During my ten years working for INCO, virtually all of the 70's they were still very proud of their Monel, the Monel Division and their advancements with stainless steel. They had quite the research facility in Mississauga, down in Southern Ontario, near Toronto, in addition to manufacture of Monel in Sudbury. Great company to work for.
INCO sold out to Vale', a Brazilian Company, in an irresistable stock price offering. Cannot blame the many many workers that made out like bandits on their stock share holdings and the stockholders themselves. The down side was loss of dividend and other revenue to Canada and the sovereignty that went along with a firm handle on the Nickel market.
When I worked in Sudbury as a junior geologist for INCO there were 33,000 employees. Today there are 2,200 in Sudbury working at Vale'.
Somebody somewhere is making one big pile of loot.
Thanks for this Wanswheel....I had no idea the roof of Pennsylvania Station in New York City was made of Monel.
Was the contraction in number of workers at Sudbury due to automation or fall-off in production?
Midland Mike and all---Vale' is a big multinational and concerned with the " big picture" ...they can control the price of nickel, to an extent anyway, by opening and closing different streams of production all over the world. When they purchased INCO the price of Nickel was close to $24.00 a pound, China, Indonesia and India were in full swing into their big run to modernize and metal prices seemed poised to stay high for a long time...then the bottom fell out, to $6.00 a pound. Vale' shuttered several high cost very very deep mines in the area,... Canada signed on to Kyoto which limited smelting and refining, ...electricity pricing, once very abundudant and inexpensive went through the roof as Ontario pursued its green agenda, the first to do so, with devastating results. A strong anti-mining agenda was enforced by an unsophisticated and ingenious government. Vale' could get production to meet demands from low cost mines in other parts of the world. Things spiralled down. A huge year long strike ensued.
Some of it was new mining methods and automation, especially in the mills.' Vale' was very skillful in manipulating things and getting what they needed. The age of getting the most out of the least had arrived.
INCO was a very "paternal" company, job for life, security, you were part of the family. I remember well the day I hired on, going to the company medical building for a physical and the company doctor telling me that "this is a great company to work for and will look after you for life" or something along those lines. Vale' was like a corporate raider and activist investor rolled into one. The workforce was not expecting that treatment, stunned and shocked, they were taken by surprise. I suppose you could say the world caught up with Sudbury, but really and truly it was much the same story all over North America and the established industrialized world.
INCOs fierce competitor was Falconbridge, another beloved all Canadian company. They merged with Noranda the copper giant, yet another big established and loved Canadian Company and then quickly got bought up by Xstrata, a Swiss company. Canada no longer had a say in the nickel market, now mere serfs producing for less and less of a paycheque in order to compete. Xstrata in turn was sold to Glencore Commodity, a hedge fund company. You can see where that's going.
Things are not the same as they were....not in Sudbury, or Detroit, or at Canadian Pacific, or at US Steel. Every city has their story.
The world turns...
INCO 801, 80-ton ore car built 7/1930 National Archives PA 195048
Interesting that the INCO logo and car number are on a steel plate bolted to the car.
" The girls are out to bingo and the boys are getting stinko, they'll be no more of INCO on a Sudbury Saturday night"
--Stompin' Tom Connors
I drove thru Sudbury in 1979. I remember the black rock and lack of vegatation in the area. I saw that Inco gave tours, and I called the number, but they said that there were no tours that day. Not sure if it was because of the weekend, or if they were just not giving tours.
Was that Inco car in the photo a rotary dump car?
INCO's own in house ore cars were built for use at the Clarabelle Mill and that was a rotary tipple, so yes rotary couplers on the one pictured.
Canadian Pacific also used their own 80 ton ore cars for use in Sudbury on the North Rim mines but they were bottom dump.
INCO also had side dump 30 ton Hart cars.
Miningman " The girls are out to bingo and the boys are getting stinko, they'll be no more of INCO on a Sudbury Saturday night" --Stompin' Tom Connors
Wanswheel-- What a great post. Just luv those ads and pictures. Wonder how many people realize the amount and use of nickel in rail construction of rolling stock. The pictures are terrific.
There is a lot of buzz in the Mining industry that Vale'wants to sell off it's Canadian assets and that an independent INCO re-emerges.
