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Today (Thursday) I spent riding the D&SNGRR from Durango to Silverton. As this is a 3.5 hour ride (scheduled) each way I decided to take a bus back home from Silverton. Turns out that this was a good decision – it got quite cold up on the mountain and the train ended up running a tiny bit late (more on that later).

A few bits of trivia:

First, this train is powered by a coal-fired steam engine. Yes, it really is steam and yes, it really burns coal. This means that, along with the lovely cloud of coal smoke, you also get cinders blown all over you. Fortunately the brush off easily, but they do make a heck of a mess.

Second, the railroad has been running since about 1882 with only a few interruptions. Currently it is privately owned and they have roughly seven locomotives. Pretty cool if you ask me – I could stand to own a steam railroad

Third, the “Narrow Gauge” bit means that the tracks are 36 inches apart instead of the usual 56 (I think that’s right). This was done mainly because they didn’t have to dig out as much mountain when laying 36 inch tracks. Sounds reasonable to me.

Fourth, the train isn’t fast (10-20 miles per hour) but it did beat the heck out of the only other option when the line was opened – pack mules!

Well, enjoy the photos – and if you ever get up to Durango be sure to take the ride – it’s well worth the money ($60 right now) as the scenery is just spectacular.

Leaving Durango Station

Here we are leaving the Durango station. As we pulled out I heard a little girl next to me tell her mother “look at all that pollution” – my how times have changed – I didn’t know that word when I was four or five.

Actually, the cloud coming from the the engine is mostly steam at this point – when it gets nice and black then you have “pollution.”.

Leaving Durango

Here we are rounding a curve as we leave the town of Durango. You’ll get several more of these shots with varying scenery – I was mostly on the right side of the train as that’s where the sunshine was (I was a bit chilly).

At this point you have a nice cloud of “pollution” going.

Rounding a Gorge Corner

Here we are rounding a corner of a gorge – you can see where the track has been cut into the cliff. We are heading slightly downhill at this point.

Tail of the Train

And here is the end of the train rounding the same corner. Notice that we lack a caboose – there’s a red car on the end but it most definately is not a caboose.

Don’t ask me why…

Standard View

This would be a pretty standard view from the train. I took a number of pictures, but mostly I just enjoyed the scenery. I did this for two reasons: first, the secenery was beautiful and deserved to be looked at without the benefit of a viewfinder and second, I forgot to charge the batteries on my camera again, so I couldn’t take my usual 250 or so shots for the day.

So, if you want to see more, go ride the damn train yourself!

Standard View with Train

And here is another standard view with a train in it.

Taking on Water At Tank Creek

Here’s a bit of trivia for you: steam engines actually are limited in range not by the amount of fuel they can carry, but by the amount of water they require. Steam is not recycled (condensed and fed back into the boiler) in a locomotive engine (no room for a condenser), but is blown up the stack to create a draft for the fire at the other end of a boiler. In fact, whenever you see a locomotive start off there will be puffs of white “smoke” from the smokestack – this is actually steam exhausting from the cylinders.

As I mentioned, a steam locomotive goes through a lot of water – we had to stop 3 times in a 50 mile trip! I’m not sure what the tender car held, but it was probably somewhere in the range of several thousand gallons. Water usage is actually the big reason why railroads went to diesel-electric locomotives – even the most efficient steam engine had to stop every 100 miles or so while a diesel could run for a thousand or more miles without stopping for fuel.

Anyway, this was our first water stop. This was also where the engineers discovered that one of the bolts holding part of the driving mechanism had gone missing sometime in the last 10 miles or so. This is not the sort of thing you can just pick up anywhere and the solution was apparently to send somebody up the track in a little maintenance car to find the bolt (and its nut) so it could be put back in.

Ultimately, we went on up the track a couple of miles and they let us all off the train to walk around. The conductor was also very good about explaining what went wrong and the engineers actually took time to show us the problem. The information provided plus the location kept everybody quiet through the 90 minute wait.

Work Car Parking

Every so often along the tracks you would see two rails going off at right angles. I finally figured out (through observation) that this is parking for one of the little work cars that they use. These cars are obviously quite light (they have handles at either end for lifting them on and off of the main line) and are used to transport two men plus a few tools and parts up and down the railroad. They are powered by a small gasoline engine and are probably the only piece of railroad equipment that could be called “cute”.

And no, I don’t have a picture of one of them – sorry about that…

Rails in the Water

This is a slightly disturbing picture. I’m sure there is a very good reason for two rails to be in the river, but I’m not sure what that might be.

Steam Rainbow

As we left Tank Creek the engineer blew some steam out over the creek. This created a great rainbow, a fact I am sure they are aware of as they did it at practically every opportunity.

