Black Country Blues

[avonside1563]

puddles! Now there's something to include along the towpath......

[Mark Forrest]

For Steel? I saw a picture on the reference thread of them going through Kingswinford...(I think) so I thought of changing my answer lol...

Yes, hopefully something like this

 

Work is progressing on the wagon fleet - suspension fitted to a couple of MDVs over the weekend and also made a start on improving the roof details on Foundry Lane stalwart 24042; photos to follow........

[28XX]

I think you can have a Western on the clay. The service was often 'lying by' in Worcester while I was waiting for my train to Brum around 07:25 am in 1976.

[wagonbasher]

OK ...

 

Big ask from steel minded and the Black county boys....

 

Scenario:

 

The 'industry' is off the layout, accessed by the industrial line.

 

We imagine a steel rolling mill. Avonside 1563 is modelling some 'Cambrian' AAB's and along with some ABB's we imagine they will be bringing ingots / billits / blooms call them what you want but slabs of steel that get heated and rolled into steel products.

 

Now as for outbound goods we know that even in the 70's rolling mills produced:

Plate (On the change to a rolled plate industry)

Angle

Girders

Rail

Rod

Strip

 

The question is how many different loads can we sensible dispatch on bolsters.

 

Did mills specialise or produce a wide mix of finished product:???

 

What could our mill produce????

[Arthur]

Here's some food for thought,

 

 

As a re rolling mill your works would produce a limited range. Even the largest integrated iron and steel making works tended to concentrate on a range of products, (e.g. Stewarts & Lloyds Corby made tube, Dorman Long; plate and heavy section, Workington; rails, Lancashire Steel; rod, bar and wire) and these were the works with the widest range of, and heaviest of, equipment. Re-rollers were smaller works, equipped more lightly and they made a living by either rolling smaller volumes or more specialised sections than the big works.

 

Inbound would possibly be blooms (sections up to 8" x 8" and around 30' long) but more likely billets (up to 4" x 4", rolled long but cut back to whatever was required). Ingots, around 18" x 18", would not feature. They required soaking pits and cogging mills, very heavy and expensive plant. which only the integrated works could justify. Similarly, slabs, that is heavy rectangular sections, are probably out, heavy plate mills were again the preserve of the biggest works as was wide, hot rolled, strip. The heaviest of sections were also made at the big works, Dorman Long and Cargo Fleet had universal beam mills making the really big H sections.

 

So your re-rollers would have been making a medium or light product. They'd have horizontal re-heating furnaces for handling blooms and or billets, and medium and small mills to roll them to finished product. The furnaces would probably be gas fired, bought in from the grid, although heavy oil could have been used, another in bound traffic.

Products could be rods and bars, any light to medium section (e.g. angles, joists, channels, bulb sections (not that in 4mm they'd look any different to plain section but it was a specialised product)), or wire. I'd forget rail, by the 1970's the BSC were concentrating this at Workington.

 

Tube was rolled in the Black Country, so that's an option, but a small tube mill would not also roll sections. Seamless tube is made from solid round section, probably bought in (Round Oak specialised in solid rounds), welded tube is made from skelp, narrow, flat strip. Your works could roll that from billets or buy it in.

Forget trestle wagons, few works could roll plate wide enough to to need them. The Black Country's only plate roller was Patent Shaft, big enough to make steel but their plate mill rolled a maximum width of 2250mm, well within the loading gauge when laid flat.

 

Is your works independent or part of the British Steel Corporation?

 

Hope that's of some help.

[br2975]

As an addition to Arthur's informative post above, here is an example of the products currently rolled by Celsa (UK) at their Tremorfa 'section mill' in Cardiff.

.

http://www.celsauk.com/Products.mvc/Introduction

.

Brian R

Edited July 17, 2012 by br2975

[wagonbasher]

That is a great response Arthur , many thanks.

 

Our pool of stock is growing in a number of directions but partly that is down to the need for through trains as well as specific steel stock.

 

Being fictitios we can get away with a few things but we are looking for something that is feasable, plausable and do-able.

 

Our stock at the moment is the BBA and BAA's for inbound and then bogie bolsters, and 4 wheel plates..

 

I quite like the idea that the loads are light in section and understand your point that the biggest intergrated mills would have been producing the biggest sections.

 

Does anyone have any pictures of rod, bar, angles loaded on wagons from the 70's period

 

Arthur, No idea if we would be BSC or not - what would the diffence be ?

 

Andy

[Siberian Snooper]

You could possibly use a trestle wagon to deliver steel plate & sheet for fabricators. Having just googled it there are still a large number of these in the area, although these days it is probaby all delivered by road.

 

SS

[iL Dottore]

I know that this is TOTALLY insane of me, but would you need any buildings for the layout?

 

I'd be happy to build something and (proving that I am utterly and completely mental) I'll even have a go at a factory or summat large (as they say oop north),

 

As long as I have some drawings/measurements (and the occasional top up of impossible-to-get-in-Switzerland materials/supplies), I'm game.

