I spent my railroading days on the URR and Inplant railroad at ATI Brackenridge. Heavy industry moving slab trains, bottle cars, slag cars, ingots, coke etc Awesome presentation.
My family lived in Scott Township, near Bridgeville, in the late '40s and early '50s. At that time, Pittsburgh was steel mills, steam locos and coal. One of my vivid memories was my dad taking us in the car at night to watch slag being dumped, which was simply fantastic and spectacular to a small kid. I'm not sure which mill it was, but it wasn't too very far from our house. There was a high embankment alongside the road. We'd park and watch for the locomotive creeping along. It would tip the slag cars near where we were parked, and we'd gape in awe as the liquid fire spilled down the side of the embankment. We never tired of that show. The only thing I've ever seen like it was the fire fall at Yosemite Park in the late '50s.
I used to visit my uncle in McKeesport in the 70s when I was a younger teenager. I thought that I was the only one impressed with steel mills like that!
While you got to experience Pittsburgh steel of the 1970's. That was when it was starting to come to an end. As a kid in the middle 1950's when my family lived in Bethel Park - Riding B&O trains from Pittsburgh to Baltimore and return - I got to watch the steel mill light shows that put any laser light shows from Las Vegas to shame. In some cases you could feel the heat from a mill through the windows of the train as you passed. Gone! and will never happen again.
@@djstrains I'm from the Ruhr area in Germany, and starting from the 1970s we too have also lost the heavy industrie that had shaped the region for over a century. During my childhood in the1980s I got to see the last days of coal and steel, by the mid and late 1990s it was all dead. (But we have gained clean air and non-poisonous rivers in the process, so it's not all bad.) I still have vivid memories of the additional rapid "sunrises" when the horizon and the sky lit up as the ast remaining steel mill tapped their blast furnaces. Sometimes hot iron would be shuttled between different plants in torpedo cars over regular state railway lines (the indurstries also used to have a vast network of private rail). Looking down into the "lava" and feeling the heat as they passed under the bridge you were standing on was very intense. One particular impression that I will probably never forget was while we were waiting for a train at Essen central station, one of the hot iron shuttles would run through on the middle "through" tracks between the two northern platforms. A chrome ocide green DB class E50 with a couple of giant 18-axle torpedo pan cars, separated by "spacer" cars (as not to overwhelm bridges). It was a cold, wet, grey autumn day, but we got hit by a wave of sizzling summer heat as the each torpedo car passed. Which is the reason why I now own a couple of torpedo cars although I will never have the space to run them, and I am looking for a green class 150...
I had to go look it up: A four axle SW-1200 minimum radius is just 100.' 13.8" in HO. Darned if you aren't right. Otherwise I was thinking you must be pushing cars from further out, or maybe even shoving with poling pockets (but how to get them back out then? Pull chain? With Jack Lalanne grabbing the chain in his teeth?) Or maybe a Whiting Trackmobile? Tight stuff for sure.
Great presentation, dj. I loved hearing about your job tasks, childhood memories of the area, modeling ideas .. everything about it was very enlightening. Thanks.
Good stuff Dj as usual. Also great shots that I will have to check out closer. I also have a Metal customer on my Railroad that has a shove move about 1 scale mile on a siding. A lot of us listen and learn.
Great video DJ. This video is inspiring me to rethink my future layout build in my hobby train room. Thanks again for answering my question in my email on wall color choice. Ed
DJ Nice to meet you at the meet, Nice presentation. Worked at Clairton from 72 to 82 so I got to see the switching in the plant and my Uncle was a Union RR Engineer for 37 years. So I go to listen to his story's about the Union RR. If you ever get to Orlando area please let me know. I sent you a email with my information. Tom Wilson P&WVRR and Union RR modeling.
