Which industries other than the automotive industry take coiled steel? I see many coil cars but don’t know where they might be going. Can you name any particular industry that takes coil cars?
Thankyou
Andrew
Someone will have to correct me if I am wrong here, but I have a DVD that shows some Iowa Interstate trains with a few coil cars in them. I wonder if these coil cars might be going to Maytag to use for the production of new washers and dryers.
dphusman
Steel is used in many items besides cars. These coil cars may be going to just about any manufacturing plant.
Agree with above replies,coil cars can be going to automotive plants,washer/dryer plants,or basiclly any place that uses steel for a finished product.[:)]
could be anything from tin cans to computers.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by M.W. Hemphill
Band steel (which is usually coiled for shipment) emerges from the primary steel mill as hot-rolled band, and is either rolled again in a cold-rolling mill to improve its surface properties, strength, and hardness, or consumed. Products that hot-rolled band makes include tanks, silos, corrugated galvanized roofing sheets, highway guardrails, truck bumpers, farm machinery, car stereo speaker brackets, bed frames, shelf brackets – basically anything that is stamped, rolled into shapes, bent, or curved – in which a glass-smooth, blemish-free surface finish is not required.
If surface finish is important, hot-rolled band is rerolled in a cold-rolling mill, which also gives the steel toughness, hardness, and strength. Products made from cold-rolled steel include auto body panels, home appliance shells, cans (after tinplating), file cabinets and desks – anything that will be required to have a smooth finish, and anything that has to be both thin AND strong. Cold-band is much more expensive than hot-band because there’s so much more processing involved, plus a lot of the input material is spoiled.
A washing machine uses both hot-band and cold-band steel: the shell uses cold band to give it strength and a slick finish; all the brackets inside that hold the motor and pump and controls are hot-band, or are made from the trimmings from the cold-band.
To some degree you can determine what a coil will be used for, and where it came from and where it’s going, by the type of car it’s loaded into and where you see it. Hot-band is shipped in open coil cars if it’s still hot or if it’s finish properties aren’t important – either the user is making something like steel tanks, or will pickle it (dip it in sulfuric acid) before doing something with it. Cold band is wrapped in paper or shipped in covered cars, or both. Most of the cold-rolling mills are concentrated in a crescent around the Great Lakes from Chicago to Ham
I see steel coils A LOT mostly because the CN tracks I live by go from steel mills to detroit auto factories but i’m sure other industry uses them too
I work for a metals distributor. Many of our facilities receive coil cars into our warehouse.
We then cut, slit, polish, level the coils into pieces for our customers. (No fabrication)
Our Customers then take the material and make things out of the metal.
(like stainless meat slicers, Electrical junction boxes, truck bodies… and many
other procducts … way too numerous to mention)
Thankyou
2B
Thankyou; which distributor is that? It sounds like an interesting industry to model.
Barges Bring the coil down river.
I hauled Aluminum coils to Anhauser Busch in Williamsburg Va for cans. I know it is not steel coil, but these were more prone to roll over.
I also used a reefer tractor trailer to haul Brass in coil form to Remington Arms in Arkansas for conversion to Cartidge cases. They had to be 60 degrees and 40% humidity no matter the weather outside.
Appliances consume coils by the mile.
A favorite industry that used steel coil were pipe makers. They would take a big coil of steel and wind it while welding in a spiral. Once finished there was a 3 foot 40 foot pipe ready to go on the truck.
I also think that steel coil was used to create cables and wires of metal… I will have to look that one up.
Lee
Don’t steel mills that make wire prefer to use scap metal rather than starting from scatch? I was also wondering don’t non steel mills that make wire get in steel ingots?
Is there an purification method that can remove the impurities like plastic other than phyical sorthing? Are the steel mills replacing the blast furnaces with electric ones? Is the wire stainless?
Ok, Steel Masters…
Heres one for you…
What are the uses of the steel coil wire shipped in the open gons…
And the steel balls, (from 2 to 4 inches round) also shipped in open gons,
and why are they shipped in this manner?
(I know, but want the other guys to explain)
Ed
Isn’t hydrochloric acid the acid that is usually used for pickling?
I can’t imagine cutting up sheet steel to make wires. I took a class on manufacturing processes, I don’t recall the book saying anything about such a process. The same goes for the many steel company websites I have perused.
Yes, I know that at least some of the coils come from USS Gary on the EJ&E, then come onto the Iowa at Joliet.
A very large portion of coil traffic is actually not going to the end user, but to another plant for further processing. The BNSF Steel Trains are often an example of this, like the JOLPIT that goes to POSCO in California for further processing. There’s also simple single spur trackside rail to truck places that some coil loads can go to. There’s one here in the L.A. Harbor that is served by the PHL. It’s nothing more then a short spur next to a gravel lot where heavy-duty forklifts take the coils off the gons or open coil cars, and transfer it to trucks. I’ve seen similar places that can handle hooded cars with a crane. Also near that location is a similar business that has a small warehouse. That place gets the hooded cars from many roads, including NS, EJ&E, Indiana Harbor, and others.
Los Angeles, CA
-Rail Radio Online-Home of the “TrainTenna” RR Monitoring Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/railradioonline
-The Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Photo Archive & E-Mail List-
http://eje.railfan.net
There is also the unit trains USS POSCO sends to California Steel Industries.
Somebody told me that they use Hydroflouric Acid to pickle steel as well. Is that true?
In Pittsburgh, Pa. there are two plants that receive steel in covered coil gons to be galvanized or coated with zinc. Some of this is then shipped out in the coil cars and some goes out by truck.
Probably not unless they have, and I cannot (of the top of my head) think of a reason why they would need to. However, it is possible. HF is significantly more toxic than HCl or H2SO4, not that any of them are something to play around with. I know they use HF to etch glass. They might use HF to etch stainless steel.
I am rather scared of hydroflouric acid after finding out that it can absorb into the skin and coagulate the blood and cause a painful death.