 

Do let me know (pm or on here) if I can help.

 

F

 

p.s. providing that it is not too architectually demanding (e.g. loads of gargoyles, pediments, balusters, flying butresses or unusually shaped/dimensioned windows and doors) a big factory may well be a lot simpler to build than some of my recent projects

[Mark Forrest]

I've seen photos of Plates loaded with what appears to be the 4"x4" billets described above, so that opens an opportunity to use these for inbound materials, with longer bogie bolster C or D handling the outbound. I'm aware of these being loaded with quite lightweight loads which required the length of this type of vehicle but came nowhere near they carrying capacity.

 

It may be that the air braked stock would be more suited to longer distance traffic flows; maybe passing by on the mainline?

[Fat Controller]

I've seen photos of Plates loaded with what appears to be the 4"x4" billets described above, so that opens an opportunity to use these for inbound materials, with longer bogie bolster C or D handling the outbound. I'm aware of these being loaded with quite lightweight loads which required the length of this type of vehicle but came nowhere near they carrying capacity.

 

It may be that the air braked stock would be more suited to longer distance traffic flows; maybe passing by on the mainline?

Don't forget BEVs for 4" bar- there used to be a train-load flow from Duport, Llanelli to Great Bridge, a lot being used to produce bed-springs for Slumberland (who were part of the same group as Duport towards the end) and other similar products. The bar length was 30', so the BEVs were ideal- as well as being the longest wagons that could get around the curves at Duport.

[Mark Forrest]

Don't forget BEVs for 4" bar- there used to be a train-load flow from Duport, Llanelli to Great Bridge, a lot being used to produce bed-springs for Slumberland (who were part of the same group as Duport towards the end) and other similar products. The bar length was 30', so the BEVs were ideal- as well as being the longest wagons that could get around the curves at Duport.

Careful now; you'll encourage me to buy a few more Turbot kits.........

[mikeh]

Just going back to Beast's excellent signalling plan for a minute, I would tend towards replacing the signal off the works line with a stop board. Although by no means a signalling expert I have spent an inordinate amount of my busy life recently studying yards and private sidings in the Black Country, particularly on the LNWR and that would be just a bit more representitive I would feel. Particularly if the exchange sidings were busy enough to warrant a resident BR shunter then a "stop and await permission" would be perfectly adequate, the shunter being the person to authorise the move into the exchange sidings and confirm there was no conflict with BR movements.That would also need a nicely modelable shunters cabin!

 

On the rolling mills theme, by the 70s the principal rail connected site was at Wolverhampton (once the Wolverhampton Iron & Steel Co and later BSC) where they produced various steel bar and section. The rail traffic used the quaintly named "Osier Bed Sidings" on the Midland line from Heath Town Jn to High Level, with steel tripped from Bilston and further afield. That closed in 2009 but rail traffic petered out in the 80s. In the 70s the Spring Vale Jocko worked trips to Osier Bed sidings as required.

 

More info here - http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/OtherTrades/BCN/OsierBed.htm

 

Hope that's of use - I am really looking forward to seeing this!

 

Regards

Mike

[beast66606]

Just going back to Beast's excellent signalling plan for a minute, I would tend towards replacing the signal off the works line with a stop board. Although by no means a signalling expert I have spent an inordinate amount of my busy life recently studying yards and private sidings in the Black Country, particularly on the LNWR and that would be just a bit more representitive I would feel. Particularly if the exchange sidings were busy enough to warrant a resident BR shunter then a "stop and await permission" would be perfectly adequate, the shunter being the person to authorise the move into the exchange sidings and confirm there was no conflict with BR movements.That would also need a nicely modelable shunters cabin!

 

A valid alternative, as mentioned above I only provided the signal because Littletons had that arrangement, here's the revised plan if the "Stop" board is used

[Geoff Cook]

A valid alternative, as mentioned above I only provided the signal because Littletons had that arrangement, here's the revised plan if the "Stop" board is used

 

I have been wondering about that signal for a while, because the signal plan shows that we have two seperate left hand turnouts at the bottom of the works line, and the signal was shown to be, between the two.

 

There are two left hand turnouts, but they are built to form a tandem turnout, so were does the signal go, or on the revised plan were does the stop board go

[beast66606]

I have been wondering about that signal for a while, because the signal plan shows that we have two seperate left hand turnouts at the bottom of the works line, and the signal was shown to be, between the two.

 

There are two left hand turnouts, but they are built to form a tandem turnout, so were does the signal go, or on the revised plan were does the stop board go

 

The signal / stop board is a general message to drivers to stop and await instructions, where hand points are provided it could still be in the middle of them !, the "stop" is to prevent shunts meeting, put it at the toe of the points, that's the most logical.

[Fat Controller]

Careful now; you'll encourage me to buy a few more Turbot kits.........

You never know- if enough of us ask, Dapol might do one on their Turbot chassis..

