Black Country Blues

[melmerby]

Where we lived in Birmingham our milk was delivered by horse OSS and cart until about 1957.

Was that the Co-op? IIRC they were the last of the big dairies with osses.

There was also a small dairy in Showell Green Lane (Fowlers ?) who kept an oss until the end

 

Keith

[TheSignalEngineer]

No, it was a small family firm called A J Follows &Sons. The dairy was at 293 Harborne Lane, on the boundary of Harborne and Selly Oak. The building at the entrance is now the shop selling triathlon kit.

 

When they delivered to us they had milk from 4 farms in the Woodgate Valley/Frankley areas. There were also cows on the site in Vincent Drive where the new hospital stands.

[Arthur]

Robert, of RT Models, kindly donated some of his resin steelworks items for use on the BCB project earlier in the year.  Having used these items on my own projects, I volunteered to finish them for use on the layout and over the next few days I’ll post some notes on the items, what I did with them. They will feature as wagon loads on the BCB layout which is why they are being covered in this thread.

 

We’ve got ingot moulds, ingots and rolling mill rolls to look at. 

 

Firstly some notes on prototype ingot moulds and ingots. 

 

Until the mid 1960s virtually all the steel produced in the UK was cast into ingots prior to rolling, there was no other option.  In the 1950s and 60s there would have been tens of thousands of them in use at the various UK steelworks. Moulds, cast in high quality Haematite iron, typically had walls 5” thick and were made in a wide range of sizes, described by the weight of ingot cast, which might range from a ton up to 20 tons. Square section moulds, generally in the 3 to 4 ton range, were used where the end product was a section, rail or bar, rectangular section moulds, usually 10 to 20 tons were used to when plate or sheet was being rolled. For the forging of large items, special, polygonal moulds of capacities up to 300 tons were made.

 

The development and adoption of continuous casting from the mid 1960s onwards has made the practise of casting of ingots, prior to rolling, virtually obsolete, though ingots are still cast for forging operations.

 

In use, the moulds would be placed upright on a haematite pad or ‘stool’ sitting on a casting car and the steel teemed into the moulds.  Steel was never just poured over the lip of the ladle, it was allowed to run out of a stopper controlled hole in the base. This ensured that the slag floating on top of the steel did not enter the mould. There were several teeming techniques in use and considerable skill was involved in the preparation of the moulds and the teeming itself to avoid poorly cast ingots and damage to the moulds. The ingot was allowed to cool until it had formed a thick enough, solid, outer ‘skin’, to allow the mould to be stripped off.

 

A diagram showing two of the main teeming techniques, the choice depending on just what specification of steel was being cast. Downhill Teeming was often referred to a 'trumpet' teeming because of the shape of the feeder column. 

 

 

Ingots being teemed in the Llanwern casting bay, 1964.  The moulds and stools, standing on the bogie casting car, are clearly seen.

 

 

 

Once stripped, the mould would be set aside, ideally allowed to cool to ambient temperature, cleaned up, a tar wash applied to the inside and the mould was then ready for re-use.  A mould would be expected to have a life of around 100 casts, but poor preparation or teeming technique could reduce that drastically. As a consumable, they were costed into the steel manufacturing costs adding, in the early 60’s, around 6 shillings per ton.

 

 

Some works cast their own moulds but many bought them in. Major suppliers during BSC years were Ifor works near Merthyr Tidfil, the former RTB foundry at Landore and the former United Steels foundry at Distington in Cumbria.  Due to the high value of the haematite iron used, once damaged or life expired, the moulds were generally returned to one of the mould foundries for breaking and re-melting. Being massively constructed they could take some breaking, commonly a heavy steel ball was dropped on them, or explosives could be used. New and life expired moulds were both regular rail traffic to and from the foundries.

 

This page shows the handling of expired ingots, including the use of explosives, at Ifor works.