It was a huge honor to finally meet you and thank you for the inspiration you provided me. I’ll definitely take you up on your offer when I get more vacation time
Phenomenal videography, content lading, and presentation. Like you I was inspired by Port Perry…me of a photo by Howard Fogg in my PLE book. Thanks for the zinc in box cars modeling tip. Not many box cars dropped around the mills for sure. Ironically, I start cutting/moving cars to a RIP for service just last week. Thanks for validating the procedure and supporting the coordination into my ops session. Started to think about your GalvTech local and the time it takes for the local runs. I finally started using the fast clock by granting track time for a given run. Look forward to all your up coming videos! Again outstanding… thanks for posting!
DJ great job as always, you could have made this video two hours long and I would still watch it from start to finish. I can never get enough of steel mill footage!
Thank you so much! Sincerely appreciate that. Got hit with some unexpected expenses and I will be doing a lot of traveling for upcoming videos! Have a great day
Nice presentation. I always enjoy hearing fellow engineers speaking in terms that the average person can understand. I always try to simplify what I am saying, but not so much that the person or persons that I am talking to find it either boring or lacking detail. Basically, explaining what we do requires a good balance of information, but also nothing too technical that it goes over peoples heads. Too many people have lots of misconceptions and misinformation on railroads and their operation. You do a nice job in clarifying what we do and making the average Joe understand railroading. Keep it up.
This was the NMRA Steel Mills Modelers Special Interest Group I think? In any case, great video, as with your recent Bethlehem overhead vid. I'm gonna have to look into that bunch. Any idea where freight cars built "at Bethlehem" were actually put together within the complex? Or was it even outside those bounds, further up or down the river? Thx for any replies.
Outstanding video! Your session was incredible! Excellent drone coverage! I love my Ridge wallet, fits nicely in front pocket for additional security. No issues with cards falling out, etc.
DJ: I haven't seen your layout in a while. It looks fantastic! What were you modeling at the very end, those cars with what looked like ladles filled with ash? Or is that the limestone/coke mix they dump into the furnaces? As usual, I enjoyed seeing what my cubbing territory looks like today. Dura-Bond looks about 5x the size I remember when It was near Demmler.
At the end, I think those three cars are filled with coffee!🙄 (just sayin', ya know?) 🚂Lawrence Oh, sorry. You mean the cars on the layout. Ashes from DJ's cigars. His wife thinks he quit, but he bottles up the smoke and uses it in the mill's chimneys! Brilliant!🤔
Great video DJ! As always! Love your drone stuff. I'm right by the W&A sub in Marietta, Ga when I go out to catch a train now I don't feel right if I'm not able to get my drone up before I see the light. I'm building an N scale prototype basement layout as well from Mp. 5 to about 48. I railfan/fly day and night catching trains down here around Atlanta.
DJ not being there in person.Your presentation was really good.My question why not have the pics you are showing us,on the big screen behind you? Or i am guessing your folks listening to you,already know of these places you are talking about.Again great presentation,and Happy MR.🚂☮
I want to ask too about your own forays into N scale. So far, I've had the impression you did your modeling in HO, although I do know you gave footage time to N-scale at the recent Amherst gathering--you had that video up a while back. So are there N-scale vids I should look for here? Thx for any replies.
I’m strictly n scale. Always have been. But I travel to Ho scale layouts to make videos. My channel has PLAYLISTS and a few are on layout tours, including my various n scale layouts over 12 years worth. Also layout building and scenery, and scratch building
Ok. As I said elsewhere, what threw me was a tagline on your avatar over there--or so I remembered anyway--"Professor of HO." I was sure I saw it, but I don't see it now. Of course it's always possible to be a Professor of HO and still model mostly or only in N scale too, right? They aren't exclusive to one another, after all.
Indeed it was not, and only because he popped up in the last few hours did I realize my mistake: He is "D&J Railroad" over there and still does seem to be a Professor of HO. Headslap! I missed it by that [.................................................................................] much. @@djstrains
@@mmi16 stopping tagging and guarding cargo go hand in hand as in trespassing!! and going by LA last year UP cops don;t give a flying!! and frankly some of what i've seen around a few yards in ohio it's a wonder someone hasn't hauled off an engine!!
