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Canadian Rail ;: No. 348 JANUARY 1981 c--_I o .~==5u' 1 C ;::c> J - :I' I " IAN Published monthly by The Canadian Railroad· Historical Association P.O. Box 22, Station B Montreal ,Quebec,Canada H3B 3J5 ISSN 0008 -4875 EDITOR: Fred F. Angus CALGARY & SOUTH WESTERN DIVISION CO-EDITOR: M. Peter Murphy 60-6100 4th Ave. NE BUSINESS CAR: Dave J. Scott Calgary, Al berta T2A 5Z8 OFFICIAL CARTOGRAPHER: William A. Germani uk OTTAWA LAYOUT: Michel Paulet BYTOWN RAILWAY SOCIETY P.O. Box 141, Station A Ottawa, Ontario K1N 8Vl NEW BRUNSWICK DIVISIOtl P.O. Box 1162 Saint John, New Brunswick E2L 4G7 CROWSNEST AND KETTLE-VALLEY DIVISION P.O. Box 400 Cranbrook, British Columbia V1C 4H9 PACIFIC COAST DIVISION P.O. Box 1006, Station A, Vancouver British Columbia V6C 2Pl ROCKY MOUNTAIN DIVISION P.O. Box 6102, Station C, Edmonton Alberta T5B 2ND FRONT COVER: WINDSOR-ESSEX DIVISION ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE No. 114 of 300 Cabana Road East, Windsor the INCO Railway at Copper Cliff Ontario N9G lA2 Ontario is pulling a slag train from the shelter. This is the TORONTO & YORK DIVISION deepest point in the plant, P.O. Box 5849, Terminal A, Toronto built 1926. Note the stone work. Ontario M5W lP3 Engine No. 114 was built in 1942 by General Electric. NIAGARA DIVISIOO Kenneth A.W.Gansel. P.O. Box 593 St.Catharines, OPPOSITE: Ontario L2R 6W8 G.E. 65-ton locomotive No. 110, bu i lt in 1936, i s pi c tu r ed i n ST. LAWRENCE VALLEY DIVISION the shop area of the INCO P.O. Box 99 Railway in January 1980. Ste. Doroth~e, Quebec H7X 2T4 'INoo ELECTRIC RAILWAY !helke_and BrimstoneRollte By Kenneth A. W. Gansel All photos by the author. June 1980 marked the 50th Anniversary of the INCO smelter at Copper Clief, Ontario. The smelter is located about 6km west of down town Sudbury. It is the world's largest nickel-copper smelting complex and as such plays a vital role in the Canadian economy. Construction of the smelter was begun in 1928 and was completed in the Spring of 1930. The first molten metal being produced on June 11, 1930. To serve the smelter, an electric railway was also constructed. It operated within the plant and to adjacent mine sites. The railway is also celebrating it's 50th Anniversary this year. The INCO smelter in Sudbury is best known for the famous "SUPERSTACK" which is 381m tall (1250 ft). The giant stack overshadows the whole area. Just a note of interest, the "stack" is about 5ft thick at the base and the base is about 200 ft in diameter, there is a road through the base. However, at the top the stack is only 3" thick and has tapered to a diameter of 10ft. The electric railway operates on 600v DC using a variety of General Electric locomotives and a few old Westinghouse electric locomotives from 1919. The railway operates as an in plant switching service, and there are about 125 miles of track in the plant and out to the mines. One of the railway's functions is to haul slag from the smelters to the slag dump, an operation which has been going on since the smelter first opened in 1930. Molten slag is hauled from the deep insides of the plant about 3 miles to the slag dump and poured down the hill. The slag ranges in temperature from 1,2000 F for Nickel slag to 1,6000 F for Cobolt slag. The trains of slag are about 10 cars long and are pushed by a second locomotive up and out of the plant and up the long hill to the dump site. Most of the slag is now being reclaimed, almost as soon as it is dumped and is being sold to the various Canadian railways as balast. The slag is considered as the best material for railway roadbeds and i sam u c h sou g h t aft e r p'r 0 d u ct. CANADIAN R A I L INCO Railway No. 118 at the head of a train from which molten slag is being poured at a temperature of 1600 degrees Farenheit. One can feel the heat from 100 feet away. No. 114 moving slag cars. Date is January 1980. CANADIAN 6 R A I L The INCO electric railway has a complete shop for the repair of its locomotive fleet. A fleet of 26 electric locomotives and one diesel locomotive to handle the movement of an out af service electric. The majority of the aectrics were purchased by INCO and the rest were purchased second hand from such lines as the NS&T (CN's NIAGARA, ST .CATHARINES AND TORONTO). One electric came from the Eastern Michigan Railway in 1936. The EMR