Working rail roads and their tracks.

[ArlyA]

Ever here the saying cart before the horse? that and some terrible planning. lol on several occasions a small idea of mine turns into this grand plan which in turn ends up being fubar. Looks like they never had a plan to connect IRHB shortline to the main trunk line to allow shipments of ore from the mines or they did and the plans changed. there is an old abandoned slate quarry near Skanee that's cool to see and believe (according to what I read) they were going to ship slate with the rail line also but never did.

I'd guess they had lots of potential customers especially when the current mines are telling them "this RR is charging us to much!". Who wouldn't have said that to another group who was considering building a competing RR line?? If you have a cheaper shipper near by, then the mines would build the remaining bit to the mian line.

 

[jjeff]

View attachment 701998

roller coaster? lol

 

[MossRoad]

View attachment 701998

Looks like my retirement plan.

 

[deezler]

Seems the whole Iron Range/Huron bay railroad was an investment scheme of some kind. Somebody got rich while investors lost. Oh well.

I dunno, they actually paid the dozens (hundreds?) of men to hand excavate the line, installed the whole track, bought two locomotives, and built the big ore dock in Huron bay. A lot of very real investment. And then the architect of the whole project had to flee to mexico for fear of his life after it all fell apart, lol. Maybe he took a nice pile of the remaining cash with him, who knows.

 

[ArlyA]

The dock remnants is the only thing we've seen of this infamous RR line..

 

[jjeff]

The dock remnants is the only thing we've seen of this infamous RR line.. View attachment 702014

what's left of the ore dock are dozens of submerged pilings in the water they are visible from a boat.

 

[ArlyA]

what's left of the ore dock are dozens of submerged pilings in the water they are visible from a boat.

They are visible from the shore as well.

 

[MossRoad]

I was wondering about that. The article said they dismantled the dock and took it to Detroit. I guess it would be too hard to pull pilings.

 

[MossRoad]

This might consume some of your evenings...

Great Ore Docks of the Great Lakes – Updated

Iron ore docks are one of the most iconic symbols of the northern Great Lakes. From the last quarter of the 19th-century to the mid-20th century these enormous timber or steel/concrete structures d…

panethos.wordpress.com

 

[ArlyA]

This might consume some of your evenings...

Great Ore Docks of the Great Lakes – Updated

Iron ore docks are one of the most iconic symbols of the northern Great Lakes. From the last quarter of the 19th-century to the mid-20th century these enormous timber or steel/concrete structures d…

panethos.wordpress.com

One of those docks in this is copper range. Worthless factoid. Imagine the 1st ore boat were loaded via ramp with man pushing wheel borrows of rock up them and into the ships holds. Then someone got the idea of keeping the ore cars trains high above the ships, then dump them in.