I can't find a picture or anything in any of my references on this so I'm hoping some of you may have better luck. How and who delivered the iron ore to the Colorado Fuel and Iron steel mill outside Pueblo. I know at least some of the ore came from a mine in Wyoming and I think that might have been served by the Colorado and Wyoming, but did they use ore cars, hoppers or gondolas, and whose cars were they? I am guessing they used gondolas up until the mid-60's as that seemed to be the practice for ore movement on most western roads, and I don't believe the DRGW owned any specialized ore cars, but I have no documentation on this. Can anyone help here? Thanks. Todd
See Pueblo Railway Museum - News Colorado and Wyoming Railway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia RailroadPix.Com Railroad Photos : Colorado & Wyoming 203 in Pueblo, CO Colorado Fuel and Iron - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hi Todd, I have seen some photos somewhere that showed D&RGW units pulling UP ore jennies and gons to CF&I. I believe they were delivered to the Grande in Denver from Wyoming. I will try to find them and give you the link. BTW, the Grande did not have any "ore" cars to my knowledge, but there could be others more knowledgeable than I. Maybe early on in the history of the road.
Todd, also prior to 1933 there was iron ore mined and the Orient Mine east of Villa Grove Colorado shipped through Salida to Pueblo. I have no photos but I believe the iron ore was loaded at the mine into narrow guage gondolas as the Orient branch was strickly narrow gauge. This mine is now the home to millions of bats that is quite a tourist attraction Mike B.
Welcome to Trainboard, Mike B! We're glad to have you here. As far as the ore, I have not seen in any of my books any photo or reference to a D&RGW ore jennie, but GS gons would prolly have been used in that service. They were used in nearly every kind of service imaginable on the 'Grande. Salida had the barrel transfer from NG to SG gons--was it originally for this ore?
In it's later years, the Salida barrel transfer was for limestone from the Monarch Branch to be used at CF&I.
The barrel transfer was only for limestone in later years, the bulk of its life it transfered coal from the Crested Butte area on the Gunnison line. The mine at Monarch didn't start producing limestone until later years. I wouldn't be suprised if some iron ore was transfered at the barrel transfer at some point. Alex
The rotary dumper at Salida has always fascinated me, one of my dream projects is to model it some day even as a static model it would be a challenge. I have a copy of the Railway Age article (pp. 1116 & 1117, Vol. 77, No. 25) on the dumper which does not show the year but I believe it is 1924 or 1925. The article says that 85% of the transfer is coal and ore with the rest be other bulk commodities. It says the transfer takes 5 men to operate which replaced 75 men before the barrel roll. The article continues to say in August 1924 the car dumper cost averaged 4 cents per ton while with hand labor it used to average 23 cents per ton. During June-Sept 1924 111,788 tons were transfterred saving labor of $11,910. The photographs in the article do not show the gondolas very clearly. However, if you go to the Denver Public Library and search thier photograph database for the rotary dumper you will find several photos showing gondolas, not sure if these are the standard or narrow gauge cars. I know we are drifting a little from the original question but couldn't resist talking about the barrel roll. Mike B.
Hi Go to the DRGW group and search the archives... there is heaps of similar data you may find useful. If you're not a member, use Nathans mirror site off <http://www.drgw.net/> to find same. Actually his yields better serach results and indicies than the Yahoo engine does... And you will need to chek a lot of the threads- bad subject lines and cross posting is very common with many non-internet literate group members, so there's a wealth of misarchived info there... cheers dave