[hmrspaul]

 

 

Does anyone have any pictures of rod, bar, angles loaded on wagons from the 70's period

 

Andy

 

There are 1970s loaded bolsters amongst these collections http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brbolsters

 

Paul Bartlett

[Mark Forrest]

Mike/Beast - thanks for the stop board suggestion and the revised signalling plan - much appreciated.

 

On the rolling mills theme, by the 70s the principal rail connected site was at Wolverhampton (once the Wolverhampton Iron & Steel Co and later BSC) where they produced various steel bar and section. The rail traffic used the quaintly named "Osier Bed Sidings" on the Midland line from Heath Town Jn to High Level, with steel tripped from Bilston and further afield. That closed in 2009 but rail traffic petered out in the 80s. In the 70s the Spring Vale Jocko worked trips to Osier Bed sidings as required.

 

More info here - http://www.localhist...CN/OsierBed.htm

 

I must have been past Osier Beds 100s of times, but never really considered what it was or what they made. I looks (to me at least) like exactly the sort of operation we need for the layout. The entire Industries Along the BCN section of that website is really interesting and highly inspirational - thanks.

[Mark Forrest]

Is the load on these twin bolsters and this bogie bolster C billet?

[br2975]

Mark

 

Billet traffic to/from the Brymbo works at Wrexham was a staple of the 'twin bolster' conversions.

.

But they did appear elsewhere, as in my attached shot taken during my 'Sixth Form work experience' using the trusty 'Instamatic' on 12th. April, 1973 showing billets being shunted into the GKN 'Castle Works' Cardiff by one of their ex-PLA Yorkshire Engine Co. 0-6-0DE's.

.

As mentioned above billets are generally 4" to 5" square, and vary in length.

.

The billets in this 1973 were for re-heating and re-rolling, probably into a wire form, and then treating in some pretty nasty solutions contained in vats in the building away to my left.

.

Watching the mill in action was a sight to see - and when they had a cobble, the activity to keep the mill running was amazing.

.

Brian R

 

PS

I've added a more recent shot of billets outward bound from Cardiff, for re-rolling into rails at Scunthorpe.

Edited July 19, 2012 by br2975

[Fat Controller]

The twin-bolsters were also used on the Duport traffic from Great Bridge until superseded by Bolster Es in the early 1970s.

[Mark Forrest]

Brian & Brian, thanks very much for the info that's great.

 

Modelling the billet loads should be quite straightforward using 1.5mmx1.5mm strip styrene - may even be possible to use this as a master and cast some in resin.

 

Over in the main project topic mikeh posted the follow which I think is worth repeating here as in fits nicely with our discussions about rolling mills.......

On the rolling mills theme, by the 70s the principal rail connected site was at Wolverhampton (once the Wolverhampton Iron & Steel Co and later BSC) where they produced various steel bar and section. The rail traffic used the quaintly named "Osier Bed Sidings" on the Midland line from Heath Town Jn to High Level, with steel tripped from Bilston and further afield. That closed in 2009 but rail traffic petered out in the 80s. In the 70s the Spring Vale Jocko worked trips to Osier Bed sidings as required.

 

More info here - http://www.localhist...CN/OsierBed.htm

 

Something like this would be perfect I think. If we follow a similar history for our fictitious works it would be in BSC ownership in the '70s - other than liveries of internal user locos and rolling stock, does that have any other impact on the way the place would be worked and traffic we should operate to and from it?

 

Cheers

[The Stationmaster]

 

But they did appear elsewhere, as in my attached shot taken during my 'Sixth Form work experience' using the trusty 'Instamatic' on 12th. April, 1973 showing billets being shunted into the GKN 'Castle Works' Cardiff by one of their ex-PLA Yorkshire Engine Co. 0-6-0DE's.

.

As mentioned above billets are generally 4" to 5" square, and vary in length.

.

The billets in this 1973 were for re-heating and re-rolling, probably into a wire form, and then treating in some pretty nasty solutions contained in vats in the building away to my left.

Brian R

 

In the early '70s Castle Works were producing rod (much of which came out in rolls looking like heavy gauge wire) and wire with a lot of the latter going into nail production. I'm not sure if much wire came out by rail and I don't think any nails were sent out by rail by then (they would have been in vans if such traffic was still passing). The difference between rod and wire is a technical one depending on the manufacturing process - rod is rolled and wire is drawn - but the end product can look very similar.

[Captain Kernow]

Every Black Country layout featuring a canal scene in the 1970s deserves a Mark 1 Cortina, quite possibly sunk in the cut for an unsuspecting pleasure craft to ground on - so here's a gift from The Noble Realm for the layout. The vehicle is seen first at Engine Wood station in Somerset, prior to starting out it's convoluted journey to the West Midlands....

 

The car will eventually arrive at the Tooth residence, for subsequent deployment as the layout team see fit!

Edited July 19, 2012 by Captain Kernow