Re: Quincy and Torch Lake NG RR and MUCH more

Here is a link to more on the Q&TL. This site also covers a lot of other railroad history in the copper county of Michigan’s upper peninsula.

[www.copperrange.org]

Here is a link to a wide assortment of photographs of railroads and mining subjects of the area:

[204.38.55.89]

The Q&TL is popular because, after its end of operation in 1945, it remained intact right into the 1970s. Like an ancient treasure chest, its stone engine house contained its four locomotives standing where they were parked in 1945. Seemingly hundreds of pieces of rolling stock sat in the weeds.

But the history of that area goes much deeper than the Q&TL. Within an area of roughly 40 X 100 miles, there were once the following railroads:

QUINCY & TORCH LAKE RR (3-foot-gage)
HECLA & TORCH LAKE RR (4’-1” gage with camelback locomotives)
ATLANTIC & LAKE SUPERIOR RR (4’-1” gage)
HANCOCK & CALUMET RR (3-foot-gage)
COPPER RANGE RR (standard gage)
MINERAL RANGE RR (3-foot-gage originally, standard gage later)
CALUMET & HECLA RR (standard gage)
KEEWEENAW CENTRAL RR (gage ?)
LAC LABELLE & CALUMET RR (3-Foot-gage)
HOUGHTON COUNTY TRACTION CO. (Streetcar / interurban standard gage)
PORI LOOP LINE (Standard gage logging railroad with 20% grades, running rod locomotives)
DULUTH SOUTH SHORE & ATLANTIC RR
SOO LINE RR

The stamp mills that processed the copper ore needed to be located near large sources of water, so they were often several miles from the mine. Much of the railroad activity was in transporting ore from the mines to the mills.

There were also some very small aboveground railroads that served early, relatively primitive mines. The Victoria Mine operated a railroad and all mining machinery with compressed air because it was too difficult to transport coal to it. They channeled the Ontonagon River into a set of special tubes that would swallow air and entrap it in an underground cavern. It was a 5000 horsepower air compressor with no moving parts.