Just when I thought I'd found all the chicago RR I seem to have stumbled on another...
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=485484
Can anyone tell me more about this road or give me links please?
Did it transfer to car floats?
TIA
http://yardlimit.railfan.net/baldwindiesels/rtw/
http://www.trainweb.org/vermande/r/rtw.html
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Thanks
The second link says "On the south side of Chicago, RTW moves coal hoppers from a yard to a loading dock and onto lake boats."
This leaves me confused... the lake is to the North of Chicago and East of Chicagoland.
Does this mean that the Lake boats were faily small and travelling along canals that went under all those lift bridges I always see in pics of Chicago RR? This sounds really interesting to me.
Where would the coal have been coming from... and going to please? Naturally this begs the question... would this traffic have still been running in the 1980s?
which bring me up into the 80s... but no specific location..?
"Lake boats" were not usally small. The Edmund Fitzgerald was a "Lake Boat" and you can look that one up on "Google" to see the kind of Lake Boats plying the Great Lakes. I the Fitz was a modern Lake Boat, being built in the late 1950s. Size was a problem for some Lake Boats as well as ocean liners because the Welland Canal in Canada that goes around the Niagra Falls. I would venture to guess that most Lake Boats stayed in the upper great lakes. Most of the Lake Boats moved coal, iron oar, taconite and other raw products between Chicago, Ashtibula, Detroit, Erie, Gary, Toledo and many other cities with taconite and iron mine outputs coming from Wisconsin with coal from Toledo, Ashtibula, Sandusky and Erie. Some of the "boats" were almost 800' long, but If memory serves me correct the canallers were limited by the locks which were 678(?) feet long. Once upon a time Toledo Ohio(The Glass Capitol of the World") was the third largest rail center by tons moved because of the Iron Ore and Coal traffic, which mostly went into lake boats, although not by the car load. I believe the C&Os Pierre Marquett division ran the last railroad car ferries up until 1990. I am not sure of the terminus but they did go across Lake Michigan. It is a very interesting history ( Sorry I guess I got a little bit off subject, but it is interesting.)
I do not think many Lake Boats went up the Chicago River or the Sanitary Canal either one at least not in more modern times, but that is a guess.
Chicago is on the Western shore of the lake Michigan which runs North-South by Chicago, and as you probably know was(is) the Railroad Capitol of the US. The Lake is east of Chicago. I think Chicagoland is the modern lexicon for the Chicago Metropolitan Area, but I could be wrong about that, I grew up (as you may have guessed) in Toledo Ohio, on the East side by the big coal and Iron Ore docks. My father worked for the C&O which gobbled up the PM, and my grandpa worked for the NYC. Another interesting thought is how did all this traffic move in the winter when the Great Lakes are frozen?
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR
Great stuff Paul Only a tad off topic but very relevent.
I suppose that if Chicago is West not South of the lake that coal can move across the south side of it to the Lake. That solves that one.
Then again I will now have to get my head round the Chicago and South Shore...
Was the Sanitary Canal so called because it was clean and "sanitary" or because of what was put in it? I guess that would be a sanitation canal.
You wonder about winter traffic... I noticed that at least one of the pics caption's commented tht locos were laid up for the winter. I would guess that they shifted as much coal in summer as they could and stock-piled... anyone know please? Or did the works shut down during the winter as well.
The Canal (narrow) boats around me are a maimum of 72' long
[Incidentally I'm thinking of modelling one of this in 4mm/00 - anyone got any ideas or links about how to create the compound curves of the bow and stern]?
This link has the text...
This one has another loco tucked up for winter... what are the things on the hood side just in front of the tarpaulin please? They look like some of the things that I've seen on remote control locos??? Also, if you look at the rear journal of the front truck it looks like there is some sort of gound connection...??? Would this be some sort of power supply connection for a heater???
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/misc-r/rtw362ads.jpg
train18393 wrote: "Lake boats" were not usally small. The Edmund Fitzgerald was a "Lake Boat"
"Lake boats" were not usally small. The Edmund Fitzgerald was a "Lake Boat"
Back on topic.
The lyrics to the song The Wreak of Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead When the skies of November turn gloomy. With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed When the gales of November came early The ship was the pride of the American side Coming back from some mill in Wisconson As the big freighters go it was bigger than most With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms When they left fully loaded for Cleveland And later that night when the ships bell rang Could it be the North Wind they'd been feeling. The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound And a wave broke over the railing And every man knew, as the Captain did, too, T'was the witch of November come stealing.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait When the gales of November came slashing When afternoon came it was freezing rain In the face of a hurricane West Wind When supper time came the old cook came on deck Saying fellows it's too rough to feed ya At 7PM a main hatchway caved in He said fellas it's been good to know ya.
