GLIO - Great Lakes Iron Ore - discussion of railroading, 1930's and later

[rcwarner1953]

Table of Contents

2024_09_01 *** New ***, GLIO Roundhouses, Part 1

2024_06_07 Tower Soudan Mine Tours & other

2024_05_08 Hot Boxes

2024_04_23 Ore Dock and Yard Operations, Part 2

2024_04_09 Ore Dock and Yard Operations, Part 1

2024_03_29 Pulpwood

2024_05_18 Ore Cars and Ore Trains

2024_03_08 GLIO Introduction

GLIO Introduction

This is the start of a blog about various railroad topics using the GLIO as an example. Questions and comments are welcome.

The GLIO is my first route. I missed my railroading days and thought to build my own railroad to enjoy. Because I actually had railroad experience, it would be as real world as I could make it. The starting idea was to build a route that I could run many different types of trains. I, as a child and adult, was always fascinated by the iron ranges of Minnesota and the operations on the ore docks of Duluth, MN and Superior, WI. The route would have an iron range, with mines, collection yards, sidings, etc. The port would have an ore dock, sorting yard, roundhouse, etc.

There are at least three factors to consider when building a railroad. What type of railroad would this be? The answer, it will be built for heavy trains. It is not a glorious trans-continental high speed mainline. The other two factors interact with each other. Construction costs vs operating costs. Flat and curve less track means cheaper operating costs. The decision, after an initial fictional survey, would be to build a mainline from the collection yards to the docks and to not have long uphill grades of more than .5% and short downhill grades of 2%. In the diesel DC traction motor era, the rule of thumb is 1 hp per 1 ton per 1% grade. Four EMD F-7s, 1500 hp each, should be able to pull 12,000 tons. Roughly 120 ore cars.

The considerations to build track to the mines is different. Mines open and get depleted and then close. The goal is to get to the mine cheaply. Higher operating costs are OK.

My goal was to also make enough scenery changes to make it interesting. The Missabi iron range is part of a large geological uplift, hence the various rock features. The marshes and forests are a predominate feature around Lake Superior which I feature around the mines. The trees are primarily quaking leaf aspen which has replaced the old growth pines cut down in the 1800’s. I tried to help GPU loads by using lakes, fields, cut timber areas. There is some small-scale farming in the Great Lakes area. I also used many railroad building construction practices to keep the .5% grade, fills, cuts, horseshoe curves, and tunnels.

As it turned out, the route's hardest sustained pull for a loaded ore train is coming into the Hillcrest siding. The Soo Line had a 20 mile .5% hill from Genola, MN to Onamia, MN. This branch line was mostly used for grain trains to the ports of Duluth and Superior. The trains were always at the maximum tonnage for the horsepower used. Being really bored, I would get off the caboose and run behind the train. That is the reality of bulk tonnage railroads.

Enough for now.
Gandy Dancer

 

[MasterTracklayer]

I remember this route from your pre-release thread. I just love it, because of attachments to the region and the time period. Where did you say it was available from? I`m trying to remember if I made an exception to my no-routes rule for your beautiful work. Is there a free-drive session?

Edit: No, that was a model railroad route that I downloaded. Sorry. I`m still salivating over your route, though.

 

[rcwarner1953]

The route, 4 sessions, rolling stock, and other items are all prefixed GLIO on the DLS. Perhaps the fastest way to find them is by author "rcwarner1953". The route and sessions have a documentation directory which contains information on where non-DLS kuids can be found. Edit the route/session using explorer to view the documentation. Note, route and sessions were built in TRS22.

