Eastern Railroad Discussion > Another CSX Question from my travels

Going thru Ashland Ky along US23 for a different landscape, with plenty of time to spare I must say, I went by the AK Steel Mill here.  This doesn't appear to be an Electric Arc type Furnace. It looks to me to be one of the older style BOF Furnace Types. Am I wrong in this?  There are large piles of what appear to be Taconite Pellets/Iron Ore as they are a red/brown color.  If this is inded an older style BOF, is it the only one of it's types still active? The only other one I can think MAY still be of older design is the one at Gary In. If indeed it is, what a pleasure it is to see one of these types still up and running. TIA.  Ben

Yes, AK Steel in Ashland still uses taconite pellets as its blast-furnace ore. The pellets are transloaded from lake freighter to train at Toledo and travel south to Ashland on CSX train K179.

AK Steel also has a traditional blast furnace in Middletown, Ohio. Others that I know of include US Steel in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Birmingham, Ala., and Gary, Ind., and ArcelorMittal in Cleveland, Detroit, and Gary. I'm not sure about the status of the former Bethlehem Steel works in Baltimore, or who owns other mills in Burns Harbor and East Chicago that I believe still make new steel the old-fashioned way rather than melting scrap or iron-concentrate nuggets.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/15 15:40 by toledopatch.

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes, AK Steel in Ashland still uses taconite
> pellets as its blast-furnace ore. The pellets are
> transloaded from lake freighter to train at Toledo
> and travel south to Ashland on CSX train K179.
>
> AK Steel also has a traditional blast furnace in
> Middletown, Ohio. Others that I know of include US
> Steel in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Birmingham, Ala.,
> and Gary, Ind., and ArcelorMittal in Cleveland,
> Detroit, and Gary. I'm not sure about the status
> of the former Bethlehem Steel works in Baltimore,
> or who owns other mills in Burns Harbor and East
> Chicago that I believe still make new steel the
> old-fashioned way rather than melting scrap or
> iron-concentrate nuggets.
>  

Beth Steel at Spaarows Pt went thru several owners but finally closed a few years ago.

Posted from iPhone

The blast furnace and BOF at Sparrows Point are gone.

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> AK Steel also has a traditional blast furnace in
> Middletown, Ohio. Others that I know of include US
> Steel in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Birmingham, Ala.,
> and Gary, Ind., and ArcelorMittal in Cleveland,
> Detroit, and Gary. I'm not sure about the status
> of the former Bethlehem Steel works in Baltimore,
> or who owns other mills in Burns Harbor and East
> Chicago that I believe still make new steel the
> old-fashioned way rather than melting scrap or
> iron-concentrate nuggets.

The Arcelor Mittal mills are in East Chicago, not Gary.  They are the former Inland Steel and LTV plants.  The Burns Harbor plant was formerly Bethlehem Steel but now is also an Arcelor Mittal mill.  And yes, they all still make molten iron in blast furnaces.  

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
Others that I know of include US
> Steel in Pittsburgh, Detroit, Birmingham, Ala.,
> and Gary, Ind., and ArcelorMittal in Cleveland,
> Detroit, and Gary.

Good summation TP. For anyone interested, AK also now owns the former Severstal mill in Dearborn, MI, which is of course the ex-Ford Rouge steel mill. USS Birmingham BF being closed in September for a new EAF, and USS also has 2 BF's at their Granite City, IL,  mill. Blast-furnace ironmaking/BOF steelmaking still exists primarly to produce hot- and cold-rolled sheet for domestic automotive and appliance applications, which mini-mills cannot produce from scrap. Total BFs still in existence: maybe 22-25, most of which are active in a good economy.

JG