As for Stompin' Tom...well Wanswheel, you actually made me cry. I played it for my Mining Class today ( in addition to a power point using those INCO ads...you're a TA, teacher assistant, for this one!....and yes I gave you credit for it all)...me being a hard tough hardrock underground Mining guy and a frontier Northerner to boot, it really got to me, and I was reduced to an emotional vulnerable mess. Tried to hide it but it was obvious.
Been to the Horse Shoe Tavern a hundred times in my years in Toronto and saw Stompin' Tom at least 20 times. He was always accessible and would talk to anyone. Nothing but fun. Not like today's too cool crowd.
As the National Post characterized him:
'He sang of a nation without politics, to its proud history, and to its better angels. His songs remind us that Canada matters — that we’ve built something amazing here, and must not take it for granted.'
Sadly he has passed. Always a humble man, he never forgot his Maritime roots ( New Brunswick, PEI, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland) and his long time spent in Ontario's hard rock mining town of Timmins.
This one for Wanswheel becuase he has roots in PEI. ( Prince Edward Island)---- you just want to stomp along!
"Bud the Spud from the bright red mud, rolling down the highway smiling
Cause the spuds are big at the back of Buds rig
They're from Prince Edward Island
They're from Prince Edward Island"
Miningman, thanks for introducing me to Stompin' Tom. I hear my grandfather's accent.
https://archive.org/stream/transactionsofen31engi#page/n45/mode/2up/
Amazing they let him drive a streetcar for a music video years before MTV.
https://www.gettyimages.com/license/170557583
https://www.gettyimages.com/license/170557561
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/arts/stompin-tom-connors-canadian-singer-dies-at-77.html
All right, back on topic, roof of Penn Station:
Miningman As for Stompin' Tom...well Wanswheel, you actually made me cry.
As for Stompin' Tom...well Wanswheel, you actually made me cry.
I didn't know what to say, and still don't. Probably Stompin' Tom would.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu-6xuwcBlM&t=10m47s
Wow! Got me goin', too.
Wayne
Stompin' Tom probably never stood under the roof of Penn Station, but he could've arrived from Toronto on the Maple Leaf or from Montreal on the Washingtonian. Don't know if he was ever in Sudbury Thursday night.
https://archive.org/stream/TheRomanceOfNickel/TheRomanceOfNickel0001#page/n0/mode/2up
I have to wonder whether, if Penn Station had been built only a couple of years later, its roof would have been made of Maurer's somewhat more famous nickel-bearing alloy, 18/10 or 18/8 chrome-nickel steel (the latter, more famous as Enduro KA-2 or Nirosta in the spire cladding of the Chrysler Building)
Interesting, the publicity given some of these materials. Some of the contemporary things from the Vanadium Company might be interesting.
Yes Vanadium. Goes back a long ways, was used in the chassis of the Ford Model T as an alloy. Great for high speed machinery, crankshafts, surgical instruments, much more, and now as the Anode for making Lithium Ion batteries, along with Cobalt, another metal finding itself in the spotlight.
We have occurances of Vanadium here in Northern Saskatchewan, one exploration outfit progressing well with an exploration shaft and working on their National Instrument 43-101, In that case it occurs as an iron vanadium oxide, Nolanite, in the Beaverlodge area.
There are 2 rare earth deposits under active exploration in the area as well.
Puzzling enough, it occurs as a by-product of uranium processing and oil sands processing ...much written, but nothing doing. With the sheer volumes mined you would think it would make for a freebie bonus.
But!....what happened to the roof? Is it in the swamps of New Jersey, was it busted up and recycled? Some tycoon has it as their roof in their Hampton's getaway?
Exploration diamond drill Northern Saskatchewan...Vanadium!
Most, if not all of Penn Station lies in the NJ Meadowlands. It was used as land fill for Giants Stadium, the race track, etc. A trucking company down there uses some of the pink granite columns as bumper blocks around their parking lot.
Yes I am aware of the fate of much of Pennsylvania Station but what became of the Monel roof! Perhaps the same...in da swamp.
Just guessing, but I'd suspect that Monel roof was sold for scrap value. Once Penn Station was demolished all the stone work was just broken rock, but I'm sure that Monel metal was worth money, and you don't throw away money.
