Cock O' The North

The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) Class P2 locomotive, No. 2001, Cock o' The North, on the turntable at King's Cross Station, London, 1st June 1934. The new engine has just arrived from the LNER works in Doncaster. Image colourized by David P. Williams. (Photo by Douglas Miller/Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Just looking around the industrial parts of town, I was overwhelmed by the amount of steel that goes into these machines, structures, raillines, tanks and towers, and that's just one town. Every town in the industrialized world is built on a zillion tons of the stuff.

U. S. Steel Production vs. Imports

U. S. Steel Production peaked in the 1970s. Since then it has fallen by half. 

So why did this happen? Why did the U.S. go from a steelmaking powerhouse to an also-ran? As usual, there are a bunch of competing explanations — import competition, bad management choices by steel companies, and unions raising wages to uncompetitive levels. But while these were factors, the biggest reason the U.S. steel industry went into terminal decline was that we stopped building things that used lots of steel. - Noahpinion

Global Steel Production

U. S. and Russia steel production are about equal.

Jigsaw puzzle here.