Inpiration needed: O Gauge Steel Mill Structures....What do you have?

Sounds like a fun project/  Search Yahoo for 'scale railroading steel mill', then click on "more images". You will find lots of pictures of steel mill buildings.  Most of these are in HO.  Walthers had a whole line of steel mill buildings in HO.  Modeling it in O gauge would take an enormous amount of space.  One thing I considered was to use forced perspective and put some HO structures in the background, maybe even with some HO track and trains, then put the structure that most interests you in front.  There are some really cool cars available that have lighting to simulate molten steel.  You could have a track coming into the industry delivering coal from your coal mine somewhere else on the layout. 

You could also look at the Walthers buildings for inspiration on what to scratch build.  

Enjoy and please show us pictures of your progress.

George

Rick,

Here are a couple of pictures of steel mills I have constructed in O Scale.

Alan Graziano

Check out the slide show on the home page here: Hi Rail Modular Train Club ( not my club or photos)

There also are some threads with more photos if you do a forum search for Hi Rail Modular Train Club.

 Forum member SantafeJim is one of the founding members of this club, maybe he will chime in with steel mill info

RICKO....great stuff....many thanks.

Alan G...I recall seeing these photo's...and some early inspiration. Would you share with me: what material did you use for the large walls and what did you use for the Blast Furnace body?

Many Thanks in advance.

Rick.

They are a lot of work. If I was going to do it, I would put the main buildings such as the blast furnace, stoves and such as a back drop and put some of the auxilary buildings out in front with the ladle cars, slabs etc plus your tracks.

Not sure whether this is a steel mill exactly, but it sure looks good.

Very nice Layout.

Rick

The blast ffurnace was made of styrene sheets formed into a cone.

The large wall sections were constructed using styrene corrugated patterned sheets purchased from Evergreen.

Alan Graziano

Alan G.

Sounds simple enough....very effective too I must say.

Rick.

mike.caruso posted:

Not sure whether this is a steel mill exactly, but it sure looks good.

Oh, that counts!!!!  Very nice blast furnace!!! 

George

Absolutely superb, Alan.  Just superb.

George

Rick,

Some photos of my modeling of the J&L Southside works in Pittsburgh during the late 1950's.  Hope these can help you get started.

Alan Graziano posted:

Rick,

Here are a couple of pictures of steel mills I have constructed in O Scale.

 

Alan 

Are those GMC Pollock cars I spy in the back?

Here are my Weirton Steel backdrop steel mill buildings (l to r):  Blooming Mill, Crawford's Crossing highway overpass, Open Hearth.  The backdrops sit 30 degrees out from the wall and are, respectively, 18" and 22" wide across their fronts.

I have a Strip Steel backdrop mill in the works that will be 42" across the front.  It will go in the corner to the left of the Blooming Mill.  It will, roughly, resemble the photo below.

Hope that helps.

George

Georg

Great Stuff, the buildings angled into the wall is not something I have thought of.....but I am now!!!

Many Thanks,

Rick.

Something else you could check in to was a mirror to double the length of your mill buildings.

Rick Bivins posted:

Georg

Great Stuff, the buildings angled into the wall is not something I have thought of.....but I am now!!!

Many Thanks,

Rick.

Thanks.  It's not my idea originally.  I saw it or read about it somewhere, but it does help.  Otherwise, you are limited in the number and size of the buildings you can display.  I'm playing with the idea of making the backdrops "extend" the buildings somewhat.  We'll see how that works out.

George

Rick,

If you can do a section of flats against a wall, you can enhance the effect of the structure in front of it greatly. I did this with one of the first steel mills I constructed. I made a flat of about three or four different buildings that was approx. five feet long and ranged from 24 to 30 inches high. It gave the effect that the steel mill went on and on. I wish I had a good picture of it to show you but I do not.

Alan Graziano

If anyone is interested I have a 4 page set of blueprints for a mill and blast furnace the pages are HO scale and aprox. 3ft  X 4ft . in size with lots of measurements and info  needed to build an accurate model , O scale would be huge .

Bernie

A steel mill has many different operations. There is the - scrap yard - Ore storage - Blast Furnace - Melt shop - Rolling Mills - Shipping Buildings - outside product storage.

Generally you would pick one or two of these, as a real steel mill requires 50 to 200 acres and is difficult to model in the space we have.

You may also need to decide if you want to model an electric furnace operation (using recycled scrap) or a Blast furnace operation, using ore, coke and much more additional facilities. The older operation has many more interesting cars such as the hot metal torpedo car and the slag car, both available in O gauge.

I am planning a Steel Mill in one corner of the layout when I can expand into the attic and create a dedicated space about 6ft square. Prior to that, I can only have some building fronts along a wall, with a "hint" of a steel mill operation.

You can choose all of the operations above, as an older steel mill would have the blast furnace operation, with the addition of some electric furnaces and new rolling mills to keep up with current technology. The older steel plants would have many different operations and mills on a single site. The newer modern plants tend to have a single electric furnace melt shop and one rolling mill, although some sites are growing as these "mini mill" plants become bigger and more integrated over time by adding additional rolling mills and finishing operations.

Because rolling mills come in many sizes, with rolls varying from 8" diameter to 54" diameter, you can use the HO models available and just say the mill is smaller than originally intended (actually half the size). I will either have some mill stands visible thru mill building windows, or maybe have the equipment on a flat car to model shipping new mill equipment into the mill for original installation.

You can also have the ends and sides of the building missing, to show the interior, as many mill buildings in the south are open in real life. All you need for realism is an overhead crane runway. the rest is up to you.

I do note have any pictures of my steel mill, as I have not started modeling the buildings yet. I do have some mill equipment that I am building, and will take some pictures and post later.

Alan,

i have thought of flats as a backdrop. In fact, I have two roughed in. 

Bernie,

i would be very interested in those plans. plerickb@gmail.com

Joe K,

good info. I will read this again!

many thanks  

Rick

Hi Rick  , sent you an email , where the drawings are is a half hour away , I will go retrieve them if you are serious about them .

Bernie

Here are several photographs of my o-guage steel mill layout.

Mine is a car crushing facility.  I know, not prototypical. But then again, my trains run in circles.

Corp5382

Ha, that is a great idea. Cool. 

Rick

Rick:

A couple of good books - (how to)

The Cyclopedia of Industrial Modeling by Dean Freytag - may still be available trough Plastruct

Model Railroaders Guide to Steel Mills by Bernard Kempinski - Kalmbach

Joe

How's this for inspiration?  I'm making steel. 

My Open Hearth is working tonight!

George

Also search the forum for Dave Minarik's (owner of Mercer Junction Train Store in Mercer, PA) layout.  I recall it being a steel-themed layout with excellent structures.

David

You could build a mini-mill which are common today. Rail cars of scrap in, electric furnace, continuous caster and a rolling mill. Loaded coil cars out.  That is today. In yesteryear they had the blast furnaces and all that stuff.