

[@sparky107107]

very nice. educational channel?

[@zachpare206]

Hey DJ fantastic video like always man! Keep up the great work! Just out of curiosity, I know this isnt the hazmat video but it just occurred to me. Unit hazmat trains like oil or propane, do they still use the 6 buffer cars? I've never seen buffer cars on tanker trains.

[@cp368productions2]

Unit hazmat trains like crude oil and ethanol have 1 car loaded with sand at each end to act as a buffer between locomotives and cars. Propane, never seen that hauled in unit trains.

[@robertcampbelljr.3195]

Pepsi holds up better than Coke!!(I suck at comedy since I started taking comedy lessons from Arthur Fleck!!)

[@rodribik8034]

Can always tell when someone is from Pittsburgh when iron is pronounced, "I-rn"

[@djstrains]

hahaha

[@TheOneTrueDragonKing]

If and when I build this sort of thing on my layout, I'm not just going to do the rail side. If I go for a layout, it's "go big or go home" Miniatur Wunderland style. That means anything that ships by any method, is going to be represented in motion. Most water layouts have static water like the Woodland Scenics stuff. Not this guy. I'm going to have real ships, real flowing water, and real cargo. Nothing prepositioned, nothing simulated, almost nothing static. That means coal, iron ore, and other things that go by water are going to transit by water. Using real loads of Lionel coal (which will be painted a rusty color for iron ore) along with radio controlled tugboats and scratch-built or kitbashed barges, I'm going to model the whole thing. Iron ore and coal will be loaded onto trains at the mines, which will then then ship it to a river terminal where an iron ore dock will be, similar to the docks served by the Marquette on the Great Lakes. The ore will be dumped into the dock and then later, a couple of barges will show up hooked to a tugboat. These barges will load up with coal or iron ore up river to an unload point, where the loads will be dumped into an underwater receiving hopper, then conveyored to a stockpile. Then another train will pull up and the hoppers will be loaded with one of the two materials and then the train will move it to its' final destination. Larger shipments on lakes and oceans will use massive ore ships or (for REALLY big shipments) Whaleback-style ore ships and a Hulett-style Ore Unloader with the massive clamshell buckets, scooping tons upon tons of ore or coal into a stockpile for delivery. Train to boat and boat back to train. Can you recommend any buildings in O Scale? To match up with Lionel and (Ugh) MTH, and so on.

[@djstrains]

good luck, i am not familiar with much o scale. Real water presents a challenge with mold. I haven't seen it used much because of that.

[@TheOneTrueDragonKing]

@@djstrains Take a look at Miniatur Wunderland. Their North Sea region is all real, constantly running water. That's the trick. Keeping it running, never standing still.

[@P90F55]

I heard that Brother. As an under privileged hoghead I sympathize.