Railroad Crossings (p2)
There were a total of three major obstacles in the Copper Range’s way as it attempted to drive its line through the Quincy property. The first was the crossing of the Q&TL mainline to Mill #1, which it had done with an undercut. The next obstacle was the quite formidable Quincy Creek gorge. Over the centuries this small creek had managed to cut a very deep and steep canyon straight through the middle of the Quincy property. The Copper Range had two possible solutions it could use, the most obvious being a trestle. But Copper Range had a much cheaper solution in mind - they simply filled the thing in with dirt.
A Typical Rock Car (p1)
The typical Q&TL rock car was the narrow-gauge open-top hopper built by the Chicago firm Wells-French. The railroad had over 119 rock cars in stock by the time Quincy closed down - the majority of them of the hopper variety. These cars were built from wood, and had sloped floors at their ends. These sloped floors fed the ore into the discharge chute at the bottom of the car. On each side of the car was a set of controls, which were either used to open and close the chute doors.
A Typical Rock Car (p2)
Thanks to some consultation with ever knowledgeable Gordy Schmitt (who also provided the photo at the start of this post - thank you Gordy!) I have pieced together the details of how these discharge chutes probably worked. The chute consisted of a wooden funnel at the bottom of the car - which you can see above. Inside the funnel are two chute doors, which serve to hold the copper rock inside the car during transportation. The doors open inward, dropping down to the center of the funnel. Each of these doors is held shut by a pair of chains, which are connected to the doors on one end and to a metal crank on the other.
More Quincy Rock Cars
I would have to admit that after three years of exploring the Copper Country there isn’t too much that surprises me anymore. Hoist foundation? Check. Boiler Stack foundation? Check. Rock House foundation? Check. The list is the same each time, almost no matter where I go. But then there are those times that arrive during our explorations that remind me of why I do what I do. These are moments where I am genuinely surprised by what I find, and for a moment I feel like an explorer of old that has laid his eyes on a long lost treasure that hadn’t been seen by human eyes for centuries. This was the case at Quincy when we stumbled across a long line of rock cars that had been abandoned along the wye connecting the Q&TL up with the Mineral Range. Amazing.