COLUMBIA RIVER STEEL CORP. is the seventh HO scale layout I've built and the second with heavy industry as the major player. This incarnation's focus is nearly total in regards to big industry. Steel and nickel dominate, providing the "mountains & valleys."

• STEEL
• NICKEL
• TRACK PLAN
• TONNAGE THROUGH THE WORKS
• LOCOMOTIVE ROSTER
• NORTHSTAR 99 CONVENTION

The scenario behind layout and operations is to have a natural resource company, based in Washington State, which owns steel works in Washington and Minnesota along with three railroads: Columbia Northern in Washington, Yukon Railroad in the Yukon Territory and British Columbia and the Milwaukee Road west of Miles City, Montana.

Columbia River Steel's plant in Minnesota has three blast furnaces, of which one is out of service. For conversion to steel, twin Q-BOP oxygen furnaces and two open-hearth furnaces are used. The molten steel is sent to two continuous slab casters, with two-thirds of the slabs being sent to another plant (off-layout) with the remainder being rolled in a Steckel mill, on the layout, to result in coiled plate.

BACK TO CONTENTS

For the nickel division, ore concentrate comes from northern Manitoba and Sudbury, Ontario via the Canadian National. This concentrate comes into the plant at 15% nickel and leaves at around 90%. The concentrate is smelted and converted by having air and oxygen blown through the metal with sand and lime fluxes to remove impurities in a three-furnace line called the "Mitsubishi Process." The resulting liquid metal (matte) is slow-cooled in molds to further separate the nickel from the impurities. After cooling the matte is broken up and crushed before being sent to the concentrator which is very similar to a taconite plant. The pelletized product, after dead roasted in fluid bed roasters, emerges 90%+ pure and is shipped to steel industry users to make stainless steel and other specialty alloy metals.

BACK TO CONTENTS

The 1/87th scale mill workers are represented by the United Steelworkers of America. District 11's director has graciously assigned #61 to the union local office. The office is located in the town across the road from the works.

BACK TO CONTENTS

One thing about modeling heavy industry that cannot be denied is the volume of rail traffic. Below is the daily requirements to feed the furnaces.

BACK TO CONTENTS

Power to move the tonnage is supplied by an eclectic roster of locomotives that includes EMD, Alco, Fairbanks-Morse, GE, Baldwin and Mitsubishi. The largest is a Baldwin twin-engine center cab and the smallest is 5-ton diesel which operates in the basement of the open-hearth shop. CRSC management has decided to concentrate on EMD power, specifically NW-2's (Kato) and the newly acquired SW-1200 (Life-Like) still in Birmingham Southern livery. Blue Circle Lime operates a side-rod Mitsubishi 30-ton switcher purchased from CRSC.

The mainline is host to a variety of Milwaukee Road 1st and 2nd generation power along with the new SD-60M. Run-through power includes DMIR, LS&I, CNW, Wisconsin Central, Montana Rail Link, I&M Rail Link, Conrail and CSX. The Twin Cites & Western has its own connection to the mainline. The Milwaukee is very receptive to hosting excursion trains which are heavy on steam power and 1st generation diesels including an FM "Olympian Hiawatha" Erie-built.

CRSC Locomotive Roster

BACK TO CONTENTS

CRSC is in the March, 1999 issue of Model Railroader.

During the 1999 NMRA national convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, CRSC was on the layout tours schedule. About 400 people saw the layout, including a Frenchman from Paris whose main goal during the convention was to see CRSC.

BACK TO CONTENTS

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome.

Copyright of CRSC Last updated April 4, 2008

Q-BOP photo courtesy of Kawasaki Steel Corp.