Additional information

1990

Stan Knotts, then of Brookeville, Maryland founded the Railroad Industries Special Interest Group under the auspices of the National Model Railroad Association. From humble beginnings, membership worldwide slowly grew, aided by Stan’s guiding hand as he published "LINESIDE", the newsletter of the RRISIG.

Soon the group became a honey pot for Iron and Steel industry modellers and various contributions about aspects of the Iron and Steel industry began to appear in Lineside. Phil Baggley, in Workington, England contributed a series of articles about Blast Furnace modelling. Some of the material came from a book published in 1929 by Ernest Been Ltd. entitled Blast Furnace Practice. The author of the book was Fred Clements, the General Manager of the Park Gate Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. Of Rotherham, England.

Clements had scoured the globe seeking out best practice of contemporary ironmaking and visited the Replogle Steel Co. in Wharton NJ. on his travels. From his observations he was able to publish a detailed description of what was then a mothballed plant.

By coincidence, Bill Trengove a senior citizen and resident of Wharton had begun building an N scale (1/160) model of the blast furnaces based solely upon a few photographs of the dormant plant in his possession. He joined the RRISIG hoping to improve his understanding of blast furnace construction. He could never have anticipated that a detailed description of the plant, supplemented by drawings would appear in "Lineside".

Bill saw the plans and drawings of the Replogle Steel Co. Blast Furnaces in print . Despite many years of research, he had not seen anything like it. Bill got in touch with Phil and after sharing their knowledge, a more comprehensive study of the Wharton furnaces could be presented.

Here is the current extent of our knowledge. It is a fascinating glimpse into the layout of a 1920s era New Jersey blast furnace plant. The photographs were taken around 1933 , about 10 years after closure , when the plant was demolished.

2015

Sadly Bill passed away in 2009 . Below are some images of his N scale model. I don't know what happened to it. The original web site was updated.

2021

The 2015 web pages were republished on Google sites and updated with more maps and images .