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Nevada
Northern & Railroads of White Pine County
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Ore Line — History and Operationsby
Steve Swanson
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The
ore line was built to transport the low grade porphyry copper ore from
deposits located some 11 miles west of the railroad terminal at East Ely
to the mill concentrator and smelter situated some 12 miles northeast
at McGill. McGill was chosen as the processing site because of the both
the availability of an abundant water supply and the rights
to its usage. The route chosen between the two points was largely based
on railroad engineering principles of minimizing grades and the energy
that must be expended to counter gravity.
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 Ore Line Map Copyright © 2001 Keith Albrandt |
"The
Ore Line, consisting of the main line from the mines (including the extension
trackage to Veteran) through Robinson Canyon to Ely and on to Hiline and
the concentrator at McGill was to constitute the Mines and Smelter branch
of the Nevada Northern."1
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| History | ||
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The ore line was completed in 1908. Almost 23 miles in length, the 11 miles through Robinson Canyon to Copper Flat, Ruth and Veteran cost more to build than the 140 mile mainline from Cobre to East Ely,2 given the building of the 140 mile main was very inexpensive. Elmo Thurston, long time Kennecott locomotive engineer at Ruth, stated that the Nevada Northern was in Ripley's Believe It or Not: "The Nevada Northern was the least expensive 140 mile railway built through the mountains." Ore shipments from Copper Flat, Ruth, and Veteran commenced in 1908 using the 90 Class 2-8-0's No.'s 90-93 to power the ore trains. The first ore was milled in May of that year.3 |
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The
Nevada properties were originally underground developments; however, the
Eureka and Liberty shafts of Nevada Consolidated's (Nevada Con) Copper
Flat properties warranted the open-cut method of mining. Steam shovel
operations began at the Eureka mine and at the Liberty shaft in August
1907 and 1909, respectively. The two pits were connected in 1916 to form
a single, large pit known as the Liberty Pit, also called the Ruth or
Copper Flat pit.4 By 1912, eight steam
shovels worked the day shift and three shovels were employed at night,
handling 9000 tons of ore per day.5 Production
between 1908 and 1914 came almost entirely from steam-shovel operations
in the Copper Flat orebody. By the end of that time, the Ruth underground
mine had been prepared for the branch-raise caving system.6
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Copper Flat Panorama circa 1909 West Coast Art Co. c1909. Copper flat. In Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991 from the Library of Congress. [Online] Available HTTP: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pnhtml/pnhome.html; [pan 6a14013]. [06 August 2001]. |
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In 1914, the Veteran underground mine was closed followed by the closing of the Star Pointer underground mine during World War I. Mining costs dictated that efforts be concentrated on the open pit at Copper Flat using steam shovels and rail haulage. As many as 16 locomotives and 33 alternating crews were employed in the Liberty pit at the height of it's activity.7 During the early years, stripping operations in the Liberty and Eureka Pits were on a one to one ratio, one waste shovel to one ore loading shovel. Later, and up until World War II, as the Liberty Pit became larger and deeper, the stripping ratio increased to more than two to one. During WW II, there wasn't much stripping done, just ore production, which left the open pits in very poor working condition after the war. This started a rise in production costs from which the Nevada Mines Division never recovered. During World War I, Consolidated Coppermines shipped their ore over the Nevada Northern to the McGill concentrator where the ore was processed on a toll basis. Many of Coppermines' deposits were thickly capped and were more amenable to underground mining. Examples include the Morris, Brooks, Old Glory, Richard, Bunker Hill, Emma Nevada, Alpha, and Taylor mines. Nevada Con's Wedge, Monitor, Deep Ruth, and Star Pointer/Minnesota Hi mines also fell into this category.8 |
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Wedge
Shaft Donald
Stark photograph |
Star
Pointer Headframe & Yards
Bert
H. Ward photograph |
Monitor
Shaft Donald
Stark photograph |
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The
Wedge Shaft, located on the west side of the Liberty Pit, was dismantled
in 1928 when the pit was expanded to surface mine the area. Subsequently,
the Monitor Shaft was driven (see photo at far right) and the all
the hardware and equipment from the Wedge was used at the Monitor.
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The
old Star Pointer shop had been removed by the time this photo was taken.
A small yard went up the gulch behind the Star Pointer and loading was
done by hand. There was a derail on the crossover as cars had a tendency
to get away at the Star Pointer.
The brick building on the right is the old Bank Building -- Steve Swanson's Uncle Buddy's office until 1953. |
The
Monitor Shaft, hoisthouse and supporting structures. The Monitor was taken
down in 1950 and the hardware and equipment was installed at the Deep
Ruth shaft.
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On
01 September 1920, a significant change affected the ore line operation.
The eight 90 class engines (No.'s 90-97), the ore car fleet, and six small,
four-wheel cabooses (No's 9-15) were sold to Nevada Consolidated Copper
(Nevada Con). The ore line trackage remained the property of the Nevada
Northern Railway, and a trackage agreement allowed Nevada Con to operate
ore trains. Nevada Con train crews operated the ore trains while the management
was provided by the Nevada Northern Railway.
