Pennsy ore Jenny, what are these for?

[gmpullman]

Hi, all...

Here's a shot of a Pennsy ore Jenny at the Cleveland C&P ore docks. Does anyone know what these little "ports" are used for? Looks like they are plated over from the inside. I'm just very curious about their purpose. Sorry but I don't have a "long shot" showing the location on the carside.

PHOTO BY CHIP SYMM

Thanks, ED

[ndbprr]

One of the dirty little secrets that shippers use is to wet down a load of coal or ore to "control dust enroute".  What it amounts to is they are selling you water at the commodity price which is usually well above the cost of water.  In the winter that water freezes making removal of the load impossible.  Those ports were for insertion of a steam lance to thaw the load so it could be dumped.  Other methods include taking the car to a heated thawing shed for some time and a car shaker that beats the daylights out of the car to break up the frozen mass.

[selector]

Most receivers I know won't take delivery of a shipment of that kind unless an assay is taken for both concentration of the purchased commodity and moisture content...since no one with any brains will pay for water.

I would guess those ports could also be used for sampling lances.

[jsoderq]

Boy I wonder where you guys come up with this stuff. Ore is measured at the point of origin. Because the cars are open to the weather the loads often get wet. The ports are for steam lances as stated. In most cases the ore is owned by the same company from the mine to the mill so wetting the load to increase weight would be stupid.The PRR jennies were used to move ore from Great Lakes frieghters to the mills. Many times regular coal hoppers were used, but because the ore is so much heavier it looked like the cars were empty because there was only a small pile in each end. 

[gmpullman]

Thanks for the replys fellas! I know that at our local coal fired power plant they use a shed with big banks of infra-red heaters to thaw the coal before dumping. Electricity is pretty cheap for them! I can see where there would be a need to use steam to thaw the loads before dumping at a blast furnace... plenty of steam available there!

Thanks again, Ed

[ndbprr]

Wetting down the load does not change the "assay" of coal or ore.  None of the three steel mills I worked in had the time, manpower or ability (since none of them had track scales) to weigh cars to confirm what the shipper said was the load. I guess the ore and coal is loaded where it rains and the freezes when it gets near its destination.  My experience at coal mines and taconite plants is wetting the load is for dust control.  That is their answer to why and they do not deviate from the company line.  Now shipping ore by boat is another story entirely but then  most coal doesn't come by boat and displacement of the vessel will give a very accurate account of the weight in the hold.

[dknelson]

The Pennsy also experimented with coating their ore cars with foam insulation to try to prevent freezing.  It looks sort of like what happens when you used old fashioned floquil paint on raw plastic!   Freezing of the raw ore was a big problem before the days of taconite pellets.  A good number of old steam locomotives lasted into the 1960s solely to provide steam for thawing ore.

Dave Nelson

[wjstix]

Natural iron ore does have a certain amount of water content to it, and can be quite 'sticky' even in good weather. Add to that sub-freezing temps and it could harden into one sticky 70-ton lump. I've never heard anyone say before that this was actually caused by the ore companies 'watering down' the ore...seems odd they'd need to do it for taconite pellets, which are hard marbles. Taconite pellets sometimes are dumped hot (right from the processing plant) into cars, causing a nice steaming effect in cold weather pics, so I could see watering down the loads to try to cool the pellets.

[wjstix]

Thanks for the replys fellas! I know that at our local coal fired power plant they use a shed with big banks of infra-red heaters to thaw the coal before dumping. Electricity is pretty cheap for them! I can see where there would be a need to use steam to thaw the loads before dumping at a blast furnace... plenty of steam available there!

Thanks again, Ed

A couple of railroads had infra-red heaters for thawing out ore cars before dumping, I think both NP and GN in Allouez WI had them, as did CNW in Upper Michigan IIRC. The Missabe might have had one at Proctor MN too?? 

<> BTW back to the original question, I do believe these were used to connect the hoses for steaming frozen ore loads. Once taconite pellets became standard they weren't needed anymore so I assume that's why they were plated over.