What were ore tipples used for?

[Jeff Young]

I thought the answer was to store ore waiting on scheduled shipments, such as by train, truck or tram.  However, I was exploring in Virginia Canyon above Idaho Springs, and there are lots of tipples where there was no railroad (that I'm aware of), no tramways, and they appear to be turn-of-the-century structures (before trucks).

Did they store the ore waiting on other forms of shipment, such as horse and wagon?  (You'd think they'd just have the wagon waiting around in that case, rather than going to the expense of building a tipple.)

So what am I missing?

[Jeff Ramsey]

Some times ore was stored for maximum shipment efficiency (not winter) or when the metals market was optimal.

[Chris Walker]

Storage; confinement and seperation of other type or grade of Ore for ease of transfer between the production and transportation.  Some had a Sortinghouse combined with the upper structure.

There are so many variables on this one: These include distance to Mill or Railhead, Types of Ore produced ie mineral complexity, Ore quality or value, ie millgrade, low-grade or Smelter, transportation rates per carload or per ton, exploratory mine or production mine or tunnel (haulage) operation, small or large operation in production and therefore able to command a lower rate on shipment due to influence/negotiation perhaps?  Also factors are the eras of construction, Pre Rail, Pre-Mill, Post Rail, Post Mill etc?
 
Don't forget that some of those waste dumps could also be very lowgrade ore stock piles as well.


from The Mining&Engineering World  31August  1907.


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Not all Bins were of the "tipple" type that you saw in Virginia Canyon.  These sloped open types were common around I.S. and the Gilpin County


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[Jeff Young]

Thanks for the info guys (and particularly the pictures of the horse-drawn carts).

Sorting also makes a lot of sense; the one I took pictures of had 5 pockets, which presumably were for some sort of sorting.  There were 18” gauge tracks coming out of the adit to the top of the tipple; a second set of tracks led from a lower storey of the tipple over the loading area to the tailings pile.

All I had with me was my phone, but the pictures turned out better than expected:







Many of the others were smaller, with only 2 or 3 pockets, so perhaps those were more for shipping consolidation.

Cheers,
Jeff.

[Darel Leedy]

Yes, sorting. Seems one of them was the laundry chute.

[salty4568]

I wish that modellers and railfans would stop calling them "Tipples."  Tipple is a coal mining term and is not applicable to Hard Rock mines. As a former miner (and railroader) it is a real pet peeve of mine.  
    Tipple = Coal
    Ore Bin, Waste Bin, sometimes Rock Bin or Rock House = Hard rock / metal mines.

Skip Luke
Retireded Railroader and Miner, among many other things.

[Chris Walker]

Jeff,
that is the Forge Hill Tunnel,  pretty much over top of the line of the Big5 Tunnel from Idaho Springs.  Your pictures turned out nice for a phone, all I had was a point and shoot instamatic type.

There is a sorting table along the top side of the Orehouse, and a Dormer addition which would have been the Hi-grade ore chute as this had its own switch and track.  The second level track was intact and led out to the Wastedump.

Joe Crea and I had a good look around there in '97, someone who worked in Central City was using the Office building as a Cabin, the rest of Central City were using the Orehouse as a rubbish tip.  
 




All the Gates and one of the Dropchutes were intact at the time.  Sad to see this building is still being used as a rubbish tip and that the Gates with their wonderful walking-spoke Handwheels have been looted, most likely for scrap.  I guess it will probably burn down before I get back.

[Chris Walker]

After the Horse...


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