Stock Trestle/Tunnel

Construction of the stock trestle/tunnel complex formed part of the extensive modernization Sloss carried out between 1927 and 1931, focusing on mechanized charging operations and equipment along with the inclined skip hoists. At this complex, raw materials were stored, weighed, and loaded into the furnace. The 800-foot-long stock trestle was built of concrete and supported a dual-track rail line, where freight cars entered and emptied raw materials into stock bins below. The stock was then discharged into scale cars running on a rail line inside the concrete charging tunnel, which 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 this mechanization, raw materials were loaded into wheel barrows, taken by vertical elevator to the top of the furnace, and shoveled in by hand. The modernized charging operations were safer and more efficient and reduced the labor required for loading from twenty men to three. Monroe Lide recalled that the low tunnel stayed dusty all the time, with water running along the side of the track, and that when doors were opened to catch coke, lime rock, or scrap coming out, the material hit the car in a cloud so thick that workers could not see until they closed the door and waited.

Birmingham, Alabama · United States