Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark

Construction of the stock trestle/tunnel complex was part of the extensive modernization that Sloss carried out between 1927 and 1931. Much of the work focused on mechanizing the charging operations and equipment—the stock trestle/tunnel complex and the inclined skip hoists. It was here that raw materials were stored, weighed, and loaded into the furnace.

The Process

The 800-foot-long stock trestle was made of concrete and supported a dual-track rail line. Freight cars moved into the trestle and emptied raw materials into stock bins below. From there the stock was discharged into scale cars that ran on a rail line inside the concrete charging tunnel. The tunnel was 747 feet long and almost 11 feet high. The scale cars automatically weighed the stock and dumped it into skip cars, which moved up the inclined hoist and mechanically deposited the stock into the furnace. Before the mechanization raw materials were loaded into wheel barrows and taken by vertical elevator to the top of the furnace, where they were shoveled in by hand. The modernized charging operations were not only safer and more efficient, they also reduced the labor requirements for loading from twenty men to three.

The People

"Down there in that hole it stayed dusty all the time, and water runs—by it being so low like that. The water runs along the side of the track all the time. And to me it seems like it went against your health to be down like that, because at that time they were putting coke in the furnace or either lime rock or scrap that they picked up. This whole place would be dusty down here. When you opened a door to catch that stuff coming out, it just hit down in the car. That stuff just hit down in there and you can't see nothin. You have to close the door up and wait to see how much you got down in there."
Monroe Lide

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Show me all markers in:  Birmingham, AL  |  Jefferson County  |  35222  |  Alabama  |  United States of America

The Stock Trestle
Casting Pigs
The Blast Furnace
Slag
The Gas System
Boilers
Ironmaking
The Blowing Engine Room
Sloss Furnaces
Frisco No. 4018

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