The Captain wired in he had water coming in And the good ship and crew was in peril And later that night when his lights went out of sight Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Does anyone know where the love of God goes When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay If they'd fifteen more miles behind her. They might have split up or they might have capsized They may have broke deep and took water And all that remains is the faces and the names Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings In the ruins of her ice water mansion Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams, The islands and bays are for sportsmen. And farther below Lake Ontario Takes in what Lake Erie can send her And the iron boats go as the mariners all know With the gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald. The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee Superior, they say, never gives up her dead When the gales of November come early.
by Gordon Lightfoot
Now I'll have that erie tune in my head all day long.
Gives me the shudders!
Well, if you lot are happily going OT I'm going to let my thinking wander...
Chicago, Soth Shore and South Bend Locos... were their "Little Joes" the same as Milwaukee Little Joes? Has anyone made a good model of them?
When did the CSS go diesel for frieght... and would I be right in thinking that their passenger service went into Metra?
More questions by the hour today
OK, another neat topic I know nothing about, so I'll stick my 2 cents in. (Or tuppence for you, Dave.) Since I don't actually see a hopper on a car float, I wonder if that's what's being done, or if the hoppers are coming down to the docks to be dumped into one of the Lake Boats.
On a slightly different topic, this is a car float terminal model from the Treasure Coast Model Railroad Club in Florida. It's near where my in-laws live, and they've been kind enough to let me take pictures of their layout. It doesn't show up well here, but it's some of the best modelling of gray-green ocean water I've ever seen.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Dave-the-Train wrote: You wonder about winter traffic... I noticed that at least one of the pics caption's commented tht locos were laid up for the winter. I would guess that they shifted as much coal in summer as they could and stock-piled... anyone know please? Or did the works shut down during the winter as well.
The Great Lakes freeze over in winter hence navigation is closed during that season.
Dave-the-Train wrote: The Canal (narrow) boats around me are a maimum of 72' long [Incidentally I'm thinking of modelling one of this in 4mm/00 - anyone got any ideas or links about how to create the compound curves of the bow and stern]?
Buy a block of balsa wood and start carving. If you can get a set of plans showing the hull lines, you can make some templates to guide your efforts.
Have fun
An article in RMC about this rail line might answer your questions. You can get a back issue of this magazine by going to:
Click on Magazine Back Issues
Railroad Model Craftsman August 1978
Five bucks plus shipping
Photos of RTWT’s Baldwins at: http://baldwindiesels.railfan.net/rtw/index.html
The coal was removed from the hopper cars and loaded into the Lake Boats holds in bulk. In later years they used large rotary dumpers that would turn the hoppers over after clamps were put on the top of the hopper to hold it to the rail section, then the whole thing would roll over. Track section included, 360 degrees. Many of the hars had rotary couplers on the car so they did not even need to be uncoupled. Usually there was a wide stripe around one end of the car to indicate which one was the rotary coupler. The air hoses were disconnected when dumping the product. Before that they would uncouple one car at a time, push it up an incline and dump the whole car over into a large "funnel" and the load would drop into the boat where the funnel was pointing. Even before that they would actually open the doors on the bottem of the hopper and dumped it out that way. It could be unloaded out of the boat with a Hewlett unloader, or with conveyor belts. Look up Hewlett unloader on the internet. to see the giant beasts that were used to unload these "boats". The Hewlett unloaders were used mainly for taconite and iron ore. At the River Rouge Ford plant they used clamshell buckets to unload the coal I believe. It must have taken a long time to unload one of those boats that way. We are talking tens of thousands of tons in these boats.
The south shore refers to the shoreline of Lake Michigan south of Chicago. If you head south of Chicago you will not run into the lake. The lake has already started the curve to the east at Chicago. By the time you are in Gary Indiana the shore is pretty much west to east.
The coal did bypass the great lakes in the winter, and most of my family members would be unemployed at that time because the railroads did not need nearly as many people when the lakes were frozen. Of course once they got alot of seniority they didn't get layed off. I believe the coal was not stockpiled as often as the iron oar. Perhaps coal does not weather as well? They did move alot of coal and coke to Gary Indianna and Detroit in the winter bypassing the lakes. I do not remember seeing cars of ore or taconite around Toledo, so I am not sure how Ore got to Pittsburg Pennsylvania in the winter. Perhaps it was stockpiled at the steel mills.