 

http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/dowlaisworks_butters_crane.htm

 

The stripped ingots, if required for rolling straight away, would be placed in soaking pits to equalise the heat. Ingots for stock or resale would be allowed to cool. They may appear to be just long blocks of steel but I'll show tomorrow how a few details can be added.  I'll also show the finished ingot moulds.

[P.C.M]

Hi Peter,

 

It's nothing too revelationary, Chris had put the surface down with a darkish mottled grey surface. I decided to lighten it down a little firstly with Tamiya Neutral Grey acrylic via an airbrush followed by gentle tones of Tamiya Buff and Tamiya Dark Grey following the line of the road. Treemendus earth powder was dusted over the road and into the verges.

 

I'd roughly cut some masking tape and put this down before spraying peeling it off to reveal Chris's mottled surface once again for the road repairs. The road would have had some pretty substantial puddles before it reached the drain level despite the council's recent repair of the road for a collapsed drain (from the railway's embankment) after the lorries from BSC Trafalgar Works have given the road a pounding for years, arguments between the council and BSC meant they never made the road up to an even level.

Thanks Andy,

I will have a go at that, I am not really happy with the roads I have done so will see how I go with your method on the new bit, then may even redo the older bits.

 

Cheers Peter.

[Andy Y]

If it helps on road toning here's another couple of snaps featuring Mr Gallon's marvellous Morris Marina, not that any Marina could ever be described as such but it's another cracking blown-upon treat that the rest of the team wouldn't have seen yet.

 

 

 

There's more green and fluffy bits now in an attempt to make this a green but not so pleasant land. Trying to get shots of 1970s Black Country wasteland isn't easy but hopefully it's looking more neglected than it is agricultural.

 

 

[Worsdell forever]

Just thinking that the Marina needs 3 old sports cars to follow round 

 

 

(No, I'm not...)

[Mark Forrest]

Looks like the BCB car park is going to need to go multi-storey:

 

 

Just thinking that the Marina needs 3 old sports cars to follow round 

 

 

(No, I'm not...)

 

 

Are you sure I can't tempt you with a couple more - I fear we might be scraping the barrel (in model terms at least)

[gwrrob]

Looks like the BCB car park is going to need to go multi-storey:

WP_20130919_001.jpg

 

 

 

You're taking this excellent layout to another level then.....

 

I'll get my coat,again.

[Grimleygrid]

Wow, the latest photos really are truly stunning. That is modelling of the highest standard.

 

Well done Andy and the team that is one fantastic layout. I am really looking forward to seeing it in the flesh.

[Arthur]

Referring back to the photo of the Llanwern casting bay in the previous post, a shower of 'sparks' can be seen spraying down from the filled moulds to the right. In some grades of steel, gasses are released from solution in the steel whilst in the mould, giving rise to an effervescence at the top and a gentle spray of steel droplets. Occasionally, this reaction can be more vigorous, giving a very merry fountain of steel at the ingot mouth, known as a 'roman candle' in some works. Rarely, the gas generates explosively, throwing the liquid steel out far and wide, presenting considerable risk to anyone nearby.

 

Anyway, on with the modelling.  Here are two of Roberts resin castings, an ingot and a small mould.

 

 

They just need a quick clean up with a scalpel and some emery board. I primed them with a grey car aerosol. Both moulds and ingots were then brush painted with Humbrol Metalcote 'polished steel' which, if left unpolished, gives a nice blue/grey metal effect.  The moulds were given a very light dusting with weathering powders, black to highlight detail, and rust tones to give a bit of 'life' to the finish. Here are the two large and two small moulds which Robert provided.

 

 

In 1975, the fictional Trafalgar Works was not making, nor casting steel, but the moulds will make an ideal passing traffic, Round Oak, Bilston and Patent Shaft would all have used them at the time.  Mark has some ideas on providing suitable wagons.

