Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company's Campbell Works cast house metal stream

Liquid metals flow from the blast furnace through runners in the cast house at the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company's Campbell Works, East Youngstown, Ohio, 1932. The runners had to be cleared and cleaned twice per shift. The iron going to the right was heavier than the slag going to the left. The flow of metal was controlled by a series of gates. The liquid iron flowed through the iron notch to transfer ladles. The slag flowed a different direction into slag pots and into a dry pit or a wet pit. At the dry pit, the slag cooled and solidified; in the wet pit a stream of water granulated the slag into fine particles. The iron could never be allowed to reach the water pits or it would explode