Long time no see, but I have a question

[justind]

Hi gang, been offline for quite a while and see a lot of new faces, but some familiars as well. Been lurking when I had the chance but haven't posted in...well...forever. As I have my first baby coming up in Febraury and just finished college (at last) my life is in transit so don't know how this will affect the trains...but I do have a question.

This is for any of you modeling steel mills. My question is this...when they skim the slag from the molten steel what do they do with it? I am assuming it needs to be dumped from the slag car as quickly as possible to avoid cooling and sticking, but where would you dump it? Do they have a slag pit (or mound)?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rusty Stumps]

Justin, from what I've seen of films on the subject it's a pit. The cars are pulled along an embankment and the slag is dumped over the side into a pit. Now what happens from there is only a guess but I'd figure after it cools somewhat it might either be shifted by bulldozers away from the bottom of the incline or trucked away.

 

[jon-monon]

You can really do a lot with slag! Welcome home

 

[60103]

Don't know about steel, but in Sudbury, Ontario they hauled nickel slag along a raised raised railway and dumped it. The dumping at night was one of the town's scenic attractions, like watching lava flow from a volcano. I think most of it was left where it settled. The railway had some interesting electric locos.

 

[justind]

Thanks guys

Thanks guys,

jon-monon I like the idea of crushing and cleaning the slag and re-using it in ashpalt and bricks...thanks for the link.

 

[Ralph]

There's a good article with a stunning picture of the INCO slag dump (that David mentioned above) in the February 2002 Trains magazine. It also includes pics of the industry as well as inside- the-cab photos of an electric steeple cab and their newer
GP38m-4.
Ralph