Working rail roads and their tracks.

[MossRoad]

Since we're talking about rails....

The Steel Dynamics plant over west of Ft. Wayne produces structural steel, and they have a rail mill that produces 320' long rails, that they can weld up to 5 together and ship in 1600' lengths. That's 1 piece of rail, 1600' long.

Steel Dynamics, Inc. - Structural And Rail Division

 

[5030]

Since we're talking about rails....

The Steel Dynamics plant over west of Ft. Wayne produces structural steel, and they have a rail mill that produces 320' long rails, that they can weld up to 5 together and ship in 1600' lengths. That's 1 piece of rail, 1600' long.

Steel Dynamics, Inc. - Structural And Rail Division

Ah yes now you are into something I'm very, very familiar with.........

The real underlying reason SDI and other producers located in Indiana is... You are a RTW state so they don't have union issues. I retired from one of the subs btw. None of the SDI plants are union. Furthermore, most of the raw steel that SDI uses in their various operations comes from the mill in Butler, Indiana and it's a typical remelt (from scrap) mini mill with 3 electric arc furnaces.. Why Omni Source is a wholly owned subsidiary of SDI. It's part of their raw materials, IOW, scrap stream.

if it weren't for the generous tax breaks and the RTW status of Indiana, they wouldn't be there. One of the guys I hunt with is the General Manager of the Butler facility. Want to go on a tour sometime, let me know. I can arrange it. They have an excellent employee cafeteria, I've had lunch there many times.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Good to see this thread back on track.

 

[5030]

Play on words there....???

 

[the old grind]

Good idea to check the signal when approaching a siding.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

The barn and house in the background are still there.

 

[cqaigy2]

View attachment 677792
The barn and house in the background are still there.

That's pretty cool. Those barns are expensive to keep up if they aren't making you any money.

I was born in Marlette Michigan, and we lived on a place that had an old barn on it. Short rock wall first story, huge hay storage on top, all beams were obviously from trees, all attached with wood dowels. Pretty cool barn and have great memories. Unfortunately, after we moved away, the people that lived there couldn't afford to maintain it, and it fell down, then was burned.

 

[MossRoad]

Ah yes now you are into something I'm very, very familiar with.........

The real underlying reason SDI and other producers located in Indiana is... You are a RTW state so they don't have union issues. I retired from one of the subs btw. None of the SDI plants are union. Furthermore, most of the raw steel that SDI uses in their various operations comes from the mill in Butler, Indiana and it's a typical remelt (from scrap) mini mill with 3 electric arc furnaces.. Why Omni Source is a wholly owned subsidiary of SDI. It's part of their raw materials, IOW, scrap stream.

if it weren't for the generous tax breaks and the RTW status of Indiana, they wouldn't be there. One of the guys I hunt with is the General Manager of the Butler facility. Want to go on a tour sometime, let me know. I can arrange it. They have an excellent employee cafeteria, I've had lunch there many times.

No argument there. Probably a topic for another forum, though.

 

[BackRoad]

Impressive...wonder how they ship 1600 foot rail sections? That is not quite 1/3 of a mile of rail.

If a long freight car is 67.5 feet...a 1600 foot section of rail extends over 23 rail cars in length!

How do they manage curves in the railway?

I don't think they stand them upright and use over-the-road trucks!!!

 

[RobS]

Impressive...wonder how they ship 1600 foot rail sections? That is not quite 1/3 of a mile of rail.

If a long freight car is 67.5 feet...a 1600 foot section of rail extends over 23 rail cars in length!

How do they manage curves in the railway?

I don't think they stand them upright and use over-the-road trucks!!!

Just as you calculated, somewhere around 23 rail cars (and quite literally, RAIL cars in this case). They have a special siding just for rail loading. The rail is flexible enough to bend through curves in transit. Much like the rail bends to make those curves!

I have been through the SDI plant, we by our steel from them. It's absolutely incredible! And their raw material is almost entirely recycled steel. Electricity is their biggest expense. To melt one load in the electric arc furnace takes the same energy as powering the entire city of Fort Wayne for a day. They recently added a whole new rolling operation for rebar. So to say industrial investment is dead is dead wrong!