Great show! Question…Today trains run without cabooses or rear end crews. When a train goes into a passing track to wait how does the engineer know when his rear end is clear of the mainline? Is this all calculated by the dispatcher?, is there a cab signal? Educate me please.
we have an EOT (end of train device). It attaches to last car. We also know the length of our train prior to departure (paperwork), and we have an odometer on engine. We hit the start odometer when we enter siding. when we exceed our known train length, we can stop. The EOT lets us know there is communication with the end of train, so we know train is intact.
use the real actual materials from the real trains. and glue them in if you don't have working industry of loading and unloading. the coal i pick up straight off the track beds and throw it in a walnut grinder to get the nice chips like actual coal screen out what size you don't need works for N up to O scale, G just take a hammer and bust it up a big., if you're lucky you can get bin fines from yard workers or miners. i get taconite straight from from duluth minnesota, coal from trains from the dakotas wood from my own yard since i have all those trees dropping branches every wind storm, scrap metal from the metal shops or my metal workings if i need shavings or grindings. makes you really appreciate those 1970's and 80's locomotives traction and power and grumble about the lack thereof starting in the 90's. the corn and grains i take from the dustings left in the bird feeder bags/buckets. a gravel pit is where i get my earthen fines for rock and actual powered dusts for the cements and coke, and fertilizers and track ballast is garden pumice. ertl die cast farm equips toys and even mutilated die cast planes from a vendor that keep changing name as i cut the wings off the fuselage and mount them to different flat cars
Actually did a sound check with my lapel mic into the house system. Not sure why when I came back in the room to do the presentation that it gave feedback but I felt I was able to project my voice that a mic wasn’t needed for every one in the back heard me clearly.
Now that was real! Yes, unlike all of us, you CAN do public speaking. You had your audience through every part! Great work!
Sincerely appreciate that
I spent my railroading days on the URR and Inplant railroad at ATI Brackenridge. Heavy industry moving slab trains, bottle cars, slag cars, ingots, coke etc Awesome presentation.
Thanks Scott
You moved the interesting looking freight cars
My family lived in Scott Township, near Bridgeville, in the late '40s and early '50s. At that time, Pittsburgh was steel mills, steam locos and coal. One of my vivid memories was my dad taking us in the car at night to watch slag being dumped, which was simply fantastic and spectacular to a small kid. I'm not sure which mill it was, but it wasn't too very far from our house. There was a high embankment alongside the road. We'd park and watch for the locomotive creeping along. It would tip the slag cars near where we were parked, and we'd gape in awe as the liquid fire spilled down the side of the embankment. We never tired of that show.
The only thing I've ever seen like it was the fire fall at Yosemite Park in the late '50s.
Great memories
I used to visit my uncle in McKeesport in the 70s when I was a younger teenager. I thought that I was the only one impressed with steel mills like that!
I was too. I grew up in Johnstown, PA, which was like a miniature Pittsburgh, complete with three rivers (two into one).
While you got to experience Pittsburgh steel of the 1970's. That was when it was starting to come to an end. As a kid in the middle 1950's when my family lived in Bethel Park - Riding B&O trains from Pittsburgh to Baltimore and return - I got to watch the steel mill light shows that put any laser light shows from Las Vegas to shame. In some cases you could feel the heat from a mill through the windows of the train as you passed. Gone! and will never happen again.
Great memories!
@@djstrains I'm from the Ruhr area in Germany, and starting from the 1970s we too have also lost the heavy industrie that had shaped the region for over a century. During my childhood in the1980s I got to see the last days of coal and steel, by the mid and late 1990s it was all dead. (But we have gained clean air and non-poisonous rivers in the process, so it's not all bad.)
