On Wednesday, Ron Baraff of Rivers of Steel and Dror led us on a photo-expedition to Carrie Furnace in Rankin, where iron was made for most of the 20th century -- a furnace that helped to make Pittsburgh the steel center of the world. The furnace was shut down in the 1980s, and has been rusting since. Rivers of Steel has secured National Historic Landmark status for the site with the National Park Service. Money and volunteer work are needed to preserve the site so that someday it can be opened to the public. Our goal that day was to improve the photographic record of this incredible site.
Pictured below, Clara, Richard Palmer, Ron Baraff, Brian (a photographer from Pop City, who also happened to be there), and Dror prepare tripods, panoheads, and cameras.
Clara went up into the control room of the ore bridge (a huge gantry crane) and shot a gigapan of its interior. http://gigapan.org/gigapans/86489/
I climbed up to the top of one of the furnaces and got a view down on the ore bridge and the skip cars (buckets) that were used to haul iron ore, limestone, and coke to the top of the furnace.
Those ingredients get dumped into the feed hopper here.
More photos here:
Gigapan zoomable photos I shot are here:
view from bleeder valve - very high!
from near top of blast furnace 6
feed hopper above blast furnace 6
stationary car dumper
control room on ore bridge
outside ore bridge crane control room
skip pit
Dror photographed the electrostatic precipitators
Paul Heckbert
CREATE Lab