Mine Ruin

Here is another mine ruin – just as we are coming into Silverton. Looks nice and ruined, right?

The Problem Bolt

Here is a shot of the problem bolt (and it’s nut – on the ground). This is, I believe, the “right main driver wedge bolt” – an important, but obviously not critical piece of the driving mechanism.

Shady Lady Saloon

I didn’t really take any pictures in Silverton – it’s a complete tourist trap and there isn’t much worth photographing. I did, however, run across this interesting establishment (where I did NOT eat lunch).

Shady Lady Sign

And here is a closeup of the sign

Our Engine

And, finally, here is a shot of our engine. See the tender car behind the engine? That thing is mostly water, not coal!

That’s it for the day – tomorrow I’m going to Mesa Verde, so you won’t get as many train pictures.

And, finally, we have a few more shots from my drive back to Durango. I stopped at Andrews Lake (near the Molas pass) as well as Durango Mountain Resort and managed to get a few more cool shots.

Enjoy!

jim

Deer

Pulling into the Andrews Lake Park I ran across this deer (actually, there were several, but this was the best shot).

Mountain

Here’s yet another mountain shot (are you getting tired of them yet?), but this time with the obligatory reflection in the lake. I actually do like this – it’s a bit of a cliche, but it turned out nicely.

Chipmunk

Is this little fellow disgustingly cute or what?

Beavers

They are a little hard to see, but there are two beavers in the lower-right part of this picture. The messy pile of sticks to the lower-left is their lodge. Not very tidy are they.

Sunset

And, finally, here is a bit of sunset reflecting off of the mountains. I took this from the parking lot of the Durango Mountain Resort – the ski slope formerly known as Purgatory – a much better name I think.

Well, I’m off to bed now – it’s after midnight and I’m tired.

jim

The Old Hundred mine is named after one of the favorite Protestant hymns, known as “Old Hundred.” For you non-protestants out there, it’s also known as The Doxology and, at least in the Methodist church, is typically sung as the ushers march back down the aisle after taking up the collection.

Incidentally, if one of the ushers is the son of the preacher then there may well be a tug-of-war with the collection plates – between the ushers and the preacher. This is highly amusing as the preacher is facing the congregation and is, therefore, unable to do much more than attempt to speak without moving his lips.

Old Hundred Mine Entrance

This is a much more official looking mine entrance, but looks can be deceiving. Old Hundred, unlike the Bachelor-Syracuse, apparently never turned a profit. It has very good rock for digging a mine but good rock seems to equal lousy ore.

We didn’t have to go as far in with this mine – 1600 or so feet straight down another adit – you could even see daylight if you looked back down the adit (this becomes important later).

Vein of Ore

This is the vein of ore that the mine follows. Following a vein tends to take the diggings in all sorts of random directions, so a tunnel (or adit) dug off of the main shaft is usually called a “drift” because it drifts off in various directions.

Again, this vein doesn’t contain gold – it doesn’t contain much of anything of value, actually.

Mine Equipment

Here is our guide (Dan the ex-miner) showing us how one of the drills works. You see, miners drill into the rock about six feet, pack the holes with dynamite, lite the fuses and then get the hell out of the way. In order to get the holes to pack the dynamite in you have to drill them. This was originally done by hand with two people – one holding the drill and the other swinging a 10-pound sledge hammer (a double-jack). They swapped positions every 15 minutes, so you can guarantee the man on the hammer would be careful where he swung – what goes around comes around after all.

Blasting

Here Dan is explaining how you go about blasting in a mine. You don’t just randomly drill holes and stuff them with dynamite – there is a strategy involved. You actually drill 4-5 concentric rings of holes with a single, unfilled hole in the middle. There is a special sequence of time delays that you use for your fuses and, if done right, you end up with a nice pile of “muck” (ore or rock that has been blasted) out on the floor of the tunnel/adit/drift where it is easy to pick up.

An interesting note was that all blasting was typically done at lunchtime and at the end of a shift. Each blaster had a specific way of arranging the time delays so that they could tell just by listening whether or not their charges had gone off.

The Honey Wagon

This is a picture of the “Honey Wagon” – or portable loo for those of you who are not up on your mine termonology. Basically, you have a box with a seat on a mine car that was parked down a drift that was not being used to provide a bit of privacy.

The miner would go down the drift, hop on the honey-wagon and then blow out his carbide lamp to provide a bit more privacy. If he had an evil partner (mine workers are always in teams) then the partner would sometimes sneak up the drift (using the rail as a guide) and remove the chain that was used to block the wheels of the mine car. At this point gravity would take over (remmeber, everything in a mine slopes down to make moving water and loaded ore cars easier) and the car would start to move. The poor miner would find himself stuck on a moving honey wagon with no way to relight his lamp as he had to hang on for dear life. You can imagine the result…

From this comes the term “yanking your chain.”

