Alkem Steel - Part 2

Alkem Steel: Building a N Scale Steel Mill Using the Walthers Kits

by Bernard Kempinski

Part I: Steel Mill Layout Planning

Introduction

Think of a steel mill and you picture smoke, sparks, molten metal, grimy men, cavernous, mysterious complexes laced with a bewildering array of pipes, wires a¨ÿail lines in every direction. Perhaps no other industry depends on railroads as does the steel industry. The railroad serves not just for transport of raw material in and finished product out, but also for the intra-plant movement of intermediary products nearly every step of the manufacturing way. The inclusion of a steel mill on a model railroad is a natural but heretofore difficult modeling task.

The introduction of the Walthers Works kits makes modeling a steel mill much easier. Although designated as HO scale, with some modifications one can easily use them in an N scale application. In the following article I'll explain how I used the Walthers Kits to make Alkem Steel: a N scale integrated steel mill.

Research

When Keith Lyons proposed this project to me I had minimal knowledge of what goes on in a steel mill. Although I was very motivated, as I had planned to model a steel mill for quite some time, I was pretty much starting from scratch. In order to build a credible model, the first step for me was to do research into the steel industry. Dean Freytag's book, The History, Making and Modeling of Steel, was an excellent introduction to the wonders of steel manufacturing. I recommend it highly. However, while waiting for his book to arrive I did some preliminary research. I conducted internet searches, made calls to several corporations and associations, visited libraries and toured several mill towns.

I found the public libraries to be lacking in information useful to the modelers. They have a wealth of information on the economics of steel and labor relations but very little hard data on mill operations nor good photographs. The internet yielded better results. Several corporations have very useful and informative web sites, particularly Weirton Steel, USX and Bethlehem Steel.

I was able to arrange an official tour to a prototype steel mill in spite of the industry's normal reluctance to provide tours and information to modelers. In fact, my hosts asked me not to publicly acknowledge them. Nonetheless, it was quite informative. The highlight of the tour was an impressive steel pouring operation at the basic oxygen furnace (BOF). If guided tours are out of the question, there are several steel mills across the country where great views of the activities can be had from public property. I made trips to several of these and they proved invaluable for learning about small details and the clutter that populates a typical steel mill.

The Historical Architectural and Engineering Record (HAER) at the Library of Congress has a great collection of material concerning significant defunct steel mills across the country, especially for Birmingham, AL and Cleveland, OH. The HAER, through its documentation, was able to show the historical significance of the Sloss Works in Birmingham, AL, and as a result, this abandoned mill can be visited as an historic site. They also have a complete set of plans and 150 photographs of that facility.

Finally, I had access to several aerial photos taken by my friends of AK steel in Ashland, KY. This is a linear plan and I leaned heavily on these photos in designing the mill track plan. (Photo 1: aerial photo of AK Steel)

Essential elements of an Integrated steel mill model.

An integrated steel mill takes raw materials in the form of ore, coal and scrap and produces finished steel products. Essential tasks of an integrated mill include: melting and refining iron ore to pig iron, baking coal in the absence of oxygen to make coke, converting pig iron and coke to steel, then finally casting and rolling steel into finished products. Note that not all mills are integrated. Some facilities perform only one function and ship the intermediate product to other locations.

Over the years different techniques were used for the conversion of pig iron to steel. The earliest process employed Bessemer furnaces. Later in the early 20th century open hearths became widespread. After World War II the Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) technique assumed dominance due to it's great productivity. Today a growing number of electric furnaces complement the huge BOFs. Throughout this period the blast furnace evolved but more or less retained its basic appearance. (See diagram of steel making process, courtesy of Weirton Steel)

A typical integrated steel mill in the 1950s, the period I chose to model, included one or more blast furnaces, a coke works, an open hearth, a casting facility, several rolling mills and support structures such as storage tanks, ore bridges, cranes, power stations, and offices to support it all and keep it running. If you model a more modern period, a BOF or electric furnace would replace the open hearth. The other features would
remain.

