The C&S Coal Chutes: Pine, Como, Dickey, Pitkin and almost Breckenridge

[ComoDepot]

The contents are still there, Deb started the excavation, judging from the Debris there is another 50 years to go.

[Keith Hayes]

Jim and Chris:

I also built a model of a C&S coaling chute and trestle in HOn3 about this time. I used the drawings Joel Crea published in Slim Gauge News. The thing ended up being about three feet long and had six chutes. I recall I had a devil of a time figuring out how to build the chute structure: it seemed easier to build the real thing than to model it. When my folks downsized, the model went somewhere--not sure who got it. I have a Crystal River model that I plan to use on the layout now.

And thanks for the Standard Privy Drawing. Perhaps I will make a few over the holiday. Certainly Leadville needs one next to the turntable pit. A handy place for the night watchman to set and ponder deep thoughts while keeping things hot!

[Jim Courtney]

Certainly Leadville needs one next to the turntable pit. A handy place for the night watchman to set and ponder deep thoughts while keeping things hot!

And since every C&S privy had 2 seats (no waiting), your watchman can discuss things with a friend!



(BTW, a little piece of white insulation from No 14 solid copper wire, just less than 1/8" long, makes an excellent roll of S-scale toilet paper.)

[Jim Courtney]

One location that we haven't discussed with respect to C&S coaling of locomotive is the southern terminus of Gunnison.

Cliff Mestel's DSP&P B&B inventory of 1890-1891 (http://www.railwayeng.com/dspp/rowbuild.htm) lists the following facilities at Gunnison:

Gunnison
          Depot (Stone)                    20 x 38    
          Freight house                     20 x 60    
          Section house                    16 x 28    
          Section house addition      12 x 16      
          Oil house                           12 x 20
          Store house                        20 x 40  
          Round house (Stone)          6 stalls  
          Hand car house                  10 x 12
          Coal bin                           14 x 230
          Tank & appurts                            
          Scales                          
          Stock yard - 1 chute           24 x 48    

Like Como, Gunnison had a stone roundhouse, and was the only South Park Division station to boast a stone depot.

Why do you think neither the UP or the C&S ever built coaling chutes at Gunnison?

1. Were the locomotives entering and leaving Gunnison from/to the east all coaled at Pitkin, less than 30 miles away?

2. Were the local locomotives used on the Baldwin branch (usually 2 locomotives were stationed at Gunnison for that purpose) coaled by hand from the coal bins, like at Buena Vista?

3. Were the branch locomotives coaled directly from the tipples at Baldwin? If so, any photos of this?

4. Anyone seen photographs of the locomotive coal bins at Gunnison?

Just trying to complete this collaborative work.

[Robert McFarland]

January 2013 Bogies and Loop p12-13 has an article on the unfinished Breckenridge coal chute with  a Clinton Scott photo of it.DPL photos Z-1847 and X-1952 appear to show it.

[Robert McFarland]

DPL X-1951 also appears to show it

[Chris Walker]

The photos that Robert posted are these...


http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/68423/rv/singleitem/rec/1


http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/2442/rv/singleitem/rec/1

Mac Poor listed in DSP&P that Breckenridge had a Combination Depot, Living Quarters and Freight House of 24x60 feet and a Coal bin of 12x85 feet.  

If this longer structure to the right of the Depot was a Chute for Locomotive use how were the bins supplied and still able to service Locomotives alongside as it appears to be on the Depot track, not the Mainline.  I see moving cars out of the way everytime Loco's needed to coal-up with this arrangement.   Also in the 2nd view there appears to be of little height to dump directly into the Tenders.  

Robert, how about posting this "Bogies and the Loop" photo you mentioned?

The same area under UP control after the Buda Sw-St's were installed.


http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/2506/rv/singleitem/rec/302

And under C&S control....


http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78304/rv/singleitem/rec/60


Breckenridge would make a fine layout in the exhibition style.

[Jeff Young]

Chris,

In your first DPL picture, that’s not the depot on the left side (nor the wye behind it).  Note the dark gable-end-on building just to the right of the coal dock; the depot is further to the right of that (behind the tree).

In the second DPL picture, the long structure to the right of the depot is the freight warehouse.  The unfinished coal bins are to the left of he depot (at the far left edge of your crop).

Your last two pictures “UP control” and “C&S control” are cropped too far to the left.  But if you look further right on the master images, you’ll see what appears to be a mill more or less where the coal dock was earlier.

The Bogies and the Loop picture (it looks like the area for the later mill has already been cleared):


Dr. Clinton H Scott photo from the Ed and Nancy Bathke Collection

Bob Schoppe indicates this picture is from 1897.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Chris Walker]

Oh Wow !  Thanks Jeff......10 pockets with what appears to be 6 Bents on the incline.   So I wasn't off with my assessment of the long shed either.

The Mill you refer to is the Chamberlain-Dillingham Ore Co's Sampler, also at Georgetown, Blackhawk, and Idaho.


http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78304/rv/singleitem/rec/60

Sanborn Map 1902


Edit: added this in here because it would seriously derail the Coaling thread with more posts.

