Kennecott Nevada Mines Division
This page last updated on January 15, 2012.
(This is a work in progress; research continues.)
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Additional Information
- Nevada Locomotives — A roster of Nevada Mines Division locomotives.
- Nevada Northern Private Car, Cyprus — Information about the steel business car built in 1913 that served as D.C. Jackling's private car until it was sold in 1943.
(click here for the Table of Contents of Keith Albrandt's excellent "Nevada Northern & Railroads of White Pine County" web site. Coverage includes Nevada Northern, and Kennecott's Nevada Mines Division and its predecessor companies.)
Nevada Mine
The following comes from David Myrick's "Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California, Volume 1", pages 132-134:
Ever since full scale operations commenced in 1908, most of the tonnage handled over the railroad has been copper ore bound from the Eureka-Liberty Pit at Copper Flat to the concentrator at McGill. In earlier days steam shovels loaded the ore directly into gondolas which were then assembled into trains for the winding, 11-mile climb up and around the sides of the pit, then over the edge to the assembly yard at Copper Flat. At this point heavier power replaced the pit locomotives, and road crews took over the train operations for the balance of the journey to the McGill concentrator. On April 1, 1958, the procedure was altered. Pit trains were discontinued, and trucks and a skip hoist were instituted to lift the ore and deliver it to the waiting gondolas in the Copper Flat yards.
Starting in 1920, the Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. operated over the Nevada Northern with its own locomotives and crews from Copper Flat all the way to the concentrator at McGill, a practice which continued after the shift from steam to diesel power and greater locomotive utilization and change of name to Kennecott in 1943. Today [1962], Kennecott Copper diesel units in pairs escort trainloads of 40 to 50 gondolas, each loaded with 80 tons of ore, to the yard near the McGill concentrator. Here a solitary electric locomotive switches the cars to the concentrator over approximately a mile of electrified trackage. Eight trains a day constitute normal operations for the line, thus feeding the McGill plant with some 300 to 350 carloads. To handle this traffic, Kennecott maintains a fleet of over 600 ore cars, distinctive with their metal serial numbers welded to the car sides in lieu of being painted in the customary manner.
In spite of the concentrator's voracious appetite (some 20,000 tons of ore daily), it disgorges a comparatively minuscule three carloads a day of blister copper which moves out on the three-mile line from McGill via McGill Junction. Three trains a week are sufficient to transport the tonnage to Cobre for forwarding to the refinery, as well as to pick up the return loads of inbound freight consisting of approximately 50 carloads of coal, 7 carloads of coke, and miscellaneous loads of machinery, lumber, gasoline and diesel fuel, weekly.
Various are the insigne of equipment which have traversed the lines of the Nevada Northern. The early Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. (NCCCo. ) joined hands with the Cumberland-Ely Co. at the instigation of the Guggenheim interests, and each owned a half-interest in the Nevada Northern. At the McGill smelter, the early steam locomotives bore the name of Steptoe Valley Mining & Smelting Co., another affiliated company. In 1909-10, the NCCCo purchased the C-ECo, and in turn itself became a subsidiary of the Utah Copper Co. The Kennecott Copper Corporation entered the picture in 1915 through an exchange of stock with the Guggenheim Exploration Co., acquiring full control of Utah Copper in 1923 and absorbing its assets in 1936. During this period, the Ray Consolidated Copper Company in 1926, including its subsidiary, the Ray & Gila Valley Railroad, both located in southern Arizona was merged with NCCCo. With acquisition of the assets of NCCCo in 1932, Kennecott formed the Nevada Consolidated Copper Corporation to manage its properties in Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, ultimately dissolving the entity on December 31, 1942, to group the properties at Ely, McGill and Copper Flat under the cognomen of the Nevada Mines Division of the Kennecott Copper Corporation. (David Myrick, Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California, Howell-North Books, 1962; University of Nevada 1990 reprint)
1972
At the Nevada Mines Division the 100 class locomotives were used in pairs to power the ore trains from the mine at Ruth, 22 miles to the mill at McGill. Numbers 801 and 802 alternated as the McGill yard switcher. No. 310 was used for any small switching jobs around the McGill plant. Electrics 80 and 81 served as the car dumper locomotives at McGill with a GE 70 tonner on standby for that service. RSD-4 no. 201 was leased to the Nevada Northern Railway as an alternate and standby for their SD7 401. They were reported as working together when the tonnage warranted. The Nevada Northern is the Nevada Mines Division's link to the outside world. It runs from Ely north to Shafter on the Western Pacific and Cobre on the Southern Pacific on a one day up and one day back schedule. (see July 1961 Trains, p.33)
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