I do not think the Rail to Water transfer in question had car floats or ferrys, I believe they were transloading bulk into ships and Boats, especially seeing all the overhead structures in the pictures of those engines. They were probably conveyor belts out to the waterfront. (Ships are in the ocean, Boats are in the Great Lakes. It has nothing to do with size in this instance.) I know the adage, boats are on ships but you can't put a ship on a boat...Not applicable to the Great Lakes Boats. Grain is another comodity comonnly loaded onto ships in this way, but I do not know what this paticular facility did.
The tarp over the engine was probably covering a hole where the radiator was removed for service. Thats another guess for you. I do not know what the object on the side of the locomotive by the tarp or the object down by the trucks is. Here is a wild guess for you, perhaps they plumbed water up into the engines for the winter to circulate it through the prime movers water jacket. They do not use anti-freeze in them and if shut down in the winter they would either have to drain all the water out or circulate water through them to prevent freezing. This is still true today. Perhaps those are lights on the side of the hood to be used as remote control indicators. Industry did use remote control engines long before the railroads did.
I will look up this paticular company and see if they are listed in the ORER, and perhaps check back in tomorrow night. Depending on how busy I am here at work. I am a production electronics Technician, and if no equipment is broke I have time to kill.
Chicago was a big metropolis on the Lake Michigan and dumped their sewage into the lake. After awhile they started having problems as you can well imagin. They moved their drinking water intake further out into the lake. Of course you can only do this so much. From what I have read the Sanatairy Canal was an open sewer. They actually reversed the flow from into the lake to go south, eventually into the Gulf of Mexico. I am not sure what the people who lived that way thought about Chicago, but the Sanitary Canal was not something you wanted to fall in. They still have problems with rain water run off and are currently digging massive caverns to contain the water run off from the rain so they can slowley run it through their sewage treatment plants. Chicago is now even a bigger metropolis, but they don't dump any raw sewage into the lake on purpose.
Thanks again everyone
Coal can be stockpiled, as at powerstations, but they have to be careful about fires starting deep in the pile. Even coal mine spoil tips that had a lot of slack coal in them could (and did) catch fire. The coal in ships' bunkers could ignite... there was a theory that maybe Titanic hadn't slowed down because she had a fire in the bunkers and they were rushing to get to harbour/in range of fire tugs when they hit the 'berg.
Was that canal open all the way to the Gulf? Must have been disgusting. I vaguely recall thet soemwhere, maybe Chicago, had a Sanitary Railroad... I've got pics of their switches somewhere in the pile.
I've seen pics of the enormous unloaders. Great thing with unloading by clamshell was that when the load was nearly all out men had to go in and concentrate the stuff from the corners by hand shovel for the grabs to catch. I believe that in some cases these days they put in Bobcat skid loaders. They can't leave the stuff in the corners because it becomes a fire risk and/or any acid in it corrodes the hold lining.
I read a theory that wet coal burns giving off a hgher calorific value than dry. Also coal powder (like all powders) is potentially explosive if it lifts and gets into the right mix with air.
Thanks again
Dave,
The definitive book on railroad ferries on the Great Lakes is George Hilton's "The Great Lakes Car Ferries." There's plenty of interesting material in there - plans, photos, etc.
The CSS&SB Joes were very close to the Milwaukee Joes - their internal electrical system was slightly different, since the South Shore's electrical outfit was different from the Milwaukee's, but they were otherwise similar - there's one left at the Illinois Transportation Museum, and they may be able to give you specifics. All of the Joes were built by GE for shipment to the USSR, but were embargoed in 1946. GE sold some to the CSS&SB, more to the Milwaukee, and the rest to the Paulista Railroad in Brazil. The only models I know of were done in brass, but they've been done a couple of times - you might check Caboose Hobbies' website (they're in Denver) to see whether they have any, and to check prices - I'd check over a period of months, because a lot of their sales are consignment stuff, and the seller, rather than the hobby shop, sets the price.
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
The image is copied from Sylvans website where they host a gallery of their products customers have build.
http://www.isp.on.ca/Sylvan/product.htm
I have one of their tug boats awaiting assembly when my dock is ready for one.
Dave-the-Train wrote: Was that canal open all the way to the Gulf? Must have been disgusting. I vaguely recall thet soemwhere, maybe Chicago, had a Sanitary Railroad... I've got pics of their switches somewhere in the pile.
Also on a similar topic, the Lakers still get loaded near the inlet at State Line as the Skyway crosses over. I'm not sure if the largest ones can get in, but I've seen rather large boats from the bridge down the canal several times, not sure what the canal's name is, though.
