Hello,
Did the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad serve any steel mills during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Walthers has new Steel Mill series kits available called the Ashland Steel Mills. I have read some where recently that the C&O ran through Ashland, Kentucky and was wondering if a prototype Steel Mill existed there. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Regards Matthew Redden
C&O served several steel mills to include the massive ARMCO Steel Works at Ashland Ky.
BTW…ARMCO is about 2 miles East of C&O’s massive Russell yards.
Matthew; Yes the C & O ran through that area, and the CSX does today.
C & O did serve an ARMCO Steel planet in Bellefonte, Ky. (right outside
of Ashland.) The ARMCO plant is under a different name now, I believe
it’s now called AK Steel.
I have no idea if the Walther’s model is based on that plant or not.
I would bet that more class one railroads served steel mills than not in that era. That being said I have some comments and in particular about the Walthers steel mill. I have spent my career in the steel industry. The Walthers blast furnace is at best a 1920’s size. None of the other buildings are realistic in any aspect. The type mill they are suggesting in their advertisements occupies vast space. Since that era a hot strip mill should be at least 1/2 mile in length and is now over 3/4 of a mile. That’s about 33’ and up in HO and in a straight line. A blast furnace complex occupies at least four acres of ground plus ore and coke piles. Anything short of a gymnnasium and it is a travesty in my opinion. You may as well put a 4" square building on your layout and call it General Motors. It is about that bad. In addition most steel mill traffic is internal to the mill with non-interchange cars that never leave the mill. Obviously exceptions are hoppers bringing coal, gons bringing scrap, coil cars, box cars bringing refractory and flats bringing new machinery when needed. What I am saying is space is too valuable to waste on a steel mill proper. The only way I would attempt to model a steel mill is to have the receiving and shipping yard for interchange cars and building ends as flats against the wall. The Plastruct version is ideal in my opinion and could be easily replicated with minimal scratch building skills. The ideal set up is Fairless Hills near Trenton New Jersey. The transfer yard to the corridor is about four miles from the mill proper. Small buildings on the horizon behind the tree line are much more effective than buildings almost as small as scale garages for houses. I assume I am on the minority but I would rather see it done effectively than with a lot of compression that anyone who knows the steel industry will just groan at.
As far as steel mills we are building one at the Bucyrus HO club…It will cover one section of the layout and have 8 feet of buildings along the backdrop…That doesn’t include the blast furnace,the high line,etc…Now add several inbound tracks,outbound tracks,slag track along with the tracks required for the mill its a very large industry…
[quote user=“ndbprr”]
I would bet that more class one railroads served steel mills than not in that era. That being said I have some comments and in particular about the Walthers steel mill. I have spent my career in the steel industry. The Walthers blast furnace is at best a 1920’s size. None of the other buildings are realistic in any aspect. The type mill they are suggesting in their advertisements occupies vast space. Since that era a hot strip mill should be at least 1/2 mile in length and is now over 3/4 of a mile. That’s about 33’ and up in HO and in a straight line. A blast furnace complex occupies at least four acres of ground plus ore and coke piles. Anything short of a gymnnasium and it is a travesty in my opinion. You may as well put a 4" square building on your layout and call it General Motors. It is about that bad. In addition most steel mill traffic is internal to the mill with non-interchange cars that never leave the mill. Obviously exceptions are hoppers bringing coal, gons bringing scrap, coil cars, box cars bringing refractory and flats bringing new machinery when needed. What I am saying is space is too valuable to waste on a steel mill proper. The only way I would attempt to model a steel mill is to have the receiving and shipping yard for interchange cars and building ends as flats against the wall. The Plastruct version is ideal in my opinion and could be easily replicated with minimal scratch building skills. The ideal set up is Fairless Hills near Trenton New Jersey. The transfer yard to the corridor is about four miles from the mill proper. Small buildings on the horizon behind the tree line are much more effective than buildings almost as small as scale garages for houses. I assume I am on the minority but I would rather see it done effectively than with a lot of compression that anyone who knows the steel industry wil
“we” is a rather inclusive term that does not include me. I am tired of reducing everything and justifying it based on “selective” compression. How many people have asked how to get trains around 15" curves? How many people want super detailed engines and cars right out of the box and then complain about what the manufacturer had to do to meet the first question? How about the question currently running of how much can I fit in this space? We are regressing to an HO version of Lionel in my opinion. If that is what most people want it is certainly their railroad. If they want five loops of trains running at 200 smph it’s their railroad but let’s not fool ourselves about realism. A guy had two beer cans on E bay last week painted aluminum and selling them as tanks. Sorry not for me. I am trying to model one mile of the PRR through Philadelphia. I could model Philly to Trenton in the space if I speed the clock up, minaturize the buildings and the distance, use #4 and 6 turnouts, shorten North Philly station, cut the corridor a couple of tracks but would anybody recognize it? In the same space I can use #8 and larger turnouts, make the buildings the correct size and I have this sneaking suspision (sp) that the result will be a railroad that will exude the PRR not destroy it so I can fit in “more” which isn’t better. I have reached the point I want it look right and operate right. Now your immediate reaction may be to pooh pooh and say, “well you have the space” and that misses the point. I don’t care if you have a shelf layout that is 24" by 8’ or a barn to fill the principle is the same. I’d bet there is a post somewhere on the forum that say’s something along the lines of, “can I use 12” radius curves to loop back in a 24" x 8’ area in HO?" And somebody will say, “yes you can but you need to use trolley cars or switchers with four wheels and cut the stirrups off the corners of the cars”. Th
Guys,All to sadly our hobby is one of compromises…Let’s not fool ourselves.
The average layout yard is no more then a outlaying yard for industrial overflow cars yet we have a big roundhouse,turntable the whole 9 yards and most “main” lines is no more then a few feet to 1 or two miles…Ideal for a industrial branch yet we run hot shot freights,pig/stack trains,locals and passenger trains with a contended smile on our face.
Perfection in a off the rack world is impossible even modeling a few hundred feet…A station or interlocker may be 110% correct but,I can assure that will be about all when compared closely with the prototype,mother nature and reality…
Back to the original question, in addition to the Ashland area mills, C&O also served several small mills and steel warehouses in Huntington, WV. Besides rolling mills per se, there was a lot of heavy metal fabrication type industry in the Ashland/Huntington corridor they serviced. Further east, there were similar industries in Charleston, WV.