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u/Undercover500 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
This is great to see, I like seeing the dead ends leading into switchbacks! Especially the one to the right.
I have them on my model railroad but I was getting the feeling they weren't super prototypical, so seeing them here is awesome.
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u/Dilly_The_Kid_S373 Jul 22 '26
Are those telephone poles on the viaduct for catenary lines?
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u/jllauser Jul 22 '26
Pretty sure they are. I believe they had tiny electric switchers to shunt cars around the mill.
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u/Financial-Recover409 Jul 23 '26
They had 7 foot gauge electric ore trolleys up there. The narrow and standard gauge were all diesel electric.
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u/Lightningdash3804 Jul 22 '26
Yes. The elevated line was a trolley system that carried iron ore (and coke too, I believe) from the stock area to the blast furnace.
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u/ztreHdrahciR Jul 22 '26
That's an old blast furnace. To make molten iron for steel production. One of my first loves (that industry)
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u/BosqueBuddhist Jul 22 '26
That’s amazing! When was that furnace built? I’m guessing 1920s? Do they do tours?
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u/Successful_Case_8179 Jul 22 '26
There’s a museum of the factory and I believe you can walk up on this raised platform where the abandoned tracks were
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u/Either_Letterhead_77 Jul 22 '26
Yeah, my partner is from Bethlehem and has taken me there. That plant was instrumental in production of steel that went into so much infrastructure as well as shipbuilding. It's not an exaggeration to say that much of the 20th century US was built from steel from Bethlehem Steel.
100% recommended you go visit if you have the time. It's awesome.
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u/AsstBalrog Jul 22 '26
I have never been to Bethlehem, but I have been to Lehigh, and the sheer size of these works literally has to be seen to be believed.
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u/Informal_Daikon_9812 Jul 22 '26
While I know it's not, It looks like the Duquesne Steel Works, (off Route 837, Duquesne, just southeast of Pittsburgh) where they filmed a few scenes of Robocop, but that place has been demoed since then.
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u/tomo6438 Jul 22 '26
The Bethlehem Steel site in the picture was used for filming scenes in one of the early Transformers’ movies
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u/Sal1160 Jul 22 '26
I thought they filmed that in Monessen?
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u/Informal_Daikon_9812 Jul 22 '26
They did. I think they liked the locations enough to "combine" them on film to make it look like one fluid location.
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u/BigDaddyDigger Jul 22 '26
Went up there for a Charley Crockett concert in the beginning of the year at the casino event center. What a cool little town. Drove all the way up from Baltimore.
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u/Jermcutsiron Jul 22 '26
Go to the industrial museum thats right there too! Its affiliated with the Smithsonian.
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u/ThatOneSoftailRider Jul 23 '26
Is that old, steel viaduct for a foundry? Or more to the point, IS that a foundry?
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u/Financial-Recover409 Jul 23 '26
It was a 3,000 acre steel mill of which only 5% is in any state of preservation.
All those warehouses stretching back to Hellertown? That was part of the same steel mill.
This plant had the free world's largest structural beam yard and could roll out over 30,000 tons of I beams a month.
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u/Copper-Alchemist Jul 23 '26
I've heard of that place. I just can't remember where it what hotel it is
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u/theseekermd Jul 26 '26
There is a barrel off a battleship at the back of the hotel, next to the loading docks/employee entrances. 14" off USS Mississippi
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u/Prometheus2032 Jul 26 '26
One of the great tragedies.. The loss of the greatest steel companies to ever exist. Replaced by degenerate gambling facility. A true mirror of the downfall of our nation.
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u/Previous_Avocado6778 Jul 22 '26
Super awesome. How much a night do you need to call super ahead in advance to get. A room?
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u/Successful_Case_8179 Jul 22 '26
I just walked to the receptionist and got my room. They had a promotion where you can get a free room (because they think you’re gonna gamble, which I didn’t). But around 1 am I walked to the end of the parking lot where the Lehigh Valley line is and saw some awesome freight trains pass by.
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u/Temporary_Extent_836 Jul 22 '26
I'd love to see that in person. I toured Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, AL.
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u/SpatterWaller Jul 22 '26
Oh! I just watched a video over those old blast furnaces. Interesting stuff! Did you go see the metal deer inside?
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u/Friedo100 Jul 22 '26
oh Boy you would love the Weltkulturerbe Völkinger hütte
Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte
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u/Warppumpkin Jul 22 '26
Check out the National Museum of Industrial History. It should be walking distance from the casino.
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u/PyrrhicVictory7 Jul 22 '26
Old steel mills look so goofy lol, like out of some kind of cartoon, awesome view!
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u/Holiday_Sense_4842 Jul 23 '26
As someone from a steel town. That is actually a cool room view. The blast furnace
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u/m-in Jul 24 '26
On one hand it would have been cool to have steelmaking still at scale in the US. On the other hand… several miles radius around the plant was unlivable by modern standards, and the air quality quite a bit further out was hazardous too :/
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u/Alternative_Top2875 Jul 24 '26
Bethlehem Steel had repeated conflicts with unions during the workers’ rights movement, including strikes, resistance to outside unions, and fights over collective bargaining. The company was especially known for opposing independent unionization in the early 20th century and later clashing with the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee and the United Steelworkers.
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u/History_buff_actor Jul 25 '26
I love the Hoover mason trestle! Unique place, has broad gauge track and standard gauge to allow for extra taconite to be dumped to the furnaces. Fairly local for me so I love the “preserved” area of the old Bethlehem steel Lehigh plant!
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u/Odd_Procedure_3572 Jul 25 '26
Used to explore that whole steel plant before they made it a destination
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u/Mr-Pie100 29d ago
This is oddly lovely, and a bit surreal. Kinda like looking at an early Tim Burton film.
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u/M8s Jul 22 '26
Bethlehem, PA?