Aren’t you glad you aren’t a miner?

Comments

• Sep-15-2003 02:18:55 by The Aussie:
  I think you might be “yanking our chains” frankly….

Ore Hopper

This is an ore hopper – basically a valve or gate at the end of a vertical passage leading to the upper levels of the mine. In this case, the ore hopper has a lot of water running over it creating interesting mineral deposits.

Ore Processing Mill

This is the ore processing mill used by the Old Hundred mine. Much to my disgust it closed for tours last week – I was looking forward to all of that machinery.

That’s it for the mine tours – you can see a few more pictures in the next section from my drive back to Durango.

Ok – now I need to go back to Silverton to see the Old Hundred mine. This involves a 25 or so mile drive back over a pass. I got a lot of good mountain shots but I won’t inflict those on you – if you want to see them you can arrange an appointment

View from the Bachelor Syracuse Mine

This is the view from the road leading out of the mine. Pretty cool, huh?

No Ice Climbing

I’m not sure what Ice Climbing is, but apparently you shouldn’t do it around here.

Above Ground Post Hole

This is an above-ground post hole. As my father sometime about how these are made when you don’t have any concrete, but you do have a lot of rocks.

Ouray

The booming metropolis of Ouray (actually about 75% of it). I would highly recommend a visit, though not in the dead of winter.

The Treasury Tunnel

This is the tunnel I mentioned earlier.

Abandoned Mine Building

Few things do a better job of looking abandoned than an abandoned mine building. I like them for some reason…

Well, that’s it for the drive – now you get to see some more mine-related pictures. Aren’t you thrilled?

My reason for going to Ouray was to visit a real mine – not just something cheesy like the runaway mine train at Six Flags. The Bachelor Syracuse mine fit the bill nicely. I’d give more history on the mine, but you can go to their web site – just see the page from yesterday where I have a link (I’m too lazy to type one in right now).

Anyway, This particular mine is 9 levels (1800 feet) deep and runs well over a mile into the mountain. You actually enter via an Adit (an Adit is a tunnel with only one entry) that was dug at level 2 (up from the bottom) to provide natural drainage and air circulation, both important in a mine. In this case, there is a vertical shaft going up to the top of the mountain and the adit meets the shaft. The adit is also sloped up slightly so that water runs back down it to provide drainage.

I learned that mines are damp, dark, full of funny smells and generally dangerous places to work. Interesting, though…

Mine Sign

I have no idea why this photo is so bad, but here’s proof (somewhat blurry) of my visit.

Mine Entrance

This is the entrance to the mine. Looks just like what you would expect, right? From here we have about 3350 feet to go back into the mountain to reach our destination – about half the length of the adit, actually.

2000 Foot Stope

This is the 2000 foot point (or the 2000 foot stope). A stope is a hole dug out from a tunnel or adit – either horizontally or vertically I think.

Bracing

Nice to see that the bracing over my head is not rotting away.

Mine Control Panel

Hmm – lots of electricity and more than a reasonable amount of rust. I feel safer already…

Random Mine Stuff

This is just a collection of random mine stuff. Note the telephone in the foreground.

3350 Foot Stope

Almost to our destination now…

Ore Vein

The silver/grey stripe you see down the center of the picture is the actual vein of ore that was being mined. Here it is about 10 inches wide, but up higher it was well over 20 feet.

Our guide told us that about 2/3 of the ore is still in the mine – it’s just not economical to mine it right now.

Oh, and the ore contains zinc, copper, lead, silver and iron, but no gold.

Ore Mover

This is a tiny little air-powered scoop shovel that is used for loading ore. It is about two feet by four, runs on the rails in the mine and swivels back and forth. Oh – and, as I learned later, these things are extremely loud when being operated.

Yours Truly

No sarcastic comments from you yahoos out there

Comments

• Sep-15-2003 02:14:40 by The Aussie:
  Are you serious!!! You look like a young version of my Dad when we used to live on the farm…

Heading Out

Here is a bit of a shot of the tunnel and our mine train heading back out. The trip takes about 15-20 minutes and will hammer home the fact that mine trains have absolutely no suspension!

Vertical Stope

Every so often as you go down an adit you pass an area where you can feel, more than see a space over your head. This is a vertical stope – an area where miners dug up from the adit/tunnel into a vein. Stopes can run anywhere from 30 to 150 feet in height. Just imagine having to work in one of these.

In this particular picture you can see that the stope has been boarded off to protect us tourists from falling ore chunks.

Tunnel View

And here is a view back down the tunnel. Remember my comment about mines being dark? Well, that’s the reason why you can’t see anything.

That’s it for this mine – you’ll get more miney goodness later.