A little historical perspective, for those that don't know, about what NDG is referring to.
Just a general overview and reasons why.
The CanadIan Pacific Railway had a mandate to build a transcontinental railroad all the way to the British Columbia coast. This was essential in order to preserve the Dominion, unite and bind the country with steel rail from coast to coast. The East was well developed but the West was in danger of being lost to the United States, becoming essentially a commercial annex. The CPR built through to Vancouver using the Rogers Pass route through the Rockies and the Dominion of Canada was saved.
A scant two years later, 1887, vast and valuable mineral resources were discovered throughout the Southern tier of British Columbia. The CPR line was well to the North. Supplies and shipments were much easier to get from the Great Northern Railway, which ran parallel to Southern BC but within the US. American miners flooded the area by the thousands and soon once again there was danger of a commercial "annexation" of Southern BC. ( side note- this is why the Spokane International is such a big deal even today)
A "from the Coast to Kootenay railroad was required in order to provide Canadian sovereignty and to retain the valuable mineral assets and resources within Canada.
Long story short...the Kettle Valley Railway was born. Started in 1887. Completed 1915. CPR acquired total control and ownership in 1931.
So borders were secured, everyone calmed down, and we are were we are today, sort of.
Sadly the Kettle Valley Rwy. is no more, except for a ten kilometre segment run for tourists, using ex CPR 2-8-0 ex 3916, now numbered 3716.
It is widely argued, and righty so, that CP Rail was short sighted in abandoning the route. The spent a fortune upgrading the line, new bridges and heavy rail right up into the late 50's. It was cut back and abandoned in sections with the last of it in 1980...and that was without EHH!
Thank You.
Electroliner 1935 NDG I have ridden it a couple of times on my 4-8-2 bike I started to ask what that was when my mind solved the clue, mountain bike.
NDG I have ridden it a couple of times on my 4-8-2 bike
I started to ask what that was when my mind solved the clue, mountain bike.
Could have been a Mohawk bike.....
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
NDGI have ridden it a couple of times on my 4-8-2 bike
NDG- Best of luck with the diagnosis/outcome...bad word surgery.
Tree68- We are getting better at recognizing and applying techniques elininating wasted energy loss. Same things go for water recycling...our mines up here now have very high tech water treatment plants to reuse mill water over and over in the process. Some of this is from legislation but a lot of it is just plain good bottom line business sense. The Mines do this, long before any legislation.
NDG- No shortage of those hot tub, trucks and quads, ski-doo's, guns and every other toy imaginable up here. Plus boats...got to have the obligatory boat for fishing like mad and getting to your secondary "cabin in the woods". Of course a trailer for the boat and another one for the skidoo's. Big truck for that. Another added common thing up here is a trap line. It's hobby, assertion of something for recreation.
Same folks full of myths and misconceptions of the Mining Industry and constantly bite the hand that feeds them and yes they have it all because grandpa and dad worked their arse's off in the stopes or very tough labour clearing bush, sacrificing and building a nation under extremey hard conditions. Today it is a parody of what was authentic, including brains in some instances.
Also no shortage of pot, pills, booze and complaining. A lot.
Even exploration crews on Crown Land get harassed. We used to be hero's, hope's for a future. Now they want us gone, not even their land but get out of our space. Space is like 300 miles every direction.
Yes we have lost too much. Interurban's, streetcars, the daily train or two arriving at a station with travelers, folks coming home or going somewhere, parcels, mail, anticipation ..lost. Some very far frontier or remote locations still have it but it is disappearing real fast like the winter snow will.
Today the media and politicians and science always tout "sustainability".
Do not know how these lifestyles are sustainable but nothing was more sustainable than the railroads and for the most part they have vanished from the every day town scene.
NDGThe amount of HEAT, and hot waste water from mills just WASTED is astounding, let alone the Pollution!
The problem is finding a use for all that heat.
A "co-gen" was built on the local military installation. Electricity, and steam to heat the buildings. They had to give up the heat part as the soil was eating the buried steam pipes from the outside.
Our regional landfull has captured methane from the dump and uses it to power generators which sell electricity back to the grid. Step two, realized in other places if not yet here, is to use the waste heat from the gensets to air condition greenhouses. One such installation in western NY reportedly provides a fifth of the tomatoes consumed in NY.
If one could harness the heat from a single blast furnace, that would be quite the greenhouse...
Initially at the beginning of service it was only about shipping cost and the new concept of a "unit train" was enough in and of itself. The process of pelletizing the iron ore involved a lot of heat energy and the pellets themselves retained a lot of heat. It was only a matter of time before someone put 2 and 2 together and determine that smelting costs could be reduced by requiring less energy and be more efficient overall if a simple effort was made to ensure they retained as much heat as possible upon arrival. My technical reports were the property of Dominion Foundries, the ONR, CNR and the Sherman Mine. There were some technical seminars and publications on these findings in Mining trade journals.