Modeling Rail Car Movements Into the Mill

Understanding how steel mills and railroads interact helps us know what features we need to incorporate in our plan. However, describing the actual car movements in and around a steel mill can be quite involved. The following is a brief description of the types of movements and industries that require switching in a steel mill. You may to chose to model these to whatever degree you see fit.

Movements internal to the steel mill involve specialized cars shuttling back and forth over short distances. For example, hot metal or bottle cars bring molten pig iron from the blast furnace to the converter, while special thimble shaped cars draw off slag to dump.

There are numerous "industries", in the model railroad sense of that term, that need to be served on a steel mill. For example, tanks cars spotted at rolling mills provide lubrication and pickling oil for the machinery then can haul off sludge and waste oil. Box cars deliver refractory material, packing and shipping supplies, repair parts, insulation and all sorts of sundry items to keep the machines operational. At any given time it seems some part of a steel mill is being rebuilt generating the need for cars loaded with construction materials. The switching of these industries can be modeled using way bills and car forwarding just like any main line model railroad.

From a model railroad perspective the interchange traffic with the outside world can provide interesting operations. Here is ample prototypical justification for the high traffic densities normally found on model railroads. Delivering the hundreds of tons of raw materials needed for each blast would keep your mainline connections quite busy. I estimate that the Walthers Blast Furnace would contain about 800-1000 tons, making it a fairly large but by no means unusual blast furnace. Thus each eight hour blast would consume around 15-30 cars of ore, coke and limestone.

Other incoming traffic includes coal for coke ovens and local power generation, scrap, and the mill supplies described above. In addition, empty gondolas and coil cars must be provided so that finished steel can be shipped out. All these cars are spotted at the interchange yard by the main line carrier. Local switchers, usually owned by the steel mill, sort the cars and bring them to the appropriate location on the mill. Many large mills have smaller yards for each of the major operation. For example some mills have a coil yard where finished coils cars get loaded and stored, or a stock yard for scrap gondolas awaiting movement to the open hearth.

Outgoing traffic includes the empty ore and coal hoppers and gondolas with finished steel products.

Track Planning

Modeling all aspects of a vast steel mill in a compact area poses a challenge. Selective compression of both the surface area and the operations is required. I focused the plan on the key elements that define a steel mill.

The first and foremost feature is the blast furnace. No other structure so loudly and clearly says steel. With the advent of the Walthers kit, building one of these is much simpler. I decided that the plan would include at least one blast furnace.

The open hearth, with its distinctive row of parallel stacks, was a common sight in a l950s vintage steel mill. Including one of these plus a rolling mill provided a long, massive structure that could serve as a scenic divider. The Walthers Rolling Mill kit makes a good starting point for many N scale mill structures. I used five of these as the basis for the rolling mill and the open hearth. The Walthers Electric Furnace is an even larger kit structure and might be suitable for modeling an N Scale BOF, but I was modeling the 1950's era, I did not use that kit. The coke works, with its unusual shapes, could add an interesting contrast to the massive rolling mills. Unfortunately, the Walthers Coke Works kit does not readily convert to N scale. I did use some of the pieces from this kit elsewhere in the mill but I completely scratch built a N scale coke works for my mill.

Given that I wanted to have at least one blast furnace in the plan there are several approaches I considered.