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During
the early and mid-twenties, most of the ore moved over the oreline was
from the steam shovel pits at Copper Flat, supplemented by a small production
from Consolidated Coppermines at Kimberly. Study of the Copper Flat orebody
in 1924 concluded that ultimately a substantial portion could be mined
more cheaply by underground methods because of excessive stripping required.
Consequently, two five-compartment shafts were sunk 700 to 800 ft deep
and 1000 ft apart. But improved methods in ore-dressing and metallurgy
made it possible to treat as ore what had previously been considered waste
-- so underground mining of ore beneath the pit bottom was postponed.9
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In
1926, Coppermines reached an agreement with Nevada Con to process its
ore and the Kimberly tonnage dramatically increased until Coppermines
shut down in early 1932 because of the Great Depression. Nevada Con resumed
underground mining at the Star Pointer during the late 1920's.
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 No. 93 and ore train nearing Lane City just east of daylighted tunnel #2. |
19 July 1946 Bert H. Ward photos |
 Approaching the Highway 50 viaduct. Near midday, as the train is casting little shadow. |
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Significant
technological advances were made in operations throughout this period.
During the mill reconstruction in 1922 (see below), the 9 Bucyrus steam
shovels with 3½ cubic yard dippers were provided with caterpillar tractors
to eliminate the need for laying shovel tracks, and consequently eliminate
the need for many unskilled track gang workers. Two new 85-ton American
Locomotives and two Peterson track shifters were also added to the pit
operations.10
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Within
a decade, further advances in pit operations were implemented with the
electrification of Nevada Con pit shovel equipment, accomplished between
September, 1931 and November 1932. Bucyrus 120-B, fully revolving electric
shovels (4½ cubic yard capacity) replaced the steam shovels.11
They significantly decreased costs by reducing the size of the crew necessary
to operate the shovels. During World War II, the dippers had increased
to a capacity of 8-tons12 and by the
1950's, 165-ton electric shovels with 10-ton dippers were in use in the
Liberty Pit.13 By contemporary standards
of diesel-electric shovels with 40 cubic yard dippers, these earlier models
appear quite small. Similarly, modern diesel ore trucks with a 240-ton
payload dwarf the 60-80 ton capacity Ingoldsby ore cars of the earlier
era.
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During
this period, railroad freight inbound to Ely and environs included heavy
machinery, fuel (coal and oil), timber, structural materials (steel, cement,
brick), explosives, and miscellaneous goods of all kinds.14
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Tonnage
over the ore line remained from these same sources until the Ruth mine
ceased production on 06 August 1948.15
For example, towards the end of World War II 18,000 tons of ore were mined
per day, 36% of which was from underground sources. In the late 1940's,
most underground mining ceased at Ruth and Kimberly.16
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 No. 93 and ore train blasts out of tunnel #1 and enters the East Ely Yard limit. No. 97 will take this train to McGill.. |
19 July 1946 Bert H. Ward photos |
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The
outbreak of the Korean War and the resulting increase in both the price
and demand for copper was responsible for establishing several new projects
in the district.17
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Coppermines
started open-pit mining in the Morris-Brooks claims, called the Tripp
Pit, in 1950. The initial stripping of the Morris-Brooks was done with
haulage trucks contracted from Isbell Construction of Reno, NV.
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Kennecott,
now running short of developed ore (mostly because stripping of overburden
had not been done since 1940), started two new haulage truck pits: they
developed Kimbley near Lane City and resumed mining at Veteran with the
haulage truck operated Veteran Pit. To ship the newly opened Veteran Mine
ore to McGill, a railroad spur 2¼ miles long was constructed c1954 to
connect with the Nevada Northern Railway main line near Kimberly.18
The Deep Ruth shaft was begun in July, 1951, and subsequently underground
mining of the Minnesota Hi was undertaken through the Star Pointer Shaft.
The ore in the Deep Ruth was almost directly underneath the Ruth town
site, and consequently the town of Ruth was moved about two miles north
to "New Ruth" beginning the second quarter of 1952 and completed by the
end of 1953.19
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Truck
tipples to load ore cars were built at the Veteran, Tripp, and Kimbley
pits, and in the bottom of the Liberty Pit. By 1957, most ore was loaded
into ore cars by haulage trucks. This loading severely damaged the old
ore car fleet, and in the mid-sixties new ore cars built at KCC Magna,
Utah and KCC East Ely, Nevada replaced this ore car fleet.