 

[rcwarner1953]

Ore Cars and Ore Trains

A loaded ore car, generally slightly overloaded, weighted 95+ tons. That was heavy for its era. Empty, they weighted slightly less than 20 tons. They were 24 feet long. The typical boxcar was 40-50 feet long, empty 22+ tons, loaded 73+ tons. Not often fully loaded at their maximum weight due to the weight per cubic foot of the cargo.
Ore cars were the dirtiest rail cars to work on. They were covered in dust from loading, rain washing off the load, and from the wind blowing dust off them. The crew in the caboose sometimes had to keep the window closed even though it may be a miserably hot day. That dust was red iron oxide. It stained clothes red and any other thing it came in touch with. Also, see picture, the wheels extended out from the car body and the wheels were coated in a dirty oil so when a man had to hang air hoses it meant making contact.
https://www.trainzportal.com/mytrainz/view_media_post?media_post_id=456229

Engineers running ore trains were specialists. The ore train handled like no other train. They were either fully loaded or fully empty. An empty train having a minimal brake reduction (6 pounds, train line feed valve set at 90#) would slow immediately and could embarrassingly stop the train. Loaded trains were the opposite. Depending on weather and grade, sometimes a full-service reduction (26 pounds) would take a long, long time to slow down or stop the train. They were far heavier than any other trains.

The car air brake valves in that era were not as sophisticated as today’s. The time to set or release brakes could be measured in minutes at the caboose. The advantage ore trains did have, as mentioned above, was the shorten length of the brake pipe from engine to the caboose. This advantage may not have existed because some railroads ran 220 ore cars in a train. This number of cars, air pipe length and number of brake valves, greatly increased the time to charge the brakes and to apply or release of the brakes. See Wikipedia “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_air_brake “ for information on the details of air brakes.

All that weight of a loaded train was in one half to one third the length of a mixed freight train. That meant on the GLIO’s track dips and humps, the train behaved like a roller coaster, as in real life. A long-mixed freight would go over the dips and humps with little need to brake or increase power. This is due to the compensating factor that part of the train is going uphill and the other part is going downhill.

It was interesting sitting in the caboose watching the loaded trains slack run in and out. For example, the train’s engine would reach the crest of a hump. All the slack was stretched out. Then the front would start downhill. The caboose would crest the hill and the rear of the train would run into the front. You could see exactly where the slack changed. At the point, the humped ore load on the car would settle and sometimes spill ore off the sides. It went from front to back until you felt the impact in the caboose.

The penalty for poor train handling was a broken drawbar knuckle. All trains carried spare knuckles. The knuckles were meant to break, but sometimes they did not and the car was “gutted”. This is a term for pulling out the drawbar. Severe poor train handling could also result in derailments. Very uncommonly, a train would lose its brakes and crash/derail.

Well for now, good luck in your train handling. Perhaps in another entry I will talk about replacing knuckles.

Questions and comments are welcome.

Gandy Dancer

 

[rcwarner1953]

Pulpwood

The GLIO railroads were more than just iron ore. Perhaps their next biggest commodity originating in the iron range areas was pulpwood. Trains composed of almost all pulpwood and chips were common.

The original forest covering was huge ancient pines. All were cut before and after 1900. There were miles and miles of nothing but stumps and debris. Towns sprang up with gambling, taverns, and prostitution as the big attractions. They lasted until the trees were gone and then became lost memories. This timber fed the building booms of this country. Homes, barns, stores, and whole cities built with this timber. The precursors of the GLIO railroads participated in the shipping of the lumber.

After the trees were gone, some of the land was sold to those desiring to farm. Most remained owned by the Federal and State governments. There were also large holdings by the logging companies. After iron ore was discovered around Lake Superior, mining companies acquired vast land areas as well.

In a remarkably short time, 1930 or so, the forests reappeared with aspen, popular, jack pine, birch, and other tree species. These trees grew quickly and thrived on the disturbed soil. Timber companies also planted soft pine plantations. It should be noted that there were also huge uncontained fires of the debris from the earlier logging. The Peshtigo Wisconsin fire of 1871 killed as many as 2,500 and burned 1875 sq. miles. The Hinkley Minnesota fire of 1894 killed at least 418 and burned 390 sq. miles. This contributed to the change of tree and animal species.

The new forests species were needed by the paper mills, and other wood product industries. The industries of northeast Wisconsin were a common destination. The GLIO railroads primarily used gondolas to transport pulpwood in about 8 foot “sticks”. In the GLIO era; a farmer could cut pulp in the winter and then order, from the railroad agent at the depot, a gondola. All the labor was manual. The use of railroad provided ramps, made loading the gondola easier. The companies, large and small, ordered gondolas as well. They may have used cable booms to load. Many had their own private sidings.

