12-11-2017, 07:42 PM
Thanks, Mike, for your kind comment.
The third photo is of the stoves for pre-heating the blast air - like most blast furnaces, this one has three stoves, and they're in close proximity to the furnace. The fourth photo shows part of the stockhouse, from where the raw materials are drawn as needed. There are, if I recall correctly, two sets of tracks under the stockhouse (and two on top if it), the latter two using locomotives and hopper cars to keep the stockhouse supplied. The tracks beneath the stockhouse utilise "larries" (either electrically-powered or cable-driven bottom-dump cars) to carry material to the two-track skip bridge, which then delivers the raw material to the top of the furnace, where it's dumped-in.
A large operation like this can't of course, keep all of the raw materials here, and there are large piles of iron ore/pellets, coal, and limestone at the docks where the lake boats bring in that material. There has to be enough on the property before shipping on the Great Lakes ends for the winter, although nowadays, that date gets later every year, and the Seaway re-opens earlier, too.
Wayne
The third photo is of the stoves for pre-heating the blast air - like most blast furnaces, this one has three stoves, and they're in close proximity to the furnace. The fourth photo shows part of the stockhouse, from where the raw materials are drawn as needed. There are, if I recall correctly, two sets of tracks under the stockhouse (and two on top if it), the latter two using locomotives and hopper cars to keep the stockhouse supplied. The tracks beneath the stockhouse utilise "larries" (either electrically-powered or cable-driven bottom-dump cars) to carry material to the two-track skip bridge, which then delivers the raw material to the top of the furnace, where it's dumped-in.
A large operation like this can't of course, keep all of the raw materials here, and there are large piles of iron ore/pellets, coal, and limestone at the docks where the lake boats bring in that material. There has to be enough on the property before shipping on the Great Lakes ends for the winter, although nowadays, that date gets later every year, and the Seaway re-opens earlier, too.
Wayne