The New Q&TL
After a short distance traveling along the trail, we came to a clearing. In front of us, crossing the trail and blocking our path, was a rail line. This line, however, was intact and relatively new looking. What’s more, it was actually three rails. The rails on the outside were normal enough, but the third rail in the center had a series of teeth along its length, looking more like the edge of a saw. Looking down its length the line dropped off the edge the hill beyond our view. In the distance we could see the lift bridge towers rising just above the ridgeline. Amazingly this rail ran directly down the side of the hill.
Originally, before the Q&TL, the Quincy mine had its stamp mill located on the shores of the Portage canal – just down the hill from where we stood. Moving the mill became necessary when the waste sands dumped into the Portage quickly made navigating the waterway difficult. When the mill was moved, (to Torch Lake some six miles distant) the Quincy Torch Lake Railroad was built. Before then, however, the ore was brought down Quincy hill to the original mill using a tramway working off gravity alone – straight down this hill.
That tramway required a set of parallel tracks, both holding a line of rock cars. Both lines of rock cars were connected together by a long cable that looped around a drum at the top of the hill. Gravity pulled full rock cars down the hill on one track, which in turn pulled up empty cars from the mill on the other track.
This tramway, however, was a more modern contrivance. Called a cog-rail tram, it is used by the Quincy Hoist Association to ferry tourists down the side of the hill and to the mine entrance at its base. Using a special cog-wheel (essentially a gear) that works with the saw-toothed inner rail to pull the train up the hill. While the train itself is relatively new, the technology has been used since the mid 1800’s to allow trains to climb grades too steep for a normal train to handle.
It was on our return journey past this same point that we happened to come across the tram in operation, ferrying tourists down the side of the hill past us as we watched. Click on the video link above to see it for yourself.