Whatzit?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I see it now, it is a railroad slag car. I always thought their mouth was round, not shaped like Murph's mouth when he learns something new.

Very close. Are you sure?
My goodness, Wayne, you certainly got the correct milieu quickly enough. Railroads and railroad cars; steel industry. What - if it is at all possible to dissect the thinking process you used - visual clues took you there so fast?

[Wolf]

Not a slag car, as they are open-topped bowls, but how about a hot-metal car
(aka "submarines" or "torpedos" among other nicknames) seen from the top,
or the top rotated into the pouring position? The subs we had at Beth Steel
Sparrows Point had a broader oval opening...easier to spot for filling under
the runners of a blast furnace.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Not a slag car, as they are open-topped bowls, but how about a hot-metal car
(aka "submarines" or "torpedos" among other nicknames) seen from the top,
or the top rotated into the pouring position? The subs we had at Beth Steel
Sparrows Point had a broader oval opening...easier to spot for filling under
the runners of a blast furnace.

Precisely! Those were the names we knew them by in the Pittsburgh area steel mills. Those hot-metal cars/ torpedoes/submarine cars were so heavy (made of metal and lined with brick, and so hot when filled, that a special bridge (See top photo) had to be built for them to cross the Monongahela River, from McKeesport's steel mill to the Duquesne side of the manufacturing operation. Do you suppose that is some sort of cement/concrete around the opening, as repair? And you are right, of course, the photo I shared had the car tipped over, as though to pour.

In the fifth photo from the top photo, "Slag Cars/Cinder Cars/Ladle Cars are in the foreground; "Hot Metal Cars" are on the track in the background.

If I recall correctly, the Slag Cars were removing waste material from the steel-making process. The Hot Metal Cars were moving vital material that was integral to the manufacturing process.

The second and third photos are of how I saw, as a boy, Slag Cars in-action, dumping slag...

[webenda]

I see it now, it is a railroad slag car. I always thought their mouth was round, not shaped like Murph's mouth when he learns something new.

Very close. Are you sure?
My goodness, Wayne, you certainly got the correct milieu quickly enough. Railroads and railroad cars; steel industry. What - if it is at all possible to dissect the thinking process you used - visual clues took you there so fast?

I recognized it from a show and tell you did on your layout back in December, 2010. You showed us this photo taken on December 27, 2007.



I just could not remember which cars held slag and which molten steel. Must be my amyloid beta plaque distribution and high level of APOE affecting my memory.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Making that connection, Wayne, is beyond outstanding. I still don't know how you did it, but it seems that as soon as you were able to see just a tiny bit of the profile of the shape around - above and below - that orifice, you made the connection to a RR car, not to something organic, or nautical, or aeronautic, or to the zillions of other possibilities in the Universe, but rather, you landed on just the right vehicle. I am stunned and remain stunned.

PLUS, the view I provided in this thread was straight-on, not from above, as was barely available to you via my layout photo. (!!!!!!!!!) Furthermore, those liquid metal cars are usually viewed with the orifice in-place at the top of the car. I don't think I ever saw one rolled-over "into the pouring position," as Wolfgang pointed out, like the one I utilized for my Whatizit challenge.

PLUS, I don't believe I made particular note of which cars were which in that consist when I posted that photo, so there would be no "not remembering" on your part about something not stated in particular in that view of my layout.

[webenda]

PLUS, I don't believe I made particular note of which cars were which in that consist when I posted that photo, so there would be no "not remembering" on your part about something not stated in particular in that view of my layout.

Good to know. So Dr. Rufus's suspicion that I might have Alzheimer's or Dementia is pure quackery.

[Wolf]

Precisely! Those were the names we knew them by in the Pittsburgh area steel mills. Those hot-metal cars/ torpedoes/submarine cars were so heavy (made of metal and lined with brick, and so hot when filled, that a special bridge (See top photo) had to be built for them to cross the Monongahela River, from McKeesport's steel mill to the Duquesne side of the manufacturing operation. Do you suppose that is some sort of cement/concrete around the opening, as repair? And you are right, of course, the photo I shared had the car tipped over, as though to pour.

The area around the opening was called the saddle (if I recall correctly) and was a metal platform which was spaced away from, and conformed to
the curve of the body of the car. The saddle was covered with shotcrete to protect the metal of the carbody from the molten iron. The inside of the
car was lined with firebrick, which insulated the metal carbody from the molten iron being carried between the blast furnace and the steel furnace.
You had several hours before the molten iron would cool too much to pour out of the sub easily...and it was a major headache if it did cool!
We had 3 sizes of hot metal cars--the small ones were original to Sparrows Point and were 110 ton capacity, riding on 6-wheel Buckeye trucks
(which, incidentally were fascinating to watch flexing in motion while riding those cars while shoving them up to the Open Hearth or BOF).
The mid-sized ones were brought down from Johnstown in the late 60's/early 70's and were 220 ton capacity, and rode on four wheel trucks,
two under a span bolster on each end. They looked somewhat like the ones in your pictures. The "big" subs were bought new in late 70's when
Beth Steel built the huge new "L" furnace, and had more wheels under it than many a train (16 axles!) and had a capacity of 330 tons--car itself
also weighed about that, so the car loaded tipped the scales at about 650-660 tons. We derailed a loaded one in a collision with another on a curve
one night and it wasn't very pretty trying to rerail all those wheels!