The Ontario Northland Railway ran the train from Temagami to North Bay, a tight, twisty, turny, blasted through outcrop every inch of right of way, all the way. About 100 miles. The climb uphill out of North Bay to the Canadian Shield was steep, fortunately the train ran empty returning this way. The descent with a loaded train must have been tricky and required vigilance in the winter. The winters in Temagami and North Bay are the real deal. Canadian National took over at North Bay and ran via the Halton Subdivision to Burlington, Ont., through busy Bayview Junction and then minutes to arrival at Dofasco along the shores of Hamilton Harbour. The service was expanded later to include another mine further up the line in Kirkland Lake, the Adams Mine.
The train ran about 20 years. Dofasco owned the mines and announced their closure around 1990.
The town of Temagami has never been the same but it still retains one of the prettiest railroad stations anywhere.
Trains had a "Railroad News Photo" of them back around 1967 or so, which is how I knew about them.
Yep - that's the article I found earlier today - about the first 1/3 of that issue:
http://www.exporail.org/can_rail/Canadian%20Rail_no278_1975.pdf
Also the bottom of the 2nd page of this article from Trains (July 1980, pg. 30):
http://railviewmrc.ca/pdf/Bayview.pdf
Colour photo of one - ONR 6500 - at the bottom of this webpage:
http://trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/onr/four.htm
Some other photos (what URLs !):
http://www.railpictures.ca/main-page/back-in-the-days-of-the-ore-train-a-run-from-mines-in-temagami-to-hamilton-for-dofasco-it-usually-got-5-units-gp40-2-or-sd40s-and-90-cars
http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/four-matching-cn-sd40s-haul-a-dedicated-unit-ore-train-in-northern-ontario-hamilton-service-seen-here-underway-and-splitting-the-signals-at-mile-30-north-of-milton-these-shorty-cylindri
And a 2013 thread about them and the operation:
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/11208
Those cars and their operation were different enough in so many ways that they deserve a thread of their own, so info on them can be found more easily. Maybe later on this week. Now if I can only get Mike/ wanswheel to help me with the search for other articles and photos . . .
- PDN.
The ore cars were unique.See March 1975 issue of Canadian Rail.
Paul D. North Jr- Yes exactly those. From the Sherman Mine in Temagami, Ont. to Dofasco in Hamilton ..a real unit train.
It was a very successful operation that lasted years but the mine was shut down prematurely, very controversial. ending operations.
I did not post a picture but it is easily found with a web search.
Miningman [snipped - PDN] . . . One of my favourite contracts was working with CN/ONR shipping out hot pelletized iron ore from Temagami, Ont in special pellet cars down to Hamilton steel mills. We studied optimum temperature's for shipping, speed, loading, heat loss, and other factors. Hot pellets arriving at an optimum temperature reduced smelting costs considerably. Literally hot train...fast schedule, point to point, quick crew changes, no delays, keep the hot pellets hot.
Literally hot train...fast schedule, point to point, quick crew changes, no delays, keep the hot pellets hot.
NDG- Most all Exploration Companies, including mine, were strictly dry camps. Sometimes we would send out an invoice for 24 bottles of milk. The folks in charge back in accounting head office would say something if it was all too frequent but at the end of project of a 4 month stay in remote trailers it was generally overlooked and understood.
Cabin fever was something that had to be dealt with as well.
Exploration work was 99% of the time really isolated, access and supplied by helicopter. On one occasion the peanut butter starting disappearing in camp. We ordered more...gone soon again. And again. One fellow was particularily vocal about the whole thing and was freaking out about the peanut butter. He started complaining weirdly that people were stealing his peanut butter. A little investigation ensued and we found about 25 jars under his bed. He then guarded it with an axe. Time to call the helicopter and get him out of there.
Bugs were insane. Some folks went mad or got real sick. Recall a young student geologist from the States who puffed up like a whale shortly after arriving..his face was gone, poor guy, call the helicopter again. He was ok in time but never came back.
One of my favourite contracts was working with CN/ONR shipping out hot pelletized iron ore from Temagami, Ont in special pellet cars down to Hamilton steel mills. We studied optimum temperature's for shipping, speed, loading, heat loss, and other factors. Hot pellets arriving at an optimum temperature reduced smelting costs considerably.
This thread (started by Ulrich) on this Forum from March 2009 may be of interest:
"The Crowsnest Pass.." - http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/150562.aspx
I want to dig out that May 1968 Trains article, "The Crow and the Kettle".