I still have vivid memories of the additional rapid "sunrises" when the horizon and the sky lit up as the ast remaining steel mill tapped their blast furnaces.
Sometimes hot iron would be shuttled between different plants in torpedo cars over regular state railway lines (the indurstries also used to have a vast network of private rail). Looking down into the "lava" and feeling the heat as they passed under the bridge you were standing on was very intense.
One particular impression that I will probably never forget was while we were waiting for a train at Essen central station, one of the hot iron shuttles would run through on the middle "through" tracks between the two northern platforms. A chrome ocide green DB class E50 with a couple of giant 18-axle torpedo pan cars, separated by "spacer" cars (as not to overwhelm bridges). It was a cold, wet, grey autumn day, but we got hit by a wave of sizzling summer heat as the each torpedo car passed. Which is the reason why I now own a couple of torpedo cars although I will never have the space to run them, and I am looking for a green class 150...
Killer footage! DJ steels the show!
As always, we'll done DJ! It was a nice conference. Warm greetings from Belgium!
Thanks again!
Right on DJ and thank you for doing everything you share with all of us!!
-you rock my man !!!
And you have been an awesome supporter for a very long time. Thank you!
Outstanding presentation, i like hearing the real life operation for ideas
Thank you very much!
I had to go look it up: A four axle SW-1200 minimum radius is just 100.' 13.8" in HO. Darned if you aren't right. Otherwise I was thinking you must be pushing cars from further out, or maybe even shoving with poling pockets (but how to get them back out then? Pull chain? With Jack Lalanne grabbing the chain in his teeth?) Or maybe a Whiting Trackmobile? Tight stuff for sure.
I love the drone shots of track side industries. Gives me lots of ideas for my new n scale layout.
Coming from Aliquippa, once home to Jones and Laughlin's sprawling North Mills, and a former steelworker myself, I definitely appreciate this.
I’ve come up with different industries like bug spray manufacturer, twisty-tie maker, plastic molding company over the years.
Well done excellent presentation
Appreciated!!
Great presentation, dj. I loved hearing about your job tasks, childhood memories of the area, modeling ideas .. everything about it was very enlightening. Thanks.
Great video, funtastic tips in real photos with drone view, Great work. Greetings from Portugal. 😉👋
Portugal? Wow! I’m honored! Thanks for watching!!!
Good stuff Dj as usual. Also great shots that I will have to check out closer. I also have a Metal customer on my Railroad that has a shove move about 1 scale mile on a siding. A lot of us listen and learn.
Rock on!
Great video DJ. This video is inspiring me to rethink my future layout build in my hobby train room. Thanks again for answering my question in my email on wall color choice. Ed
I am grateful for your support and kindness
Don’t be a rivet counter. Great advice!
DJ Nice to meet you at the meet, Nice presentation. Worked at Clairton from 72 to 82 so I got to see the switching in the plant and my Uncle was a Union RR Engineer for 37 years. So I go to listen to his story's about the Union RR. If you ever get to Orlando area please let me know. I sent you a email with my information. Tom Wilson P&WVRR and Union RR modeling.
It was a huge honor to finally meet you and thank you for the inspiration you provided me.
I’ll definitely take you up on your offer when I get more vacation time
Great presentation 👍
Thank you
Phenomenal videography, content lading, and presentation. Like you I was inspired by Port Perry…me of a photo by Howard Fogg in my PLE book. Thanks for the zinc in box cars modeling tip. Not many box cars dropped around the mills for sure. Ironically, I start cutting/moving cars to a RIP for service just last week. Thanks for validating the procedure and supporting the coordination into my ops session. Started to think about your GalvTech local and the time it takes for the local runs. I finally started using the fast clock by granting track time for a given run. Look forward to all your up coming videos! Again outstanding… thanks for posting!
You made my day
Excellent presentation !
Thanks!