The big technology change came with the modern chainsaw which commercially became available in the 1950’s. These chainsaws were big and very heavy. It wasn’t until machinery, using hydraulics, that the whole nature of logging changed. Still, gondolas transported pulpwood.

Woodchips were also common. They were shipped in boxcars. Cars were spotted next to sheds with the chipping machinery. The shipper blew the chips into the boxcar. The regular car door was not used but left open. A temporary door of lumber, steel bands, cardboard, or a combination thereof, was installed on the door frame. At the delivery point, this door was literally torn off. The chips spilled into a sub ground vault. The car, in the modern era, was on a hydraulic track table which tilled the car and then lifted it up back and forth spilling out the chips. I was forced to use hoppers in the GLIO route/sessions as I could not find items matching above.

Pulpwood was a nightmare to switchmen in the yards. The sticks commonly shifted and stuck out of the car. At night especially, you could get hit by one as you hung onto the side of cars. The railroad tracks, between cities that had a lot of pulp traffic, had pulp sticks scattered here and there that shifted and fell off. A shifted pulp load also could cause damage to a train met at a siding. The shifted loads also made a car “bad order” and it had to go to the rip (repair in place) tracks and be restacked before leaving a terminal. Bulkhead flats caring pulp sticks parallel to the track is the current way to ship pulpwood. They carry more pulpwood, but perhaps more importantly, address the problems noted above.

The GLIO sessions have loaded pulpwood gondolas. I was not able to find a realistic load but made due with a load create by Dave Snow for a bulkhead flat. If anyone knows of a better load (see picture above), please let me know.

Questions and comments are welcome.

Gandy Dancer

 

[rcwarner1953]

Ore Dock and Yard Operations, Part 1

The railroad operations at the mine collection yards were simple. The mines called the railroads and ordered empties. A mine job would deliver the empties and then pull any loads. Each car was tagged by the mine with ownership and other information needed by the docks. A simplified waybill also was handled by the carrying train. Loads were brought to the collection yards and put on the next train being created going to the dock yards.

There are many types of iron ore. Each mine, and within a mine, may ship different types. For example, mines on the Minnesota Cuyuna range shipped iron ore with high manganese content. This made it ideal for tank armor. The receiving dock yard was given instructions by the steel companies how they wanted this ore loaded into the ore boats. On the great lakes, all ships were called boats.



The largest ore docks in the world were located at Superior, Wisconsin also known as Allouez. There were four docks each approaching 2400 feet long with 400 pockets spaced at 12 feet apart. Each pocket could hold 4 ore cars. The dock superintendent with (remember this was before computers) a large staff of clerks tracked the loading of a total of roughly 1600 ore dock pockets. Each pocket was loaded with a mix of ore specified by the steel companies.

All ore cars were weighted. Then the yardmaster, clerks, and switch crews broke apart the received trains so that when a string of cars was shoved to the dock, every other car would be over the correct ore dock pocket. Allouez had 96 classification tracks use to assemble the shove. An ore car was twenty-four feet, pockets were twelve feet. The hatches on the ore boats accommodated this spacing as well. A typical ore boat in the 1950’s era held about 20,000 tons and was plus or minus 650 feet long. The railroad spotted roughly 300 cars over 75 different pockets for each boat. The boats would winch themselves up and down the dock to get their hatches under the correct spouts.

The steel companies coordinated with the mines on what ores they wanted. The desired ore was mined and placed in ore cars. An ore boat was scheduled to be at the dock when the ore dock was fully loaded with the boat’s cargo. Loaded ore cars were expected to be dumped into the docks pockets as soon as possible and returned back to the mines. A full dock pocket, four cars, required four different strings of cars. The dock had four tracks with each pocket having two tracks above them. The docks were not meant for storage. See the picture of the docks, the boats maybe waiting for a complete load. I don’t know the details on who paid the waiting costs.