The Pankhurst & Whipple Concentrating Works



and the Electric Lighting Plant, first referenced to on the 1896 Sanborn Map


both from this view http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/68423/rv/singleitem/rec/1 

Sanborn Map 1896


Sanborn  Map 1902

[Mike Trent]

Jim, I am sure that is a sand house, or bin, under the ramp at Pine Grove. All of the sand was loaded with buckets, so there wasn't any need for anything complicated to identify them. There would have been a sand bin or house everywhere there was an elevated coaling ramp. At Como it was once at the very end and was destroyed by a car being pushed off the ramp.

[Keith Hayes]

DE-LUX.

Toilet paper?!? Heck, our crews use last years Monkey Ward catalog!

[Robert McFarland]

What about corn cobs?

[Jim Courtney]

Well Robert, I'll be darned.  Once again the group is uncovering new stuff that I, for one, never noticed.  Thanks!


It is interesting to follow the chronology, if one reframes several of the photos just posted for discussion and focus just on the area of the depot, the never finished coal chutes and the mill:

First the photo by Dr. Scott, a credit to the narrow gauge railfan medical profession:


Dr. Clinton H Scott photo from the Ed and Nancy Bathke Collection c1897.

No mill as yet, chutes under construction.


Then there is one of the DPL photos that Chris posted, probably about the same time, reframed:

http://cdm16079.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/2442/rv/singleitem/rec/1




This photo that Chris posted can't be later than 1899, as all freight cars are still lettered U.P., no "C&S" in sight:

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/2506/rv/singleitem/rec/302



The mill has been completed, but the coal chute construction seems stalled (in medical jargon this is an example of chutus interruptus).



Finally, this DPL photo that Chris posted can not be any earlier than 1907 due to the C&S block lettering on the coal cars; the depot hasn't been repainted in the light and dark trim scheme, an event that seems to occur in other locations about 1908-1909.

http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/78304/rv/singleitem/rec/60


The chutes, never completed, seem to be gone by 1907-08.  Perhaps the materials removed were moved and reassembled at Dickey, as that coal chute is listed as being built in 1902.


What will we learn next on this thread?

[Jim Courtney]

Mike,

I think we may both be right.  By the 1930s, after the 2 additional chutes were added to the Pine structure, a sand house could well have been added.

But see my post on page 4 of the thread (Dec 20, 2015; 6:03pm  Re: The C&S Pine Grove Sand House).   The 1898 records show that a small sand house was in place at Pine.  Neither of the two photos that I referenced, taken from the south (c 1910 and c1920), show the later bin or shed or "sand house", as you identify it, present between the bents under the ramp.

So, I still think the original sand house was located back by the crotch of the wye, near the original ash pit on the west leg of the wye.  It may well have been abandoned as such, used for a shed, with a sand house located more conveniently under the ramp to the chutes by the late 1920s.

[Chris Walker]

Well that certainly was a great Christmas present to the group.

I didn't pull up the uncompleted building under construction in my enlargments as I'd alway supposed that as Dickey and Como were more logical locations to Coal up Helpers than Breckenridge which had already had a Coaldock and/or Coalbins, and furthermore that as the Chamberlain was built there in almost the exact spot, that skeletal outline was just the Sampler under construction and thus I gave it no more thought.  

Thanks Jeff and Jim for bringing this Gem Hidden in Plain Sight to a unexpected clarity.

[Jim Courtney]

To Robert goes the thanks!  I've never heard of a coal chute at Breckenridge until Robert's post.

Maybe that's why the coal chute construction ceased--a paying shipper wanted to build a mill on that spot. So maybe the Trumbull management canceled the chutes to expedite the mill construction.

Does anyone have any info from the B&TL article that might shed further light on this aborted construction??

I have just re-titled the main thread for the fourth time, to more accurately reflect the content to date.


Is it Christmas in New Zealand already??

Again, Merry Christmas to all!!

[Robert McFarland]

Wrong Robert to be thanking-you should thank Bob Schoppe for his fine research and article.He did a follow up paragraph in the April 2013 issue proving that the Breckenridge chute  and the Como chute were two different structures.

[Chris Walker]

I'm still amazed that the Skeleton of the Chutes were still there after the Chamberlain was constructed, and I added to my previous post http://c-sn3-discussion-forum.41377.n7.nabble.com/The-C-S-Coal-Chutes-Pine-Como-Dickey-Pitkin-and-almost-Breckenridge-tp4269p4399.html in regards to the Electric Plant that shows up in front, behind,and beside the Skeleton.

Halfway over, Xmas that is!  


And Jim did ask "What will we learn next on this thread?   "

How about this admonition....


http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/fullbrowser/collection/p15330coll22/id/42241/rv/singleitem

[Jim Courtney]

Robert,

Did the B&TL article by Bob Schoppe discuss any record of why the DL&G stopped building the chutes?

Inquiring minds want to know . . .

[Jim Courtney]

Well Chris,

At dinner last night in the hospital, I did overload on chicken tenders!