Nice I do miss working for the railroad but I’m thinking of going back but as an engineer
I miss it too, but as one of my trainers, an engineer, once said "This isn't a bad job, but the hours suck." And he was very senior. (RIP Mark)
Great video, but then I have been watching you for years and you have only gotten better with each cut!
Wow, thanks!
DJ great job as always, you could have made this video two hours long and I would still watch it from start to finish. I can never get enough of steel mill footage!
I might do part 2. There was some questions and answers
Nice Video
Thanks
Awesome presentation DJ, thank you so much!
Very welcome
Nice presentation DJ
Thanks
I'd have enjoyed the presentation but it makes a nice video too! Interesting watch as always!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks! Love what's you're doing
I sincerely appreciate that! Have a great 2024
Great talk and footage as always!
Much appreciated!
Excellent informative video in which you gave a real insight into life as an engineer plus lots of great modelling ideas.Good job 👍😁😁😁😁🚂🇬🇧
Glad you enjoyed it
Thanks!
Thank you so much! Sincerely appreciate that. Got hit with some unexpected expenses and I will be doing a lot of traveling for upcoming videos! Have a great day
DJ very good information really enjoyed this video
Glad to hear it
Nice presentation. I always enjoy hearing fellow engineers speaking in terms that the average person can understand. I always try to simplify what I am saying, but not so much that the person or persons that I am talking to find it either boring or lacking detail. Basically, explaining what we do requires a good balance of information, but also nothing too technical that it goes over peoples heads. Too many people have lots of misconceptions and misinformation on railroads and their operation. You do a nice job in clarifying what we do and making the average Joe understand railroading. Keep it up.
Appreciate that very much
Great insight and perspective ... thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This was the NMRA Steel Mills Modelers Special Interest Group I think? In any case, great video, as with your recent Bethlehem overhead vid. I'm gonna have to look into that bunch.
Any idea where freight cars built "at Bethlehem" were actually put together within the complex? Or was it even outside those bounds, further up or down the river? Thx for any replies.
Great question! Maybe someone will answer
You do have some great drone footage!
Thanks
Outstanding video! Your session was incredible! Excellent drone coverage! I love my Ridge wallet, fits nicely in front pocket for additional security. No issues with cards falling out, etc.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks to Ridge.com for sponsoring my video. Go to www.ridge.com/djstrains and use coupon code: "DJSTRAINS" to save 10% on your order.
DJ: I haven't seen your layout in a while. It looks fantastic! What were you modeling at the very end, those cars with what looked like ladles filled with ash? Or is that the limestone/coke mix they dump into the furnaces?
As usual, I enjoyed seeing what my cubbing territory looks like today. Dura-Bond looks about 5x the size I remember when It was near Demmler.
At the end, I think those three cars are filled with coffee!🙄 (just sayin', ya know?) 🚂Lawrence
Oh, sorry. You mean the cars on the layout. Ashes from DJ's cigars. His wife thinks he quit, but he bottles up the smoke and uses it in the mill's chimneys! Brilliant!🤔
Great stuff!!!
Thanks!
Great video DJ! As always! Love your drone stuff. I'm right by the W&A sub in Marietta, Ga when I go out to catch a train now I don't feel right if I'm not able to get my drone up before I see the light. I'm building an N scale prototype basement layout as well from Mp. 5 to about 48. I railfan/fly day and night catching trains down here around Atlanta.
DJ not being there in person.Your presentation was really good.My question why not have the pics you are showing us,on the big screen behind you? Or i am guessing your folks listening to you,already know of these places you are talking about.Again great presentation,and Happy MR.🚂☮
it ran prior to me talking
th-cam.com/video/HTK1I0yOGVM/w-d-xo.html
Great video your presentation was very informative
Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice job. Informative and entertaining!
Much appreciated!
Fantastic
Thank you so much 😀
@djstrains 3 mile shove, damn..I remember we had a 2 mile shove going into Monsanto, and that was always interesting, especially in the winter.
Great presentation DJ!
Much appreciated!