1.	Model a Small Merchant Mill or Electric Furnace Mini-Mill For a small module or space on a layout a merchant blast furnace may be appropriate. A merchant blast furnace is a stand alone facility that produces pig iron for shipment and further processing at other remotely located plants. While it might sound impractical to ship molten pig iron, one should note that pig iron can remain molten and usable for up to twelve days in an insulated bottle car. Of course if it solidifies, the car becomes useless. There were examples of merchant blast furnaces in Cleveland and Gary. You could cram such a structure on a 4 x2 module but a larger module would allow room for more believable length sidings, etc. Dave Freshwater's plan for a NTRAK corner module incorporates this concept (See Drawing of Freshwater's module). A stand alone electric furnace mini-mill is also possible (and more probable in modern times), but the structure is rather plain in comparison to the blast furnace.
2.	Steel Interchange Yard A second approach is to build the mill interchange yard in the foreground and place the mill in the background. Thus instead of a distant ridge or building flats, the mill structures provide dramatic backdrop. Monroe Stewart used this approach in his model steel mill design. His scratchbuilt mill structures present an imposing industrial skyline behind the staging tracks of his large home layout. (See photo 2 of Monroe's Layout) One could take this concept a bit further by using the steel mill as a interchange destination. In this concept you do not model all the switching that goes on in a steel mill. You would primarily model the mainline railroad bringing in loads of raw materials and empties for finished products. The mainline trains would take off empty hoppers and loaded steel products. You could also model the classification process in the yard and perhaps have the yard engines drag cars off to hidden staging that would simulate the steel mill.
3.	A layout featuring complete steel mill operations The third approach, and the one I adopted, is to build a layout featuring an integrated steel mill operation. Fortunately this can be done in N scale in a reasonable amount of space, although the sky is the limit if you wish to include more mill operations. If you desire, you would have no difficulty in planning a steel mill theme layout to fill an entire basement.

I chose to build the steel mill on a NTRAK module versus a dedicated home layout. Two factors lead me to this decision. First, my wife and I have discussed moving from our current house in a few years. The impending move mitigated against building the mill in a "permanent" location. Secondly, Walthers, the sponsors of the project, desired that the steel mill be displayed at the NMRA national convention in Madison. While I could have built a stand alone portable layout, I concluded that a NTRAK module would be the best way to remain portable and perhaps improve operational possibilities by tying the module into a larger transportation system. In effect the other NTRAK modules could provide staging.

I made a 3x10 foot module base (in two 3x5 sections) with folding legs. One 3x5 foot module will fit in my car, so I reasoned that if necessary I could take the modules to local shows by making two trips. In practice I employ the club trailer or get a friend to help haul one of the pieces.

The module depicts an integrated steel mill where the manufacturing process flows from left to right. Coke is produced in the left front, the blast furnace on the left melts the ore. The pig iron flows to the right into the open hearth and from there to a slab caster and rolling mill. Finished coils are loaded on the right hand rear tracks. Several prototypical structures, a blast furnace at AK steel, the open hearth at Weirton Steel and elements of the rolling mills at Sparrows Point, provided the basis for the structures although the overall module is freelanced.

While the module is NTRAK compatible, one can operate it in a realistic manner as a standalone layout. The track plan includes (see track plan diagram): A. Arrival and departure tracks for incoming and out going trains. B. A small stub ended classification yard to sort cars. C. A three track staging yard partially hidden in the open hearth. D. Several sidings where cars are spotted. For example:

Location	Type of Cars Spotted
Ash Track	Covered Hoppers
Slag Track	Slag Cars
Ore/Stone Tipple	Ore and stone hoppers
Coil Yard	Coil and flat cars
Stock house	Scrap gondolas
Sludge track	Oil tank cars
Stripping tracks (Rear staging tracks)	Ingot cars
Engine service tracks	Locomotive and car service and repair

The module set has a continuous loop for display at shows and there is an automated high line using a Circuitron auto reverse circuit to provide an additional action element. In the foreground is a coke works with scratchbuilt operational rotary dumper.

There is no skyboard. The structures act as the view block. All of the prototypes I emulated were on fill land so the module has little vertical relief in terrain. A drainage canal exits the front and provides a nice foreground location for details.

A chief concern was reducing the visual scale of the HO kit structures. In addition to modeling techniques which I describe below, there are several design features which help provide the right sense of scale. The foreground includes highly detailed N scale structures, such as the coke works and the engine house as well as lots of N scale clutter. The coarser HO scale structures, embellished with N Scale details, line the background. In a few places N scale structures abut the HO kits to help provide additional visual cues to scale down the structures. The HO structures incorporate numerous roof lines, gables, craneways and vents to break up the mass and provide visual interest. Heavy weathering and common paint schemes help blend everything together. The desired effect is to get the eye focused on the N scale detail in the foreground. Then the minds eye automatically assumes and extrapolates that level of detail to the background structures.

