pa1778data.pdf
pa1778data.pdf
pa1778data.pdf
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U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS<br />
HAER No. PA-115<br />
(Page 125)<br />
latter problem. Originally 226'-0" wide x l,085 f -0" long x 26'-<br />
0" deep, and laid out in front of the plant's four original blast<br />
furnaces, the ore yard was capable of storing 600,000 tons of<br />
ore. Consequently, enough ore from the Lake Superior region<br />
could be stored in the yard during the warm weather months to<br />
allow for its use year round. The former problem, that of high<br />
labor costs, was solved by the use of electrified ore stocking<br />
bridges, operated by one man, in conjunction with a system of<br />
stockhouse bins which were hung from a trestle that lay between<br />
the ore yard and the blast furnaces. When ore was being handled,<br />
railroad hopper cars were moved, via a car puller, onto the<br />
outside tracks of the trestle. The bins into which the ore was<br />
dropped were equipped with two counterbalanced chutes capable of<br />
delivering it into either the stockhouse bins themselves or into<br />
a bucket which was placed in the ore yard directly below the<br />
chute. In the latter case, the bucket was picked up by one of<br />
three Brown Hoisting & Conveying Machine Company ore bridges and<br />
delivered to one of several storage piles contained within the<br />
ore yard. When it was required to move ore from one of the<br />
various storage piles to the stockhouse ore bins, a 5-ton bucket<br />
scoop was attached to the hoisting machinery on the ore bridge<br />
trolley in order to deliver the ore from the pile to a railroad<br />
hopper car which was then positioned over the designated<br />
stockhouse ore bin where the hopper car dumped its contents.<br />
Coke and limestone was dropped directly into its assigned<br />
stockhouse bin by a railroad hopper car which was moved onto the<br />
trestle, there being no attempt to carry a stock of these<br />
materials. 1<br />
With the exception of increasing the length of the ore yard<br />
and the trestle in order to accommodate two additional blast<br />
furnaces built in 1901, the operation of the raw materials<br />
handling and storage system remained the same until the period<br />
between 1918 and 1928. In that period the system was<br />
reconstructed in a effort to keep pace with technological<br />
advances within the industry. The coke track system on the<br />
trestle, for example, was realigned to accommodate the movement<br />
of the coke bins from the eastern wall of the stockhouse to new<br />
locations which straddled newly constructed hoist bucket pits for<br />
each blast furnace. A car dumper was installed along with its<br />
electrically powered 110-ton ore transfer rail cars. The car<br />
dumper was designed to overturn one railroad hopper car full of<br />
iron ore at a time, thereby dumping its contents into the hoppers<br />
of an ore transfer car which was set below it. The transfer car,<br />
designed and built by the Atlas Car Manufacturing Company of<br />
Cleveland, Ohio, was then run onto the trestle to an assigned ore<br />
bin before its bottom dropped the ore into one of the<br />
counterbalanced chutes leading directly to the bin itself or to<br />
the ore yard proper. The installation of the dumper system