 

 

I also threw into the mix a couple of miscast moulds which I had acquired from Robert earlier in the year. I cracked the corner off one of them, prepared them as before but gave them a much heavier coating of rust powders. Some thick white emulsion was brushed on the tops and streaked down the sides, white weathering powder dusted on top and more rust tones worked in. They represent broken, life expired moulds, returning to the foundry, another passing traffic.  

 

 

 

 

The resin ingots are cast as a fit into the smaller moulds and are the same height. However moulds are never filled to the brim and as the steel solidifies it shrinks down into the mould, a depression forms in the top. This depression can develop into quite a deep, tapering, void  known as a 'pipe'. There are methods of avoiding this but many ingots displayed it to some degree.  I modelled this on the ingots by chopping a couple of mil. off the narrow end, and using drill bits and a burr in a mini drill, shaped a depression in the top. 

 

The iron stool on which the ingots are cast gradually develops a shallow, dished, depression as successive casts gradually erode it away. Subsequent ingots consequently have a convex base which can be seen in this photograph, easily replicated by filing around the base edge.

 

 

I used this photo as inspiration for the earlier Guy lorry build, it's carrying ingots, probably out of Stocksbridge works. Also seen at the base is a short 'spigot'. This is the snapped off remnant of the feed on uphill teemed ingots (see diagram in previous post). These were simply added from bits of wire. 

 

Here are the finished ingots. Cold, stored, ingots soon develop traces of surface rust represented with weathering powders, a white gel pen was used to replicate painted on identification marks. 

 

 

 

Whilst working in the soaking pits at Irlam I was spent a couple of shifts working on the cold ingot bank. Painting identification marks on ingots going into storage and locating ingots required for reheating, and identifying them to the overhead crane driver. We had a regular traffic of cold ingots in from the Sheffield area, brought by BSC and British Road Services artics. They were unloaded by the soaking pit cranes and on one night shift an ingot slipped from the cranes grip and dropped back about twelve feet onto the BRS trailer, crashing through the deck and twisting the chassis rails. The driver, resting in the cab, nearly s**t himself. We managed to separate tractor and trailer, the soaking pit crane dragged the buckled trailer to one side and I waved the next wagon in.

[Arthur]

Some additional information on the ingots and moulds, which will be of use in using them as loads and in selecting appropriate wagons, is, what would they weigh?

 

I measured up the resin castings, worked out an equivelant volume in scaled up cubic feet, and multiplied that by 470lbs for the moulds (a typical weight for cast iron, it does vary a bit) and 500lbs for the ingot.

 

The ingots scale out to 3 tons, the small moulds to 6.5 tons and the large ones to 14 tons, all of which are very typical for their type.

 

I'll post up some notes on the rolling mill rolls over the next few days.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Arthur

[The Stationmaster]

Excellent information Arthur - takes me back to my days in South Wales although by the early 1970s a lot of ingot mould traffic had been lost to road because BR simply couldn't compete on price.  Incidentally at Port Talbot the batch etc details were painted onto ingots at a very early stage and well before any cooling using aluminium paint - I lodged in Port Talbot for a while at teh house of one of the blokes who did the job, all interesting times.

[Fat Controller]

What wagons were you thinking of for the ingot moulds, Arthur? Landore used mainly Warflats for the large ones, Flat WLL (ex-WD flats with six-wheel bogies) for the very large ones, and Plates, then Tipplers, for the small ones. The larger ones had to go out by rail, as the bridge over the Morriston Canal had a hump which caused low-loaders to ground.

[Mark Forrest]

I've got a couple of ex-Ore tipplers and possibly a Plate or two lined up. Might have to have a look for something else for the larger ones though.

[Arthur]

Thanks Mike, yes, no doubt the ingots being brought by road to Irlam would have arrived by rail ten years earlier. Many of the older works (and that was most of them up to the 1970s) had been laid out with a total reliance on rail transport both internally and externally and had rudimentary, if any, internal roadways.