The track plan has a one foot offset with a wide sweeping curve which helps the eye flow through the scene.

Part II: The Rolling Mill and Open Hearth

In the following sections I'll describe some of the construction techniques I used to convert the Walthers Kits to N Scale. I will not give a detailed step-by-step description since I suspect that few of you will copy these structures exactly. Instead I cover the main points and describe the thoughts behind the techniques used. I used the similar construction techniques for the Rolling Mill and the Open Hearth structures.

Before building, I mocked up the structures. It's easy to do this by using masking tape to temporarily secure the wall sections. I tried various configurations as well as made several perspective drawings to determine the final shapes.

Rolling Mill Building

The first structure I built was the Rolling Mill. The overall structure is 42 inches long, about 8 inches tall and 6 inches deep. I used two and a quarter of the Walthers Rolling Mill kits for this structure.

Before assembling, I first scribed lines halfway between each simulated steel panel that come with the Walthers Kits. This reduced the apparent width of the steel siding panels to a more appropriate N Scale size. While this is tedious, it goes quickly and easily if you use a spacing jig. Make sure you keep the scribed lines parallel to the existing line seam lines. I found it was went much easier if I applied a very light pressure using the back of an X-Acto knife blade. Too much scribing pressure tends to make the knife point wander.

For the structure frame, I cut 1/4 inch foam core panels to the appropriate shape. Using these foam core panels I built a crude solid walled structure. Then, using a hot glue gun, I sided the rough structure using the panels from the kits. I braced the interior of the structure in several places, most importantly along the roof apex and wall corners. This construction technique resulted in a strong building that could withstand the rigors of hauling to shows. As a bonus, it freed up all the truss and columns that came with the kits. I later assembled these trusses and roofed them with Evergreen corrugated siding to create open shed structures. I placed these in front of and behind the Rolling Mill. The multiple roof lines help give the scene depth.

Initially, I did a lot of cutting and filing to fit the Rolling Mill against a curving backdrop in my home layout staging yard. However, when I switched to the NTRAK plan, I rebuilt the roof with Evergreen corrugated siding and added a back wall. I lowered the walls about an inch. The left over piece from this cut I used to construct the crane way. The cross gable on the right hand side came from a left over end wall. To maximize the length of the structure, I notched the right hand side to allow room for the return loop track. A steel "I" beam and column help support the cantilevered corner of the structure. Lest you think this is too cliche, I copied this feature from a prototype structure at Sparrows Point. The Walthers Kits come with two types of vents. For this structure I chose to use the cylindrical vents.

The crane way and cross gable helped break up the mass of the structure, but more detail was required to scale down the structure. I decided to add several small N Scale structures along the front of the building to provide visual N scale references. I scratchbuilt an air cooling system (complete with fans blades and Micromesh screen per a prototype I saw at Sparrows Point.) I added a one story loading dock and office annex by using DPM components. My reference photos showed many pipes running along the outside of these structures so I added Plastruct and Evergreen tubing to simulate stacks, and piping. The crane way has a platform on the right hand side with some N Scale hand railings and ladders. I made the sign on the roof using letters from an office supply store, a Plastruct Truss and left over pieces of the Walthers kit trusses.

Open Hearth

The open hearth was next and provided it's own set of challenges. First off, prototype open hearths are very large structures. I obtained a scale set of plans from Mike Rabbit and was amazed by how large the structures were and by the number of tracks that support it. One could nearly make a layout just by modeling the track work associated with the open hearth. Massive selective compression would be required to fit the structure into the 32 inches I had available.

Secondly, in my plan the open hearth straddled the module joint. To simplify module tear down and assembly at shows I decided to build a base for the structure that included the tracks. In effect, the open hearth is itself a mini-module. Three screws secure the structure to the module and a wiring harness with Cinch-Jones plugs electrically connects the tracks.

A row of tall chimneys, one associated with each furnace, characterizes an open hearth structure. In the thirty two inches available, I should have had three of these stacks to accurately follow the plans Mike sent me. However, I took some artistic license and doubled this number to six. The stacks connect to a shed like structure that is attached to the front of the main structure.

