To the best of my knowledge this was the last slab train to cross the massive Speers Trestle that spans across the Monongahela River in Belle Vernon,Pa
Enjoy, Tom
Impressive is probably to slight of a word for that scene
PL
Define “slab train” looks like an empty gondola train to me…Impressive bridge !
…That sure is an impressive bridge. Have passed that bridge for 45 plus years on our way back home to Pennsylvania. I can’t remember when we have seen a train on it…It sure does and has always impressed me as being adequately built.
Enjoyed seeing all those bridge structures photos.
Does this mean the bridge is going to be removed or just no more slab trains?
My guess is that the gons contain steel slabs.
How about that Rio Grande unit, just slightly far from home, and looking rather spiffy!
Kaput for the Mill that made the slabs or kaput for the bridge?
I think bridge is good for another 100 years if they would just scrape dat rust off and repaint it proper.
…I really don’t know any update info on the future of the bridge, but recent article in Trains on that railroad…it sure would seem to me the bridge is not coming down.
Very nice shot… hope the bridge has more life to it.
I have to confess that I have never heard of a “slab train.” What on earth is this “slab” of which the contributor speaks? Do we mean “slag” train? Slag is the rock-like pile of impurities which steel mills for generations have dumped some distance away from the mills, often into enormous piles. For example, on the B & O between Newton Falls and Warren Ohio is a famous “slag heap” (yep, that’s the correct term) probably three to four stories high and perhaps half a mile long or more. This heap is the result of the now-defunct steel mills of Warren, Niles, and elsewhere close by needing some place to dump this final waste product of steel-making.
“Slabs” bring to mind manufactured steel sheets of various thicknesses, not slag. So, I’m going to say the photograph (and it’s a fine one I much appreciate studying) is a W & LE slag train, not a slab train.
I’m going to assume this mistake was made by the same kind of people who think “high hills” means high heels and that it’s fun to watch the “Stillers” play “dahntahn” after having a “jumbo.” Yunz wanna bet?
After looking at the picture again, it is definitely a slab train. Metal slabs, usually still hot, are shipped from the rolling mill to a remote finishing mill in steel-floored gondolas. Slag, on the other hand, is usually carried in thimble cars while it it still liquid from the furnaces to a nearby dumping site. The thimbles are equipped with air-actuated dumping mechanisms which tilt the thimble to pour out the molten slag. It’s an impressive sight after the sun goes down.
Steel slabs are by their very nature very heavy, so a single slab in the bottom of a gon will probably max the car out, yet be virtually invisible to the casual viewer.
…No question about that. Slabs are heavy {most likely an understatement} at best…I doubt if one is expecting to see a “stack” of slabs on a flat car, it’s not going to happen. Extreme weight involved.
Years ago, Conrail rolled a east bound steel slab train every day through Spruce Creek at approximately the same time. I was once told they were bound for the big plant NW of Philly on the Trenton cutoff but don’t know that to be a fact. Anyway, each gondola carried two, and only two, non- stacked slabs each of which was less than half the car and not more than 2 feet tall. So obviously they were darn heavy.
I am utterly mortified by my stupidity! I apologize for thinking the thread contributor was wrong, when, in fact, it is I who is wrong!
I was convinced when I read about the thimble cars; not only do I recall seeing them myself pouring hot slag down the embankment (and it really is a special sight at night!), but only a person who really knows steel-making would use the correct term.
And yes, slabs are so heavy that one wouldn’t stack them in cars, anymore than one could dump slag from a gondola.
So, like Christine Jorgenson, I stand corrected!
How do they unload the slabs?
I will take a shot at the slab question Ive run steel and aluminum at one time.
There are very large cranes that sometimes either have a hook on them, a coil pin (Giant peice of forging about a foot thick and 3 feet long more or less) electroplate on or a little bitty jaw set with 4 corners on it. They come up to the object above the truck or railcar, reach in and pick it right up.
What is fascinating is the precision in these very large overhead cranes. A focused operator on his radio belt can gingerly pick anything anywhere in reach and set it anywhere and just so. He had to be able to do it because sometimes there is a man on the deck within 2 feet of that 24 ton coil shoving on it into the angled rails. (Much good that will do he he.)
The electroplate is not good to be around. It tends to attract anything and everything. I would hate to see the utility billing on just one of those.
Electric furnances are even worse. They sit 10 feet from the payphone humming while they work and leave you shouting into the payphone on the wall asking the barely intelligable voice on the other end to repeat. Cellphones took care of that little annoyance pernamently.
Those are just the little ones you see in the foundry, the really big ones the Mill uses are usually off-limits to non authorized people.
I was told at one time that these large cranes go through replacements of chain and cable every so often. If you go to a mill and eyeball a overheader, you will notice that the chain is worn smooth on those very large links which are at least as big as anything sold at the big box lumber store.
Now, Aluminum slabs are like 6 feet wide 3 feet high and 40 long. Those get picked up by gigantic forklifts with very small people in the cab. If you can get to it from the side, that is usually a good way to work it.
Finally the walthers rolling mill structure kit is pretty typical of a loading, unloading operation. Whenever you enter one of these, eyes and ears OPEN. You ne
Steel slab unit trains are pretty common around these parts. The destinations/origins usually involve a port of some kind. Steel slabs are usually laid in gondolas (usually 2 chunks per gon), as they are not required to be strapped down then. I see Aluminum slabs (ingots) coming into our local rolling mill almost daily on bulkhead flat cars. They are stacked usually 4-8 large ingots at a time and strapped down.
FYI I have seen two different shows in the last few days on how slabs are rolled. I only saw a bit of the one on The History Channel showing steel slabs getting “cold rolled”, but caught the entire segment of “How It’s Made” on the Discovery Channel where they took an aluminum slab about 10x20x1’ (estimated), rolled it into thinner sheets 600’ long, then coiled it and re-rolled it into over 8 miles of household aluminum foil! Useless information of the day [:)] Jamie
Not useless.
Some of that Aluminum coils are 8 feet high “eye to sky” and about 6 feet across. Three will fit onto a Covered Wagon and be consumed by the Brewery in a few hours time making beer cans to fill.
Think of the energy consumed to raise the hell heat necessary to create one of those slabs. NOW that is something.