A couple years ago I posted some photos on the OGR on-line forum of my J&L Steel Southside Works in Pittsburgh around 1960. The platform is 8 by 8 and all structures except the construction crane ( a Menards' model), are scratch built. Since that posting I have completed a few more structures. My goal throughout was attempting to show hot molten iron, steel and slag that are inherent in the production of steel by lighting various types of plastic ( the molten metal from the blast furnace being poured into bottle cars or molten slag being poured over a cliff) or lighting foam sheets painted orange to show glowing steel ingots after they have come out of molds and ingots within the rolling mill. Other photos are of the electric arc furnace, both under load (the white light coming out of the furnace around the lid), and at rest. As I am depicting a steel mill operation, there are 6 cranes of various types to move scrap metal, molten metal, and products that go into the making of iron and steel and the one photo shows 3 of them ( ore bridge, construction crane, electric arc furnace overhead crane). The Benjamin Miller Steel Company is the only structure on the platform that was not part of the J&L Southside Works, but it has an important role. Benjamin Miller Steel was located in Danville, PA ( Danville is where I worked for 38 years) and Danville was where the first iron T rail was fabricated and thus of great importance to railroading. Finally, the one structure that has nothing to do with the steel industry is the last one, of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, located about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. I have visited it several times and I modeled it just to see if I could, and in doing so, came away with an even greater appreciation of what Wright accomplished.
Photos are by my son Steven and friend and college roommate, Don Geyer. Hope you enjoy.
Doug Chiado
