What's New on the PRR Panhandle Division?

[rogruth]

Waiting patiently.I remember how long it took me to have something that looked like something recognizable. [ ]

[G3750]

Waiting patiently.I remember how long it took me to have something that looked like something recognizable. [ ]

wah, wah, wah

OK, in the photo below you want to look at the building with the "Weirton Steel Co." sign on it. The time period is late 1940s (1949?). The building will look mostly like this.

Strip Steel002W.jpg (130.06 KiB) Viewed 4086 times

Now, here is a photo of the same building taken in 2010 (the building is still in existence and still in use).

2010 Thanksgiving 292W.jpg (125.69 KiB) Viewed 4087 times

I am going to add some of the piping from the latter photo to the model.

George

[rogruth]

George,

You probably know about an article in "Great Model Railroads 2011" by Lou Sassi about a layout by Curt Larue
on page 86 that features some of the area that you are concerned with.

[G3750]

No, I was unaware of that. I'll have to look for it.

What area is he modeling?

George

[rogruth]

Weirton,Stuebenville,Mingo and a little further east into PA.
It is an HO layout.

[G3750]

Weirton,Stuebenville,Mingo and a little further east into PA.
It is an HO layout.

That makes only the 3rd modeler of the PRR Panhandle that I know of. Bill Neale, Curt LaRue, and me.

Thank you. I will try looking for the publication.

George

[rogruth]

That area,IMHO,should be great to model.Three railroad bridges across the Ohio River,three steel mills,three or four towns,PRR double track mainline,branch lines on both sides of the river and the P&WV crossing the PRR branches and the W&LE.And the mills all had railroads that included standard,narrow and broad gauges.The names of the railroads changed several times after WW II.
Maybe it is too complex to model easily.

[G3750]

That area,IMHO,should be great to model.Three railroad bridges across the Ohio River,three steel mills,three or four towns,PRR double track mainline,branch lines on both sides of the river and the P&WV crossing the PRR branches and the W&LE.And the mills all had railroads that included standard,narrow and broad gauges.The names of the railroads changed several times after WW II.
Maybe it is too complex to model easily.

I don't think it is too complex, but you have to be selective because it's a "target-rich environment".

You would think, as I and a few others did, that there is a wide variety of things to model there. In addition to all you mentioned, there are other industries as well as steel - oil storage facilities, coal mines, tugboat / barge traffic on the river, brick refractories, coal-fired power plants, and pottery (especially north towards New Cumberland, Chester, and Newell).

Just the Weirton Steel mill complex itself had:

• Open Hearth (with 14 furnaces)
• Four Blast furnaces
• Three Ore Bridges
• Strip Steel Mill
• Tin Mill
• Coke Plant (on Brown's Island in the Ohio River)
• Blooming Mill
• Basic Oxygen Plant (if you jump to the 1960's)
• Half-Moon Warehouse / Storage facility
• Docks & barge conveyor loading/unloading facilities on the river
• Mill Administration & Quality Control buildings, roll shops, power plants

I'm sure I missed something, but that's only 1 company. There was also Koppers and Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel companies.

You could probably fill a warehouse (or an old steel mill building ) with all the stuff that could be modeled.

George

[rogruth]

George,

I know about all the other stuff.I was just trying to point out how rich the area is/was with just the railroads and steel mills.

[G3750]

Updated 7/25/2013:

Last night I found some time to work on the Strip Steel Mill. I focused on planning the look of the building and its use of the spur track. The spur is straight up to the point where it curves into the building.

• I taped together a paper mock-up of the front of the Strip Steel building (7 scale sheet drawings of each bay and its two bordering pilasters) and propped it up on the building framework (already in place). From that I learned that the spur will enter the building at exactly the wrong spot - a pilaster. This will look pretty bad.
• My first alternative, widening the area between pilasters to accomodate the spur entrance, will also look goofy and ruin the symmetry of the building (see my photo about 7 posts before).
• So the only real choice was to alter the position of the spur. I experimented with the placement of the curve using a spare piece of O42 GarGraves track. Starting the curve 2" sooner will cause the track to curve nicely into the area between 2 pilasters. I'll have to rip up some of the spur that's already in place, but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

I'm really glad I did this with a paper template. This is probably going to change what goes in some of these "bays". Jockeying a partially-built 43" wide building front to try to solve this would have been a major pain.

I will post some photos this evening.

George

[G3750]

All:

Here are the photos I promised you (a little late). The first is of the building's front template I created. It is in place on the layout.

StripSteelFront_002.JPG (82.55 KiB) Viewed 3934 times

The second is a close up showing where the track (the one with the MTH Hot Metal car #52) will enter the building. Unfortunately, it is right at the pilaster. So I am moving the point where the curve begins. That will fix the problem, causing the track entrance to be in the second "bay".

StripSteelFront_001.JPG (89.89 KiB) Viewed 3934 times

George

[J. S. Bach]

Nice, I like the idea of using building mock-ups; I will have to remember that. I have one of those hot metal cars (also #52), but the only time that I have "run" it was on the rapid transit layout at the Rutgers meet a couple of years ago. Well, it did seem a little out of place. The slag cars fared no better.

[rogruth]

Good way to find the problems before they happen seems to me.
I don't know enough about it but certainly looks fixable.
I'm sure there is a reason why the signal bridge is in that place.
Seems a little odd in its placement but is it prototypical?
I don't think many O gauge people model steel mills because of size and complexity.
Keep them coming.

[G3750]

Nice, I like the idea of using building mock-ups; I will have to remember that. I have one of those hot metal cars (also #52), but the only time that I have "run" it was on the rapid transit layout at the Rutgers meet a couple of years ago. Well, it did seem a little out of place. The slag cars fared no better.

Yeah, I really didn't want to construct such a big, involved building front, place it on the layout, and then have an "Oh, ****!" moment. That would be bad.

As for the hot metal cars, I was under the impression that they never traveled very far (Weirton only used them for intra-mill moves), but I think I read that one railroad in the Cleveland area would move molten steel 100 miles using them! Kind of dangerous I would think. Those cars are heavy (the vessels are lined with refractory brick inside), they are full of hot steel, and you can't let it cool. A derailment would have all sorts of bad outcomes.

George

[G3750]

Good way to find the problems before they happen seems to me.
I don't know enough about it but certainly looks fixable.
I'm sure there is a reason why the signal bridge is in that place.
Seems a little odd in its placement but is it prototypical?
I don't think many O gauge people model steel mills because of size and complexity.
Keep them coming.

You probably can't tell from the angle of photograph #2, but the signal bridge is on the mainline (slightly elevated). Photo #1 illustrates the difference in height a little better. The 2 curved tracks are mainline off the bridge.

The signal bridge in the photo has a twin on the other side of the Ohio River bridge. Their job is to protect the double cross-over in the middle of the bridge (which is NOT prototypical). My track plan is a folded dog-bone. With the double cross-over, I can reverse the direction of travel of the trains if I want to. The double cross-over will be used on some of the moves in and out of the steel mill and the coal mine.

George