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July 1969Keith Ardinger photograph Used with permission |
The loading tipple for the Tripp and Veteran Pits, that had combined by the time this photo was taken. Located at the extreme western end of the workings, this photo was apparently taken from the northwest edge of the Veteran Pit and captures the relocated NN mainline built out to Veteran in 1955. |
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Underground mining of the Minnesota Hi continued at the Star Pointer until late 1957 or early 1958 when the orebody was lost due to poor engineering decisions. In the early 1960's, the Ruth Pit was developed at the head of Ingersoll Canyon (right where the Star Pointer had been) to again mine the Minnesota Hi orebody. The ore was transported down Ingersoll Canyon to Lane by haulage trucks where it was loaded into rail cars. Excessive capping over the ore caused the shutdown of mining at the Liberty pit in January 1969. In less than a decade, a world-wide depression in the copper market and environmental issues relating to the aging smelter combined20 to spell the end of Kennecott's copper mining operations in the Robinson district. In September, 1978 KCC NMD mines were closed and the ore trains ceased operation. On 20 June 1983, the McGill smelter closed and the Nevada Northern Railway ceased operations. |
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Consolidated
Coppermines
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Literally
hundreds of mining claims were filed on properties in the Robinson district
in the opening years of the twentieth century. The 1907 promotional booklet
Ely and Her Mines extolled "Copper as King" and "Ely as the Copperopolis
of America", listing no less that 55 active copper mining concerns (see
Appendix).
The largest three were Nevada Con, Cumberland Ely Copper Company, and
Giroux Consolidated Mines Company. Nevada Con and Cumberland Ely were
both under Guggenheim control, and would eventually be combined in 1910.
The Giroux properties were not added until some 48 years later.
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Mining Claim Map of Western End of Robinson Mining District from Second
Annual Report of Consolidated Coppermines Company for year ending April
30, 1915. |
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There were perhaps as many rumors of mergers between the Nevada Con and Giroux (later Consolidated Coppermines) properties over the years as there were copper companies in those early days. In February 1907, Giroux offered Guggenex 510,000 shares of stock at $10.00, but the offer was declined. In September of that year, Nevada Con offered between $750,000 and $1.2 million for the Morris, Brooks and Bunker Hill properties of Giroux, but that deal was also declined. In 1913, Giroux combined with four other companies to form Consolidated Coppermines. D.C. Jackling of Nevada Con considered it a good idea to acquire the Coppermines properties at that time if the price were right; evidently, it wasn't.
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Relationship between Nevada Con and Consolidated Coppermines Properties Copyright
© 2001 Keith Albrandt
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Nevada
Con knew that Giroux / Coppermines had good ore bodies, but also thought
that they had insufficient water. The belief was they would either have
to sell out or have Nevada Con treat their ore. The later is exactly what
happened beginning with a contract to smelt Coppermines ores in 1912 and
later extended under several contracts over many years for both the milling
and smelting of their ores. One can make a good case that Coppermines
had sufficient water pumped from their mines22
and/or from their water rights to Steptoe and Cave Creeks to supply both
a reduction works and the town of Kimberly. However, they found it more
profitable to have their ores treated under contract at McGill.
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The
two companies eventually engaged in a bitter court battle to settle the
complex situation resulting from ore bodies near the Liberty Pit extending
into each other's claims. Nevada Con instituted proceedings in October
1929 that were followed shortly with counter-claims filed by Consolidated
Coppermines. A settlement wasn't reached until July, 1937. Consolidated
Coppermines received a cash award of one-half million dollars and realized
$300,000 in the award of 5.4-million pounds of copper. Nevada Con received
permission to extend the Liberty Pit by excavating in Coppermines Emma
Nevada and Ora claims, thus gaining about 50-million tons of ore. The
two companies also agreed to a new contract whereby Nevada Con would treat
Coppermines ore. The position of the companies relative to each other
was more clearly defined as a result of these lawsuits, and they were
both more amenable to compromise on future disagreements in order to prevent
the waste of time and money from additional litigation.23
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During
the 1958 recession, Kennecott bought Consolidated Coppermines properties
at Kimberly, and all of the Robinson Mining District then belonged to
Kennecott Nevada Mines Division.
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Copper Production 1908-195524,25 Copyright © 2001 Keith Albrandt |
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BHP
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In
the 1990's, Broken Hill Proprietary Company, Limited (BHP) acquired the
Robinson district mining rights and built a new mill and concentrator
on the former site of Riepetown. They operated between 1996 and 1999,
shipping their copper concentrate via their own BHP Nevada Railroad over
the old Nevada Northern ROW to the UP interchange at Shafter, NV, and
from there to their San Manuel, AZ smelter. The operation lasted slightly
more than three years, when falling copper prices forced BHP to close
the Robinson project on 25 June 1999 and put the facilities on "care and
maintenance" status.
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Ore Line Elevation Profile Copyright © 2001 Keith Albrandt |
BHP Facility & Equipment
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Ore Line — History and Operations
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| Table of Contents | ||
| Page I — History | ||
| Page II — Stations | ||
| Page III — Diesel Operations | ||
| Appendix | ||
| References | ||
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Last modified 30
August, 2001 by Keith
Albrandt
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