Two Walthers Rolling mill kits built to their full size make up the main structure. The gabled sides have openings to allow the three staging tracks to pass through. On the roof top I used the monitor vents, the other venting option that the kits provide. I added a shed to the left front to house the mixer building. Here, the molten pig iron pours into a mixer and then used to charge the open hearths. To simulate the fireworks that occur in this shed when pouring the iron, I added a set of blinking lights from a Model Power kit originally designed to simulate a burning building.

The open shed in the front of the open hearth covers the stock yard tracks. The stock yard stores scrap loaded in gondolas for further processing. As described above, the trusses for this shed are the left over from the Rolling Mill kits. The elevated line is simply a 1x2 piece of wood with a section of flextrack glued to the top and strip styrene glued to the sides to simulate concrete beams. In an actual stock yard, the elevated rail line would lead into the structure. I omitted this track in my plan. I modified a Walthers HO traveling crane to fit on the crane tracks inside the shed. An electromagnet is required here to lift the ferrous scrap. In the prototype the ingot mold yard, is another significant part of an open hearth. The open shed to the rear suggests this activity but I did not model it in detail.

As in the rolling mill model, I added several N scale details to the exterior of the structure. Numerous pieces of piping with truss supports lead to the mixer house simulating the hot gas supply and exhaust lines. I copied an interesting arrangement of piping from Freytag's book to simulate the pollution control pipes exiting the mixer house. The main smoke stacks are Evergreen one inch tubing.

I airbrushed both the Open Hearth and the Rolling Mill with light gray walls and rusty black-brown roofs. Heavy weathering helps tone the building down and blend them together.

Part III: The Blast Furnace

The most impressive and controversial kit in the Walthers Works is the Blast Furnace. Perhaps the most discussed aspect of the kit is the scale. Just what scale is it? The stock HO kits stands about 22 inches tall. This equates to about 160 feet. As such this would be a rather small blast furnace. In an N scale application the furnace kit must be lowered one inch to place the cast house floor at the proper height. Thus the N scale blast furnace stands at 21 inches tall. That equates to about 280 feet tall. Both of these sizes are in the realm of possibility. I've made estimates of several prototype blast furnaces and they ranged from 200-300 feet. Fortunately the shape of the blast furnace and the supporting machinery is in proportion to the overall height. The bottom line conclusion was that the blast furnace kit is not too large to represent a credible N scale model.

I was impressed by this kit. After working for 6 years in N scale I was amazed by the size and number of parts. Just hunting for the parts on the various sprues was a challenge made more difficult by the lack of letter coding on the sprues. Fortunately this task became progressively easier as I used up the parts. I found the fit on the parts to be excellent, although other kit owners I have talked to disagree. The trickiest parts to assemble were the semi-circular halves of the furnace. I used a couple dozen rubber bands to hold the pieces together while the liquid styrene cement dried. Then I sanded the seams. I also found the kit to have very little flash, which speeded construction. Still, I estimate it took me about 70 hours to assemble the kit and make the N scale modifications. As stated above, I will not present a step-by-step description but will highlight the main points of the conversion.

For the most part I followed the instructions in assembling the kit. The only major deviation was to rotate the skip hoist so it faces the front with the cast house to the right and the stoves to the left. This matches the prototype orientation of the blast furnace at AK Steel at Ashland, KY.

Making the conversion to N scale was relatively easy.

I removed all the HO the handrails from the head of blast furnace and bell platform and replaced them with them N Scale Plastruct handrails. Furthermore, I added N scale handrails around the periphery of the cast house platform. I also added staircases and landings where appropriate. The most obvious are the stair tower from the bell platform to the top platform and alongside the skip hoist. I also chiseled off the doors on elevators and replaced them with N scale roll up doors. Here I also replaced the hand rails on the stove catwalks.