operated from Detroit West to Battle Creek during the 1920' sand 1930' s. Most of the electrics which were acquired in 1926 and 1930, the original group (#101-109), are no longer in service and are stored in an old building which is no longer in use. The building served as an ore dump building. These old electrics are still painted m the orange and brown, INCO's original colours. The current paint scheme is yellow with black INCO logo. The railway is in operation 24 hrs a day, and makes a trip to the slag dump about every 2 to 3 hrs. The dump cars with the two buckets are dumped by electricity. There is a thick layer on the top of the molton slag this is called a skull and when this falls out of the bucket it makes for a bright sight as it rolls down the hill. Now that the BUTTE, ANACONDA & PACIFIC RAILWAY has terminated electric operations, INCO becomes the largest user of electric locomotives o Not including AMTRAK or CONRAIL. INCO Railway No o 125, a G.E. 85-ton electric locomotive built in 1950. CANADIAN 7 R A I L NOW OUT OF SERVICE, No. 109, a 50-tonner built by Westinghouse in 1919 is depicted in the old colours of the INCO Railway. THREE GENERATIONS IF INCO RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVES are shown in the shop at Copper Cliff Ontatio in January 1980. From left to right we see No. 101 (Westinghouse 50-ton 1919), No. 113 (G.E. 100-ton 1938) and No. 119 (G.E. 100-ton 1953). PULLING SLAG CARS FROM THE SHELTER at the INCO plant at Copper Cliff. The locomotive in the building is No. 118. CANADI A N 9 R A I L A PAIR OF G.E. 85-TONNERS built in 1950, Nos. 124 and 126 set out to the mine. BERMUDAB RATTLE AND SHAKE RAILWAY By: DAVID E. STEPHENS Curator, Musquodoboit Railway Museum, It cost more per mile to construct than almost any rail way line in the world; its operation was one of the most care free; it was out-done by the automobile; and its lost is still mourned by those who loved her. That was the old "Rattle and Shake" railway of Bermuda. The British Colony of Bermuda is a group of self-govern ing islands in the western North Atlantic, about 600 miles from North America. Because of the warming influence of the Gulf Stream, Bermuda has just two basic seasons - summer and not-quite summer. The Colony is only 21 miles long and has an average width of one mile. Prior to the end of the Second World War, the only means of public transportation on land, other than bikes and horse-drawn vehicles, was a motor bus known as the "Scarlet Runner", which poked along between St. George's and Hamilton. Even though it operated with the permission of the government, the machine had such a bad effect on horses that the experiment in public transit soon ended. In 1924, the House of Assembly took up the issue of a railway. As the government wanted to keep Bernuda "unhurried", it was argued that a railway would aid in keeping out the auto mobile. On the other hand, some felt that such a venture would have financial and esthetic side effects. One critic of the rail way said it would be like placing an "iron serpent in the Garden of Eden". Eventually the idea for a railway won support, and construction began in 1926. Investors from England put up over ~750,OOO for con struction and equipment. Although the total cost of the line was never known for sure, estimates run close to a million pounds (about $3 million). It had the repution of being one of the most expensive railways per mile to build. The Bermuda Railway was officially opened on October 31st (Halloween), 1931, when the western half from Hamiltaon to Somerset was completed. Travelling in the primrose yellow coaches was the Governor, His Excellency Sir Thomas Astley Cubitt, KCB, CMG, OSO, as well as about 150 other noteables. Leaving Hamilton for the twelve mile trip, the small gasoline driven cars couldn't make a steep grade and most of the passengers had to detrain and walk up the hill. The inaugural run of twelve miles took over an hour to complete. When it was finally completed, 25 miles of narrow-gauge track had been laid. One of the problems related to construction costs was the fact that over two miles of track was constructed on 22 steel bridges and 34 wooden trestles. The line crossed sections of open ocean nine times, with the longest bridge across the span of water from Coney Island to Ferry Point, at the entrance to Castle Harbour.