Cool wallet 💯
All their stuff is fantastic
I want to ask too about your own forays into N scale. So far, I've had the impression you did your modeling in HO, although I do know you gave footage time to N-scale at the recent Amherst gathering--you had that video up a while back.
So are there N-scale vids I should look for here? Thx for any replies.
I’m strictly n scale. Always have been. But I travel to Ho scale layouts to make videos.
My channel has PLAYLISTS and a few are on layout tours, including my various n scale layouts over 12 years worth.
Also layout building and scenery, and scratch building
Ok. As I said elsewhere, what threw me was a tagline on your avatar over there--or so I remembered anyway--"Professor of HO." I was sure I saw it, but I don't see it now. Of course it's always possible to be a Professor of HO and still model mostly or only in N scale too, right? They aren't exclusive to one another, after all.
That was not me
Indeed it was not, and only because he popped up in the last few hours did I realize my mistake: He is "D&J Railroad" over there and still does seem to be a Professor of HO. Headslap!
I missed it by that [.................................................................................] much.
@@djstrains
hey DJ does cheapskate still have their railroad cops? seeing some of the tagging and hearing about the car ripping out west it got me wondering!!
Yes, but we never see him unless something happens
@@djstrains they must be blind as bats and hid away sleeping then seeing all the tagged cars!!
@@keithmoore5306 - stopping tagging is not a high priority for railroad police. Watching out for high value lading is.
@@mmi16 stopping tagging and guarding cargo go hand in hand as in trespassing!! and going by LA last year UP cops don;t give a flying!! and frankly some of what i've seen around a few yards in ohio it's a wonder someone hasn't hauled off an engine!!
Chesapeake…cheap skate? Lol
Grew up in Penn Hills? Home of Bill Fralic. Great Pitt man. RIP
Big frickin' deal! Middling player...big hype!
@@gregginter5867 4x pro bowler. College HOF. Yeah... middling. Aaron Donald is also a Penn Hills alum. Another middling player?? ROLFMAO
Great show! Question…Today trains run without cabooses or rear end crews. When a train goes into a passing track to wait how does the engineer know when his rear end is clear of the mainline? Is this all calculated by the dispatcher?, is there a cab signal? Educate me please.
we have an EOT (end of train device). It attaches to last car. We also know the length of our train prior to departure (paperwork), and we have an odometer on engine. We hit the start odometer when we enter siding. when we exceed our known train length, we can stop. The EOT lets us know there is communication with the end of train, so we know train is intact.
@@djstrains
Thank you, DJ.
use the real actual materials from the real trains. and glue them in if you don't have working industry of loading and unloading. the coal i pick up straight off the track beds and throw it in a walnut grinder to get the nice chips like actual coal screen out what size you don't need works for N up to O scale, G just take a hammer and bust it up a big., if you're lucky you can get bin fines from yard workers or miners. i get taconite straight from from duluth minnesota, coal from trains from the dakotas wood from my own yard since i have all those trees dropping branches every wind storm, scrap metal from the metal shops or my metal workings if i need shavings or grindings. makes you really appreciate those 1970's and 80's locomotives traction and power and grumble about the lack thereof starting in the 90's. the corn and grains i take from the dustings left in the bird feeder bags/buckets. a gravel pit is where i get my earthen fines for rock and actual powered dusts for the cements and coke, and fertilizers and track ballast is garden pumice. ertl die cast farm equips toys and even mutilated die cast planes from a vendor that keep changing name as i cut the wings off the fuselage and mount them to different flat cars
Next time use a better microphone and do a sound check to make sure there is no echo before you present.
Actually did a sound check with my lapel mic into the house system.
Not sure why when I came back in the room to do the presentation that it gave feedback but I felt I was able to project my voice that a mic wasn’t needed for every one in the back heard me clearly.
Any other criticism?
@@djstrains Nope... I can't speak to what was heard in the room, all I know is the audio that was recorded was poor.