Hey, the PRR didn't give away all those magnificent steam engines that went to the scrappers!
....Or the S1, or a T1...cash strapped they say..equity and real estate out the wazoo but cash strapped they say......but Sauders personally paid a voluntary 7 million dollar settlement for his shenanigans to get out of lawsuits and that was back when that was an real astronomical amount.
Plus....astronomical savings from Dieselization not to mention all those back shop jobs ...what a load of big stinkin' baloney.
Yes Vanadium. Goes back a long ways, was used in the chassis of the Ford Model T as an alloy.
Which brings us to molybdenum, another promoted thing, and the wonderful Childe Harold Wills and the Wills Saint(e) Clair(e) - aka 'The Molybdenum Car'. Now there was an engineer in the best Babbage tradition, shutting down the line when he had a brighter idea...
Later he would work on one of my favorite cars of all time, even more iconic than the Gardner Eight-In-Line, the Ruxton (with its Woodlites and Josef Urban rainbow striping and Ledwinka carrosserie...)
Emblem for WSC was a far more evocative use of the Canada Goose than those wretched parkas are...
Wretched is right! I believe that myself and our CEO are the only 2 staff and faculty members that do not wear the things. 1,000 bucks a pop they are nothing more than a status ranking of credit card power and stupidity.
None, and I mean zero, of the students wear the wretched things either, which only confirms the last sentence above.
Hilarious to see folks in warmer climes, such as Toronto or Vancouver parading about and posturing in malls and grocery stores at room temperatures.
So...Mr. Overmod, can you provide any pics on those great descriptions of the Ruston and the Moly Car?
Also I have never seen a post displayed as yours, somewhat faded out like that... is it just my 'puter or things gone awry or something new and cool?
Overmod Childe Harold Wills
Childe Harold Wills
He parked his Gardner Eight on 8th Ave., saw it from the YMCA roof garden.
http://wildaboutcarsonline.com/members/AardvarkPublisherAttachments/9990462405578/1967-02_CL_1927_Wills_Sainte_Claire_Roadster_Retrospect_1-7.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardner_(automobile)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruxton_(automobile)
Speaking of roofs, and railroads, I wonder if exists an indestructible Monel teapot.
wanswheelI wonder if exists an indestructible Monel teapot.
Odd that I was looking for pitchers made of it ... and find nothing but golf clubs.
Plenty of urns with Monel linings, so it doesn't seem likely there's a particular taste, and one of the very early uses of Nirosta was, explicitly, milk pitchers (one was tested when Van Alen was deciding on the metals to use on the Chrysler Building). If there is a problem with drawing or spinning Monel I am not yet aware of it, and it can be welded with appropriate wire and rod (available widely not later than the end of WWII for Monel K, the precipitation-hardening variety with aluminum added). So I come back to the high relative cost of the material, or the relative superiority of 18/10 or 18/8 in this service ... but that shouldn't have stopped folks from trying Monel somewhere, or documenting why they didn't.
I wonder if it was too tempting to say 'nickel silver' instead ... there are plenty of pots and pitchers of THAT named material, as you might expect...
"Nirosta, a contraction of Nichtrostende Stähle (nonrusting steel)." Or it could be the name of a pill for people who watch TV news for their health. "Ask your doctor about Nirosta."
https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hcc/2015/05/Walter-P--Chrysler/3748509.html
Ruxton: perhaps best in what might be termed '38 Century paint
https://www.rmsothebys.com/am16/amelia-island/lots/1932-ruxton-model-c-sedan-by-budd/1078633
and, if you have several idle hours ... you'd better leave time ... here is how it came to be like that:
http://www.thelincolnforum.net/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=44158
https://www.snolab.ca/news/2012-09-16-professor-stephen-hawking-visits-snolab
I've worked at the Creighton Mine back in the day as a 'beat' Geologist, mapping the fresh faces after the round was taken and grading the muckpiles through various stopes. This was long before the lab was built down there. Gets pretty warm with all the oxidizing sulphides.
Have also visited the Lab much later as INCO had transferred me to the Frood Mine by the time the Lab was in operation. It is a long ways down at Creighton. A wheelchair accessible Mine! Also one in Manitoba where they store nuclear waste, wheelchair accessible!
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