I was told by long time employees at the Allouez ore docks, the peak years for the Allouez docks was in the 1950’s. Some days saw 4,000 cars unloaded on the docks. The railroad employed thousands of men to keep the ore moving. Most of the men were employed seasonally. Ore could not be shipped frozen. The season, depending on weather, generally started in April through November. Also, Lake Superior froze and was not open to navigation in the winter.

At the shared harbor of Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin; there were three ore dock complexes. The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range RR had one. The Great Northern RR had another. The Northern Pacific RR and Soo Line RR shared one. All four railroads interchanged iron ore cars to meet the iron ore requirements of the steel companies
.
There was a mix of ownership of the company’s involved in iron ore. United States Steel owned mines, the DMIR RR with its ore docks, ore boats and steel mills. There were other ownership combinations of mines, ore boats, steel mills. The DMIR RR was a common carrier regulated by the federal Interstate Commerce Commission, ICC. It carried ore and docked it for other companies as well as United States Steel.

We will detail the ore dock operations in part 2. Questions and comments are welcome.

Gandy Dancer

 

[mick1960]

Questions and comments are welcome.

That is the area where the story of this song took place?

Gordon Lightfoot - Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

Until I heard this song I wasn't aware of this part of industrial history. Very interesting!
If you need help creating (not too huge) assets feel free to contact me...

mick1960!

 

[rcwarner1953]

By 1975, processed taconite pellets had mostly replaced the depleted raw iron ore. Dock 1, far left on the picture above, had its railroad tracks replaced by a conveyor belt unloader combination on its left side. The conveyer belt carried taconite pellets from stock piles to the south. Dock 1 is probably where the Edmund Fitz had loaded taconite and departed from. There is a small chance that one of the other docks was used for taconite. If boat loading demand exceeded dock 1 capacity, taconite could be unloaded from ore cars into the dock pockets, but I doubt it.

Gandy Dancer

 

[rcwarner1953]

Ore Dock and Yard Operations, Part 2

Per part 1, I will continue to use the Great Northern’s operation at Allouez as example of all ore dock operations.

*** Note*** currently Trainz gallery is not accepting pictures, forced to use the links below.

The switch crews have switched out the received ore trains and created a track holding the ore cars designated for the correct dock, dock track, and the ore car sequence for every other dock pocket. A switch crew will then prepare to shove the track to the dock. All the air hoses are connected and full train air brake test is done.

There was double track to the docks diverging point. From there it was double track to each dock. An interlocking tower controlled entry/exit access to the docks. Each dock had four tracks with cross overs allowing access to any combination of inbound tracks, outbound tracks, and entry/exit from the dock. Two switch crews could be on the same dock.

In the diesel era, the GN used single EMD SD7s and SD9s at Allouez. The crew would get the OK to shove to the dock upon coordination between the yard, the ore dock, and an interlocking tower controlling access to the four docks. The switch crew foreman would sit on top of the first car going to the dock. In most decades there were no radios. Another switch crew member would sit a few cars from the engine to pass signals from the foreman. The engineer would watch that switchman. The fireman would watch his side if on a curve. From the switch yard to the dock was up hill. It was pretty simple. The engine would be in throttle 8, dark smoke would be coming out the two exhaust stacks, moving at about 12 miles per hour. Stalls did happen. The foreman watched for the correct interlocking signals and once on the dock, spot the cars above their designated pockets. I remember about 30 cars on a shove, hopefully close to being correct. The switch crew, on their return, may or may not pull empties as directed by the dock. That could be a 100 or so cars.

Day or night, good or bad weather dock shoves occurred. Extremely rarely, ore cars were shoved out the end of the dock into the water. The docks did have lights on them.

The cars were then pulled back to the yard. The cars were then inspected for defects or expired maintenance dates. Cars needing repair were tagged with bad order tags, BO. The BO cars were switched out and eventually placed on RIP tracks (repair in place for cars designated light repairs, BOL) or if heavy repairs needed (BOH) into repair sheds. The good empties went back to the mines. The GN typically used several EMD F7s or F9s for trains to and from the ore range collection yards.