If I recall correctly, the Slag Cars were removing waste material from the steel-making process. The Hot Metal Cars were moving vital material that was integral to the manufacturing process.

The second and third photos are of how I saw, as a boy, Slag Cars in-action, dumping slag...

All of the slag cars at Sparrows Point were double bowl, unlike the single bowl cars that Overland and MTH modelled. They still dumped like that
at the slag dump, although Beth Steel also had a "foam slag" dump where the slag was dumped out into a water spray which expanded the foam,
which was sold to a concrete block manufacturer. Needless to say, the process was quite spectacular, particularly when there was a skull buildup
(cooled slag solidified over the top of the bowl) that needed to be knocked loose (that is what the crane is doing in the one shot). When it comes
loose, there is the skull riding a stream of molten slag like an iceberg on a liquid river!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Hi Wolfgang, Are these the "double-bowl" slag cars you mentioned?

Thanks for all that information, which was a welcome education for me since my impressions of steel mills are those of a boy. It's very nice having facts and proper names.
Murph
P.S. I notice in this photo that the RR has a car (gondola?) separating the consist of slag cars from the engine. I hadn't modeled that on my layout, not knowing about it, back then, which Allan Miller, as a friend, had mentioned to me when I had written an article for OGR about such trains, that they always had the protective car providing a separation.

[Wolf]

Murphy---that "gondola" is really a slug unit running off the "mother" switcher.
Beth Steel had many of them, almost all home-built using retired Baldwin or Alco
(depending upon which mill the slug set was rostered) switcher frames. They really liked
those cast frames from the DS-4-4-1000's! They also developed a heavy-duty radiator that
BLH offered as an option on their switchers in the 50's. Later, they re-engined
most of the BLW/BLH switchers with EMD prime movers, also done in-house at the
P&BR shop. They still had some "genuine" Baldwins of 3 models (VO-1000, DS-4-4-1000,
S-12) left when I worked there in 1977-1984 timeframe.

There was invariably an idler car between the switcher (slug sets could use the slug as the idler)
and the hot metal subs or the cinder bowls, which at Sparrows Point were always run in solid
consists--only one type in a draft. So they were all either cinder bowls, or subs.
When a blast furnace was finished being tapped, usually one crew pulled the metal loads, while a
second crew pulled the slag after the first crew had finished (metal had the priority). Both crews set the
furnace up again with empties (there was a time-limit for pulling and setting up the furnace) before moving
the loads to their final destinations--either to a steel furnace (there were both types of steel furnances still
in service while I worked there---a BOF and OH #4, built in the 1950's), or to one of the cinder dumps.

Idler cars at Sparrows Point were short flatcars with footboards along both sides, and were weighted with
several lengths of rail (a rail along the edge of the deck also formed a handrail for those standing on the
side footboards car ). There was a steel framework on the center of the car deck, which held a cylinder
that contained a stretcher for emergencies...

If I ever dig through my slides, I may post a few shots for you to compare with yours.

And to answer your question about whether the cinder bowls in your photo were of the double-bowl
variety that I mentioned, they are double-bowl cars.

edited to correct spelling and answer Murphy's question

[MurphOnMillerAve]

What's this? What is it good for?

[healey36]

Looks like the oven stack at the drying house at our former distillery here in town...rye whiskey was the product, which is highly useful medicinally.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

The word "stack" is especially relevant.

"Oven" isn't too far afield.

Clever man.

[webenda]

It is a photo of the Homestead Mill Stacks in Homestead, Pennsylvania!

Now I challenge you, Murph, to tell me how I knew that.

[rogruth]

It is a photo of the Homestead Mill Stacks in Homestead, Pennsylvania!

Now I challenge you, Murph, to tell me how I knew that.

I'm not Murph but it says that at the bottom of the photo.

[webenda]

It is a photo of the Homestead Mill Stacks in Homestead, Pennsylvania!

Now I challenge you, Murph, to tell me how I knew that.

I'm not Murph but it says that at the bottom of the photo.

ROGER!!! You ruined it, Murph never would have figured that one out.

2D image of homestead stacks.


If you stare at the above image, don't focus, look straight through the two images, a third image may appear in full three dimensions.
3D image of homestead stacks.

Not this one, the first one with two pictures (a stereo pair.) This one is what you see if your can stare beyond your computer screen, right through the two images. A third image in full three-dimension glory might appear between the outer two flat images.