There was a national rail strike in the 1950s (or was it 60s?). Prior to it, the management at Irlam (then Lancashire Steel) were concerned at continuity of supply of coal for the coke ovens. Iron ore wasn't an issue as most came through their own wharf on the Manchester Ship Canal. Jack Hanson, the Yorkshire haulier, promised them that, in the evnt if a strike, he could organise sufficient lorries to bring enough coal over from South Yorkshire. There were no bulk lorry unloading facilities so a simple ramp was built so that the coal could be tipped into internal rail wagons which could then be tippled into the coal service bunker receiving hopper. For the duration of the strike delivery kept up with demand and though rail deliveries resumed when the strike finished, it demonstrated that there was a viable alternative.

 

 

Brian, excellent information there. Building wagons isn't my department so to speak, but I'm sure that Mark and Andy will be very grateful to receive any information on appropriate wagons. I know that Mark has a fancy for those converted iron ore tipplers for ingot mould traffic. Do you still have that link, or know how to find it, which Brian R. provided with photographs of a train taking expired moulds back to Ifor works? I've searched here for it and via Google without success.

[Fat Controller]

<p>The ASLEF strike, which probably caused more traffic to switch from rail to road than anything Dr Beeching did, was in 1955.</p>

<p>'Wild Boar Fell' does some of the six-axle Flats in 3D printed plastic; another possibility for larger moulds would be the larger version of the Lowmac, as done by Hornby-Dublo, and later Airfix/Hornby. David Larkin published a photo of a Lowmac at Scunthorpe which, although empty, had the arrangement of timber baulks typical of such traffic.</p>

<p>I shall apply the little grey cells to the broken moulds video..</p>

<p>Just found this link:_</p>

<p><a href="http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/radyrtocaeharris.htm">http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/radyrtocaeharris.htm</a></p>

<p> </p>

Edited September 21, 2013 by Fat Controller

[Arthur]

You're right Brian, I checked, and it was the 1955 strike. The works was consuming 6,000 tons of coking coal a week, bringing that from South Yorkshire to Irlam, over the Pennines via Snake or Woodhead, was no mean feat with the lorries of the day.

 

That's the link, thanks for that. I'd found the site but couldn't find that page! Anyway, it gives an idea of old moulds loaded on wagons.

[hmrspaul]

There was a traffic in ingot moulds, In later years BR used iron ore tipplers for them - specially lettered and with a floor of ballast. There are a number dotted around in here http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brironoretipplerunfit some appearing unaltered http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brironoretipplerunfit/e3c4f3792 (Brierley Hill) http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brironoretipplerunfit/e1b58be77 , others with the end cut down http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brironoretipplerunfit/e699aa1d and others with large holes cut in the side http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brironoretipplerunfit/e14894b4b This was during the 1980s, it was suggested that an accident (like the one described earlier which destroyed a road trailer) had happened when someone was inside the wagon, and there was no way of escaping the falling ingot! So the holes were for jumping out of - I don't know if this is the true reason for this modification.

 

Ingot moulds on Plates at Brierley Hill http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brplate/e2b29c8a4

 

 

Large ingot moulds could be carried on LMS/BR ARMS (diag 3/001) and other similar specials.

 

Within the  works there were quite a lot of different wagons used to carry the ingots, these were specially constructed http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/stocksbridgewagons/e1fb06533  http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/stocksbridgewagons/e1cf6808e http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/stocksbridgewagons/e393b3dcf  http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/scunthorpebsccorus/e6fbe78a0 http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/scunthorpebsccorus/e662c1007

 

For smaller pencil moulds and ingots http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/stocksbridgewagons/e26161835  http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/stocksbridgewagons/e2b1ce512

 

And for ingot moulds http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/stocksbridgewagons/e3057668f

 

And a nice ingot mould pusher http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/stocksbridgewagons/e3a7f580e  and ingot moulds http://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/stocksbridgewagons/e266ad459

 

 

Paul

Edited September 21, 2013 by hmrspaul

[Enterprisingwestern]

I assume ingot moulds wouldn't need lashing/chaining down?