The dock employed clerks, electricians, ore punchers, blacksmiths, mechanics, carpenters, and other classes of employees. If you look at the ore dock picture in part 1, between dock 2 and 3 was a two-story building containing offices, lunch rooms, locker rooms, storage, etc. The upper story was at dock level. An elevator was available to get to the parking lot below. Between docks 1 and 2 was a large machine shed containing Cushman carts, trap machines, and other machines used on the ore docks.

Poking stuck ore image link

In the early years, opening the ore car doors and the poking of ore sticking on the cars was done by men. Later machines, driven by the dock employees, opened and closed the doors. The picture of the “ore punchers” showed them using steel rods to coax the ore out of cars that did not cleanly dump. Yes, you could get easily hurt or killed. Later the docks used machines to vibrate the stuck ore out the cars.

After the pockets were fully loaded the next process was to load the ore boats. The ore boat tied up to the ore dock with its hatches under the numbered ore dock chutes. It would have to winch itself back on forth along the dock to line up with the chutes. The ore boat’s 1st mate was in charge of loading. Among his concerns was to not stress the ore boat’s hull by loading just one area of the boat. The dock chutes lower end was hinged to the dock. An attached woven steel belt controlled its position. The dock chutes were lowered by gravity. See the worker’s foot, that was a brake. The hump by him contained the belt. When I saw them lowering chutes it seemed they took great pride in trying to scare the 1st mate with the speed the chutes came down. Once in a while, the chutes made contact with the boats. Much swearing. Rarely the contact was hard enough to bend the chute.

Loading ore into boat image link

The dock had electric motors with spinning geared shafts. One motor raised several dock chutes on either side of it. The dock worker slammed the individual chutes gear to mesh with the spinning shaft. Up came the chute, when fully up, the brake was dogged to hold it.

If you view a satellite map centered on Hibbing, Minnesota. Most of the unnamed bodies of water are mines which have filled with water. The mines around Hibbing were known as the Missabe range. There were other iron ore ranges in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Ontario, Canada. Most of the iron ranges are now inactive and memories. It bogles my mind on the amount of ore mined and shipped.

Questions and comments are welcome.

Gandy Dancer

 

[rcwarner1953]

Hot Boxes

I have been holding off on adding to the blog. I like to post pictures with the topic being discussed. I do so via the Picture Gallery, which has not been working since April 20th. There has been no announced fix. Below is link is a link with pictures and discussion.

If you have run the GLIO sessions, you may have noticed two lonely loaded iron ore cars at the Waldo siding. As discussed previously, ore cars were generally the heaviest loads on the railroad. They are either empty or fully loaded. The cars have been set out at Waldo due to a bearing failure, known by railroaders as a “hot box”.

Hot boxes on ore trains were common. Fiction bearings depended on frequent oiling. Carmen, at the trains originating yard, would walk the train prior to its departure and oil the bearings. The carmen used a journal box hook to open the journal box. They would look at the oil level in the box, if needed, they added oil from the oil can they carried. This was done day or night, rain or snow.

The trains crews hung their heads out frequently to look for smoke from a journal which indicated bearing failure. Experience crews knew with curves gave them good looks at the train. At night, a bearing failure maybe caught by smell or seeing actual fire coming from the journal. If a bearing failure was not caught, the fiction would literally melt the steel axel which would cause a derailment.

When a hox box was suspected, the train stopped and a trainman walked the train looking for the failed bearing. He would carry a bearing lube stick. When the hox box was found, he would carefully open the journal and place the lube stick on top of the fiction bearing. It would then melt giving the bearing enough lubrication to move the car. The train would then proceed slowly to the nearest siding and set the car out to be repaired later by carmen.

Becoming common in the 1970’s, the use of roller bearings was huge improvement over the fiction bearings. This is one of the reasons railroads got rid of cabooses. The use of way side hot bearing detectors is also contributed. Fiction bears were banded from use after 1995. See the link for pictures and a good discussion of fiction bearings.

https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2015/02/friction-bearings.html

Questions and comments are welcome.
Gandy Dancer

 

[rcwarner1953]

Tower Soudan Mine Tours & other

It is summer here and as I look out my window, I see a mother deer with a week-old fawn. It is a busy time of year so I have not updated the blog. My next major update will be on “roundhouses and activity therein”, probably closer to fall.

