This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
one for ladle handling. The first one is the Walthers heavy duty crane, with a scrap bucket from Wehe. The other one was built using the girders from a heavy duty crane, sepa- rated and widened to accommodate the wider ladle and its spreader. The spreader was scratchbuilt from Plas- truct sheet material and scrap pulleys. The cross trolley between the girders was also scratchbuilt to fit. The cables suspending the spreader were made with heavy thread, and J-hooks from Wehe were used to hold the ladle. The operator of this crane rides in a cab at the level of the pouring platform, which extends down from the crane girder. I modeled this cab by scratch- building the structure and adding the Walthers crane cab at the bottom; an operator is watching the teeming oper- ation there.


The flow of liquid steel is controlled by a stopper rod that goes down through the molten steel to the nozzle in the ladle bottom. This stopper rod is protected by a ceramic sleeve. The rod is raised and lowered by a mechanical lever system controlled by the teeming operator. This mechanism was modeled using Ever- green rod, tubing and flat strip. The molten steel in the ladle was simulated with fluorescent orange sheet material. When all of these components were brought together in the electric fur- nace shop and the lighting and sound effects were turned on, the result was spectacular. The melt shop truly comes to life. The six months of work were well worth the effort!


A yellow LED simulates the gas burner in the ladle pre-heating unit that heats the ladle walls prior to tapping the steel into it (above). From the east end of the shop (below) we can see the scrap bucket on the crane hooks to the left, a hot metal ladle on the ground below a pair of crane hooks and the steel pouring ladle to the right. The pit in the foreground is where the hot metal ladle is placed to receive molten iron for transfer from the torpedo car to the furnace.


Operations


The HO scale River City & Western did not start out as a steel mill railroad. It just happened, or at least part of it did. One of my former university stu- dents, a metallurgist as well as a model railroader, but one who never had a chance to build his dream layout, died unexpectedly, and his widow, knowing of my interest in trains, sent me his un- finished blast furnace and several kits. I already had the RCW mainline track


laid, and the main yard at River City, which represents a division point on an east-west railroad in the Midwest set in the late 1950’s, was done. There was room at both ends of the yard at River City, but that would mean a linear plant layout with short tracks, limited storage tracks for loads and empties, and the mill facilities divided by the yard. Look- ing at the available real estate, I decid- ed this would work. Thus, the American Steel Company was born.


RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN


75


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100