 

Mike.

[The Stationmaster]

I assume ingot moulds wouldn't need lashing/chaining down?

 

Mike.

I doubt it and those loaded in converted tipplers definitely weren't judging by the ones I saw.  But on some wagons they might well have been chocked/had packing timber.

[Fat Controller]

I doubt it and those loaded in converted tipplers definitely weren't judging by the ones I saw.  But on some wagons they might well have been chocked/had packing timber.

I think the large ones on the Warflats and Flatrol WLLs were chained; they certainly had some seriously chunky bits of packing. There's a photo of one of the latter on page 54 of 'Pre-Nationalisation Wagons on British Railways', one of the 1970s series of Bradford-Barton albums by David Larkin. Larkin mistakenly captions it as having been used for coil traffic; I can say categorically that this was one of Landore's pool. There are chains visible on the deck (the wagon is not loaded), which would suggest both chaining and chocking.

I'm not convinced by the idea that the holes in the tippler sides were an escape route; if the slings did give during loading, you wouldn't head towards the centre of the wagon to get out; to be honest, you probably wouldn't be heading anywhere but the mortuary. I'd probably have heard of any accident, as Dad was on the Joint Works Committee for Landore and Dowlais until he retired (which was after the slots were cut). I do remember one nasty accident with the tipplers; they were at the head of a propelling move on a curved road into a loading bay, and the office cleaner got between the wagon and the timber beam which acted as a buffer stop. Had it been one of the flats, she'd have been visible to the driver.

Llanelly Foundry used to make moulds for both Duport and Briton Ferry. These were quite small ones, as both works specialised in Engineer's Bar, and were loaded four to a Plate wagon. There was an accident in the early 1970s, when the crane driver loaded a mould across two wagons- nobody noticed, and the thing fell off somewhere on the Swansea District line. In the subsequent HMRI Report, it was recommended that the wagon corners be marked to make them more visible to crane drivers in dusty loading bays. The practice was also to be seen on other steel carrying types.

[Andy Y]

Having found the elusive invisible thread (EZ line) I've been able to do the post and wire fence for the industrial line on the viaduct board now. As Old Gringo had found a very attractive 1963 shot of the real viaduct in the June 2003 Steam Days we realised there had been some growth and fencing beneath the viaduct so I thought I'd quickly replicated this with 1.5mm square plastic strip and the EZ line. Painting the wire with Modelmates Rust Effect increases its visibility a little and gives in the lived-in look.

 

 

No-one else would ever know but I couldn't neglect to do that little run of fence.

[gwrrob]

Having found the elusive invisible thread (EZ line) I've been able to do the post and wire fence for the industrial line on the viaduct board now. As Old Gringo had found a very attractive 1963 shot of the real viaduct in the June 2003 Steam Days we realised there had been some growth and fencing beneath the viaduct so I thought I'd quickly replicated this with 1.5mm square plastic strip and the EZ line. Painting the wire with Modelmates Rust Effect increases its visibility a little and gives in the lived-in look.

 

Wire_fence_S.jpg

 

No-one else would ever know but I couldn't neglect to do that little run of fence.

 

Excellent.I really like this product but I found it didn't take paint very easily using enamel.You seem to have no such problems using Modelmates though.

[coachmann]

That picture is bloody amazing for its reality. Stonework, brickwork, grass, fencing, Roses keeping the bridge walls together and the bush...That is modelling of the highest order in my book.

Edited September 22, 2013 by coachmann

[stewartingram]

That picture is bloody amazing for its reality. Stonework, brickwork, grass, fencing, Roses keeping the bridge walls together and the bush...That is modelling of the highest order in my book.

 

Missed the butterfly fluttering past though......

 

Stewart