But for now, tours of the former United States Steel Tower Soudan underground iron mine are now available after several years of renovation. They take you down to level 27 at 2341 feet below the surface. The mine could still produce 65% iron ore but the economics of removal closed the mine in 1962. One of the highlights of the tour is when they turn off the lights. I couldn’t see my hand one inch from by eye. This may be the oldest iron mine in the Great Lakes area dating back to 1882. If you are close to northern Minnesota, it is worth a tour.

See links for further information.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/tours/lake_vermilion_soudan.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vermilion-Soudan_Underground_Mine_State_Park

Questions and comments are welcome.

Gandy Dancer

 

[rcwarner1953]

GLIO Roundhouses, Part 1

The signs of autumn are present. The first hints of color on stressed Maples are there. The flocks of darting nighthawks on their way to South America, for some reason, always makes thoughtful about the cycles of life and death.

Enough melancholy.

Roundhouses in the steam/diesel transition were at their peak in their diversity of activities. The railroads employed a huge work force of boilermakers, machinists, electricians, carpenters, blacksmiths, laborers, and others.

Steam engines needed huge amount of work to keep them working. A road engine would come in from a run. The roundhouse people would do a brief inspection, check Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) maintenance dates, and check the engine log for notes from the crew. The engine would then be spotted over the slag/ash pit and the fires dumped. Under the remaining steam pressure, the engine would be moved into a roundhouse stall. Many steam engines did not have roller bearings. Bearings/lubrication were a major headache. All the moving parts needed checking over. A steam engine at speed was literally trying to shake itself apart.

GLIO has two satellite roundhouses. Their role was to do maintenance, minor repairs, and inspections required by the FRA. Round houses were also required in any location where there was freezing weather. A steam engine could not be allowed to freeze. The roundhouse at Allouez was meant to do heavier repairs. A much larger roundhouse back shops complex would exist elsewhere to do rebuilds, extensive maintenance, and repairs. Some railroad designed and built their own steam engines.

Even decades after the steam era, the old roundhouses smelled like coal smoke, oil, hot steel, and other smells. In some ways, walking into a roundhouse during the day was like being in a church with daylight streaming through the windows and the high ceilings. The engines look huge inside the roundhouse emanating power.

When a steam engine was called to service, the laborers would start the fire. It could take hours for steam pressure to be adequate to move the engine. Some engines required fans to get adequate boiler drafts to start. When the engine could move, it was moved to the sand, water, and coal towers to be topped off. A hosteler or hosteler helper would check the fires to keep steam pressure and fire ready to go.

Diesels simplified engine readiness. A diesel engine would come in from an assignment. Machinists and laborers would do a quick inspection checking running gear, oil levels, water levels, FRA inspection card dates, and the engines log. It would be filled with diesel oil and sand if needed. The same as steam, a labor would also sweep the cab floor for cigarette butts and dirt. It could then be assigned to go out immediately. It may involve breaking up a multiple unit consist (MU) or adding to a MU consist. If no assignment pending, it would be moved to some storage track or roundhouse stall to wait to be called. It would be shut down. In cold weather, if outside, it would be left running so as not to freeze the radiator. Generally, there was no anti-freeze in the water. In very cold weather, the diesels were left to idle in throttle position 3.

The transition to diesels saved the railroads huge amounts of dollars. It also meant a large number of skilled workers being laid off. What is interesting is several railroads reluctantly gave up steam. Also, on road switchers, several railroads had the front on the long hood end like a steam engine.

A roundhouse had tracks assigned for inbound engines. In the diesel era, it almost always was the tracks with the sand tower and fuel stations. There would be several outbound tracks with the diesels stacked in order of their expected call time.

Roundhouses had extra tracks for coal to be lifted up into coal towers. Tracks for unloading fuel oil and sand. There would be also a track where slag/ash could be loaded onto a car.

In part 2, I will discuss the mechanical department’s work on rolling stock. Generally, this was part of roundhouses complexes.

Questions and comments are welcome and encouraged.

Gandy Dancer

 

[rcwarner1953]

Happy Labor Day - as a union member it meant double time and a half if worked.