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Reply to "Newport Railroad Update 12/30/2023"

Well I defeated myself.

I used drawings from Youngstown Sheet & Tube's Campbell works blast furnaces to design the BF's for my layout. Now I worked for the Ellwood Group so I thought I knew large industry but those BF's were enormous. So much so, that the height wouldn't fit on my layout as I designed them. We're talking about just over three feet in height. Fortunately, my CAD program of choice has a "scale" command I was able to shrink that down to 75% of the height. But that means I created a confusing situation for myself I have managed to print half the furnace in real 48th scale, and the other half in 75% of 48th scale

So the update showing the model will be delayed. The printer is hard at work right now while I smoke a cigar and continue designing.

The track plan has completely changed though. This is mostly because of how shelving in the basement has already been set up as well as new information about Mahoning/Trumbull/Lawrence/Mercer county iron and steel history coming to light for me. It pays to do your homework as it turns out!

I attached a photo of the track plan for the blast furnace end of the mill and here's the ID of everything

15 - elevated ore track for coal, iron, and limestone. There should be two tracks but artistic compression current has me having one.

5 - blast furnace with stoves to the right and a dust collector over the tracks behind it (below it in the pic)

11 and 12 - canteens. We called them canteens at the foundry I worked at but they're just break rooms for lunch and safety meetings.

9 - hoist engines to pull cars up the skip hoist for the furnace

8 - blower house and maintenance shop

16 - track to the helix for the bottom level

12 - utility shack

I expect this plan to change a number of times over the next few weeks as more items come off the printer and head to the test loop but this is significantly different from the track plan I had posted before. There are now two mainline loops because I want the option to let trains run around a loop while I switch the cars for the blast furnace. I hope to have group operating sessions but sometimes it would be nice just to go downstairs and run some trains. The yard (not pictured) expanded a bit to hold incoming and outgoing cars. The open hearth/bessemer operations moved down to the other end of the layout but I haven't even started on a track plan there yet.

Likewise, I have nothing planned for the lower level yet other than knowing that a coal mine will be there to load hoppers. People have recommended a round house but I'm open to suggestions. I like operation, no doubt about it. Putting a yard on the lower level for other freight is appealing but time will tell. I anticipate that I will build the table on the top level first, get my loops setup, build a blast furnace, and then run trains just to scratch my itch.

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