Bill Richard’s Magnificent Steel Mill

We here at N Scale Limited are always on the hunt for quality modeling, especially unrecognized.  Today we would like to give you a sampling of the excellent work done by Bill Richard of Windsor Ontario.

Bill has been working on this layout named the “Schits Creek & River Valley Railroad” for the last five years, the majority of which on this steel mill scene.  If you are curious, the name of the layout started as a joke as to where he would be if one of his previous layouts grew too large.  The depot baring this name has been carried over from each of his previous layouts.

The mill is served by the Canadian Pacific Railway, which of whom Bill was employed by for 35 years.  On initial inspection of the video and photos, you will think that many of the Cornerstone kits were used to build this scene.  Surprisingly the majority of what you see was scratch built from styrene, brass etchings and a few other materials.  For example, the blast furnace was started from a simple children’s plastic drinking cup and the three ovens are PVC pipe.  The lake freighter in the foreground of the layout was built by carving the hull from a plastic foam used in mold making, then he built up from it with styrene.  Other structures that were scratch built were the two ore bridges, power plant, basic oxygen furnace (BOF), coke ovens and the open hearth furnace.  The only kits are the green rolling mill at the back and the gas tower.

While the mill is not based on a specific prototype, parts of it are.  The high line is built similar to the one that was found at Bethlehem Steel in Pennsylvania, and the ore bridges are slightly scaled down versions of the ones found at Zug Island near Detroit Michigan.  By being in the region that Bill lives in, he has grown up seeing steel mills and lake freighters for all of his life.

There is still a lot of work left on his layout, many of the structures are still in need of added details and he has plans for a auto parts plant which will cover part of the small yard on the right of the layout.  The open hole in the layout is going to be a urban area and he will be adding a lift bridge to hide the holes by the open hearth furnace.

Again we at N Scale Limited are proud to bring you this taste of an excellent under construction layout.  Please watch for articles coming soon detailing more on the construction of some of the structures on the SC&RVRR by Bill.

• Tim Purcell’s TNT Transfer (6)
• Tim Purcell’s Plaza Hotel (15)
• The City of the GreatScaper (6)
• The Baltimore Streetcar Museum (4)
• Structural Beginnings (18)

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