OT, but just to clarify:
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (originally called the Chicago Drainage Canal, completed in 1900) was built to reverse the flow of the Chicago River. Chicago dumped their sewage into the river in the 19th century. It then flowed into the lake and contaminated the drinking water. There were cholera outbreaks in the late 19th century. The canal connects the Chicago R. to the Des Plaines R., which flows into the Illinois R. and then to the Mississippi. The people of St Louis were not at all happy at the prospect of receiving Chicago's "effluent". Later, after protests from other great lakes states, a lock was built where the Chicago R. meets Lake Michigan to reduce the amount of lake water flowing into the Chicago R. and eventually to the Gulf.
If you look on a map of the Chicago Metro area you will see what is called the turning basin. Its a huge docking facility where large ships can actually turn around. Its on the far south side. Its completely inland from the lake, and mostly manmade I would assume. Mostly swampy down there anyway.
And the Skyway may pass over this area as well, or near it anyway. Seeing as the Dan Ryan and Skyway are on permanent construction, I dont venture down that way much, except to see a Sox game.
Evening Dave: Coal has been a very important cargo on the lakes for along time. It used to be unloaded by unloaders like the one offered by Walthers. Today the ships have been fitted out as self-unloaders by having a convayor belt in the bottom of the hold and a long convayor boom that can be swung to the side and discharge on the dock. The Fitzgerald was 729ft long by 75ft wide and 36ft deep. She was carring 26,600 long tons of pellets when she went down. Todays ships run from 750 to 1000 feet long. and can carry up to 76,000 tones of cargo. Besides coal iron ore and stone are big items being hauled.
If you look up the Great Lakes Historical Society you can get information from them. Also try the Great Lakes Seaway news or Boatnerd. The Lake Carriers Association can give you lastest figures.
What period are you trying to model. I'm doing the early 1950s. I will have a iron ore dock for loading ore and am working on several ship models. You can get plans from several places.
I'll keep an eye on this post and see if I can add some more information. Part of my problem is that I have so much information at hand I have to be careful to not overload those I'm trying to help. I guess I'll leave you eith this, Ask and you shall receive. Take care.
Years ago in the 60s I worked as a clerk at the Rail To Water Coal Dock. Unit trains of coal were brought to the yard near the transfer facility. Then roughly half of the train was pushed up to the dumper which was a gravity fed affair. The coal fell on to belts that transferred the coal up to a (not sure of the right name here) machine that ran along the river. Then the coal was loaded directly into the boats from the train via said belt conveyors. The boats were mostly ore haulers of various lengths similar to the Edmund Fitzgerald. The boats ultimate destinations were north of Chicago to ports on Lake Michigan near or at power generating stations. I remember one of the boats, the J.R. Sensibar would make a round trip in 23 hours, going to the Milwaukee area and back. We started loading it before it was fully tied up to the dock and finishe the loading as it was be released from the dock. You could almost set your watch to the timing of that boat.
J Eiermann jceiermann@msn.com
Eh... You mean something like this.
Should build something like this on our layouts.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I used to work on the W. W. Holloway. My first ship on the Great Lakes in 1974. We ran from South Chicago Rail to Water taking coal up to Milwaukee many trips in a row. The ships that came up that river were smaller ones about 500 ft+. It took four hours to load at the dock and four hours for us to unload in Milwaukee. Short run so you never did the same thing twice in a row on watch. The boat made a very brief cameo in The Blues Brothers when it blew for a bridge to open. Then the Blues Brothers jumped the open bridge with the "cop motor" providing the thrust.
Some of you have speak about HIGH LIFT COAL DUMPER.
At a time there was numerous of them around the coal terminal on the great lakes to load lakers.
There was also some along the sea side, one still exist in a derelict shape at the exit of new york harbor; N&W had one at pier 4 at Norfolk N&W coal terminal
They are not a rotary coal dumper but a lift of car, which turn the car at more than 35' from the ground.
At this time there was no rotary couplers, so they work only one car at time; the full revolution take less than 1 minutes to put the car, lift the car rotate him, and back to the ground level; the PRR ones were rated at 3600 tons hours to be loaded in a ship.
Cars where lifted to the high lift with a like pusher named pigs; when empty they are pushed away by the next car; the empties roll on a down grade alone and by gravity and speed go back alone in a yard like in a Hump yard.
There was two major design Mc Myler and Heyl and Patterson, but they work the same way.
In the beginning they were steam powered, but most were shifted to electricity around or before WW2.
Here are a link of a magnificient HO model which is working integraly like the prototype.
https://youtu.be/3cifh0O83Dg
Myself I'm in the way to build one in N scale.
I believe there is still one used at Sandusky and a video exist on You tube about him.
some picture of these monsters