Also this:
"The Crowsnest Pass Railway Route" [another "CPR" ? ]- A presentation of the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel, Cranbrook, BC.
http://www.crowsnest.bc.ca/
I did find a link to the bike trail site, too:
http://www.northstarrailtrail.com/
Only rail-trail I've ever seen with a yellow line down the middle to separate the travel each way . . . they should have left it unmarked, just like a single track to share traffic in each direction.
Now back to my work (and cat).
- Paul North.
Well thank you NDG. Brings back memories for me. I was in Pine Point for a year before hiring on with Cominco's competitor, INCO, back East in Sudbury. I've always wondered what would be if I had stayed on with Cominco...really broke my heart to leave the West and the frontier but wife had a lot to say about that.
Full circle... left INCO started my own Company in 1988, field exploration and Mining Engineering services, mostly to do with grade control and geological engineering and one of my early contracts came from Cominco...marriage dashed on the rocks well before that so back out West I went. NWT, Yukon, Newfoundland, Northern Quebec, Porcupine Camp in Ontario...lots of work. Then you get older.
Now I teach, but I'm out West and North so it's all good. Teaching is good for us old dudes. Except some of the young profs who hate you for whatever reason, ageism I suspect, and marking can be a really tedious thing. That I can do from home with the coffee on and the news channels keeping me in the loop. It's peanuts compared to what I used to do. Creating exams is a lot of fun. The students give you hope and keep you fresh. I argue with The Coordinators, Curriculum folks, Accrediting folks, some other Profs that think I'm a fossil, and sometimes the Director but no one else knows Mining and they just don't know. Got to teach them to! This aging thing is for the birds I tell ya, mind good but as Firelock pointed out, not so easy to get up once crouched down on one knee.
This week, no teaching, no school, it's "reading week" whatever that means. It means all the young profs are on a warm beach somewhere along with other staff. Never had that in my day, ever. I'm just home enjoying staying up late and sleeping in, more time for the Forum, this week anyway.
Hot muck ...muck is broken rock, either ore or waste, by blasting or mechanical means, not muck as in mud when you were a kid. Ore is rock that contains enough valuable minerals that it can be mined at a profit. If it is ore, as in a massive sulphide, which is the case at the mine you serviced, and you have a big big muckpile then it will start to oxidize, eventually enough so that it will turn molten like lava, and voila ...hot muck!
Spent many months over several years in BC working for Cominco and Teck Corp. Teck is full of grads from my old Mining School back in Ontario. I was never a great Cordilleran geologist, I'm a Volcanic Massive Sulphide (VMS) guy or back in the day a "Greenstone" geologist.
Great stories and recounting of events from you and I look forward to them. Love the Willamette encounters. Some things are just meant to be a good thing for a very long time.
Paul_D_North_JrTo me a Kershaw is a MoW ballast regulator - Royce Kershaw being the inventor of it, and the company and machine named after him
An interesting legal proceeding that describes some of the early Kershaw history is [url=http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/209/447/1411936/]here.
Military installation near here has (had?) a Kershaw with a snowblower on one end and the blades on the other. I haven't been out there in the winter in quite a while, so I don't know the current status.
Model 46 with all the bells & whistles (industry standard for years)...and it's older cousin Model 26 with less hydraulics, less power and more cable.(some of them closing in on 50 years old)
There is a difference between the contractor and the manufacturer these days.
"It was determined that snow over the rail was not a good thing ( As In First Train thru after a storm ) and 4-whl. MoW plow thing, it was called a Kershaw???, Never Saw it, and it had a heated house for it someplace, sent up to Mines to patrol the track when snowing." [snipped - PDN]
To me a Kershaw is a MoW ballast regulator - Royce Kershaw being the inventor of it, and the company and machine named after him.
Some may have been modified for use as a 'snow dozer' (longer wings instead of just the low wedge plows on the front of the 'ballast boxes' on the sides.
Link to photo of one:
http://www.rtands.com/images/stories/2012%20features/08_2012/Ballast/knox.jpg
Link to another photo of one, also shows the 2 wheels on the near side, and the rotary 'sweeper' broom at the rear:
http://www.remtech.info/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/kershaw26-3.jpg
Thank You !
NDG Who is 'Bucky??'
Formerly known as Bucyrus and now known as Euclid (note both are earth moving machine makers) and a lot of s..t he shovels.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
RME NDG Where did it all go? The Romance? Keep going!
NDG Where did it all go? The Romance?
Keep going!
NDGWhere did it all go? The Romance?
Many tourist lines try their darndest to recreate those days, even as "trail advocates" try to rip up the roadbed. And people do ride, seeking an idea of what it might have been like.
It's almost amazing how many riders we get who have never been on a train in their lives.
Much of it still here. In this thread. Every night.
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