I removed one inch of height from the whole foundation. This made the clearance for the slag cars and bottle cars more realistic. To do this, I assembled the whole cast house. Then I wrapped a piece of one inch masking tape around the base of the structure. This marked the cut line. I checked the height against a set of N scale cars on a piece of flex track. Once I confirmed that this was the correct height, I used a cut off disk on a motor tool to remove one inch all along the bottom. To compensate for the height change elsewhere in the structure I added two 90 degree elbows to the bustle pipe to make it match where it meets the hot gas main. There will also be a level change for the gangway from the elevator to the BF head. I corrected this by building a second platform at the correct height on the elevator.

I added additional details as follows. In the cast house I added a scratchbuilt tap hole drill, elevated walkways inside the cast house and above the bustle pipe, sluice gates for the molten iron troughs, sand box and brick piles on cast house floor, a scratchbuilt overhead crane, piping on bustle pipe, stairs from cast house floor to rail level. To the blast furnace I added the following details, a stairway to bell valve controls, wires from bell valve controls to motors on lower platform, safety ladders for access in several locations, a small shed on the middle platform, additional platform on the work crane level and access platforms on the skip hoist will bell valve pulley control wires.

A very successful detail was a series of 1.5V grain of rice bulbs in various locations. These do a great job of highlighting the outline of the structure and providing a real life sparkle. To provide the electric current to the lights I placed a series of brass rods along the girders of the skip hoist which acted as power buses. To these I soldered the leads of the lights. Once I had all the lights I desired in place, I painted the brass rods.

To make the furnace portable, I modified the top of the blast furnace to be removable. This required lots of trial and error fitting and shaping. To hide the seam where the downcomer pipes join I made a collar by gluing a 0.010 by .125 inch strip around one of the pipe. This tight fitting collar disguises the seam where the pipe separates. A Cinch Jones plug makes powering the lights a snap.

Skip Hoist Tipple

To conceal the area where the skip hoist would be loaded, I built a tipple house using components from the Walthers Works Coke Ovens kit. The bottom of the skip hoist terminates in this tipple. At the lower level of this tipple is an opening for the display loop track. To the left and above this is the opening for the high line. Most of the prototype high lines on which I have reference material have two or more tracks. However, there was insufficient room here for more than one track. I built the high line as a hollow box. The display loop runs under it and curves back under the material pile. Because the high line is a hollow tube where the track runs through, many observers have difficulty determining where the display track leads to once it enters the tipple. As a additional action element, I added a reversing circuit on the high line so that an engine and car can automatically cycle in an out of the tipple.

Turboblower House

The turbo blower house provides the high velocity air that puts the blast in blast furnace. I built mine by using left over pieces from the five Rolling Mill kits I used in the project. I detailed it using Evergreen tubing resting on top of trusses from the Walthers HO Conveyor Kits normally associated with their gravel works. Other details include a scratchbuilt control cab, doors and photoetched stairs. Many people have positively commented on the light green color of this structure which is typical of many modern structures. The light color contrasts with the dark gray and rust colors of the blast furnace.

Part IV: Coke Works

After careful study I decided that conversion of the Walthers HO Coke Works to N scale was not possible in the space provided. I used some of the pieces of the Walthers Kit elsewhere in the module but the coke works on my module was scratchbuilt from plans drawn by Dean Freytag in MR in 1991 and as such represents a larger facility than the HO kit. My coke works includes a coal storage silo, crusher, coal dock, 38 ovens, quench house, pusher, and a coal wharf. The coal wharf area is enclosed in a structure and connected by conveyor to the skip hoist loading tipple. This conveyor passes over the NTRAK mains. Finally, there was room on the far right of the module to include some of the by-products recovery tanks and stacks.

I had previously scratchbuilt an operating rotary dumper and I decided to use it on the module to dump coal. The rotary dumper uses a counterweighted car clamp and can handle cars to 120 tons. The system works with a string and rubber band! In spite of its simplicity the dumper can be operated by one engineer and locomotive and includes Micro-Trains automatic uncoupling and gravity assisted tail track for storing empties. My daughter enjoys operating this facility during shows. The dumper is housed in a structure based on a prototype facility at the Curtis Bay Coal Company near Baltimore, MD. The structure is open along one side so that the dumping action can be observed yet the structure conceals all the non-scale parts needed to make the dumper work.

Part V: Supporting Details

Completing the module required making and incorporating numerous supporting details.

Traveling crane

The open shed structures have traveling cranes which I made from modified Walthers HO cranes or scratchbuilt. I found the Walthers 150 Ton HO crane, normally used in the Walthers Backshop to be too big for conversion to N Scale.

Water Settling Tank

This is a copy of a similar tank I saw at Weirton Steel including the "No Slabs" warning crudely hand painted in white letters. I made this tank using a cap from a spray starch can. I used Gold Medal Models photoetched ladder cages and railings to build a cat walk across the top. A piece of Plastruct tube made the center column. The water surface is a circular piece of acetate spray painted a dirty brown on the bottom side.

High Tension Electrical Towers

These came from the two IHC kits. I omitted the actual power lines because in the past I found they were fragile and required constant maintenance.

Slag Cars

N scale slag cars are available from a couple of sources. Overland made a nice brass model but it is quite expensive. Minitrix produced a model of a
prototype Mannesmann slag car. This can be modified to US standards by removing the bumpers and replacing the trucks. However, I have tried and had little success ordering them from Germany. I tried scratchbuilding slag cars using thimbles made from fishing bobbers. My first attempt was promising but not completely successful. I will try again as time permits. However, I kept the discarded slag pots and used them as clutter on the module.

Coke Hoppers

Making N scale Coke hoppers is easy, just add extension sides to other N scale hoppers. The DimiTrains drop-bottom gondola could also work for a drop-bottom coke car.

Bottle Cars

No N scale models of a hot metal bottle car exist. I would begin a scratchbuilding project by using some heavy weight trucks from a passenger car or perhaps an old tender. Then I would scratchbuild the bottle from styrene tube and bass wood. I will attempt these as time permits.

Steel Plant Gondolas and Flat Cars

Steel plant gondolas are easy to make. Most any steel gondola would work. Make sure you weather them heavily. Cut up aluminum foil spray painted rusty red makes good scrap. Micro Trains makes nice drop end gondolas that would be appropriate for loading steel slabs. Stewart Products recently introduced N scale ingot cars and ingot molds. Walthers has coil cars available.

Other Structures

I added several other support structures to the module. The engine service area has a two track engine house made from DPM walls. I made the large panel windows by gluing window screen to clear acetate. I scratchbuilt a small check-in building at the entrance gate to the steel mill. This is also the location of a sign, street light and crossing gate. A Con-Cor gas tank sits on the right hand side of the module and presumably provides heating fuel for the soaking pits in the rolling mill. I modified a container crane for use in loading coils in the coil yard.

Clutter

You can never have enough clutter around the steel mill. I used lots of different things from the scrap box, left over kit parts and household items to clutter up the area. Small coffee straws painted rusty red make great pipes. A slag pot from a failed scratchbuilding project filed with cinders makes an interesting road block (inspired from a prototype I saw at Weirton Steel). A good source of junk came from the Bachmann heavy equipment blister pack. I broke the vehicles in pieces and spray painted them with rusty red primer and black wash. I made steel slabs by cutting Evergreen strip in uniform lengths, spray painting them gray and dry-brushing with gunmetal. Then each was hand lettered with white paint. I recommend you look at the photos to see examples of other details and clutter.

Acknowledgments:

The success of the project can be gauged by the award of Best in Show-Module at the 1997 NMRA National Convention in Madison, WI. I'd like to thank the many people who helped make this happen. Thanks to Keith Lyons, at N Scale Magazine for suggesting the project, Bob Gallegos at Walthers and Walthers Incorporation for their faith in me and support. Matt Schaefer, John Drye, Dave Freshwater, Rob Kempinski, Edd Braithwood, Bill Rutherford, Len White and Mark Franke all provided construction, scenery and wiring assistance along the way. Finally, I must acknowledge Alicia Worthington, my then fiancé and now wife, who patiently supported me through this extended project. The steel mill is named in honor of her.