Ore Shipped in Bags

This info may not be applicable to Colorado, since it applys to silver/lead ore shipped on the Eureka & Palisade in 1890...The E&P required the ore to be shipped in 125-lb. bags. Typically it was transfered to Southern Pacific cars at Palisade in lots of 30000 lbs, (two narrow-gauge carloads). Interesting thing, if the ore was worth more than $50/ton it was left in bags to avoid contamination in the SP cars. With lower-value ores, the bags were emptied into SP hoppers to take advantage of a bulk shipping rate. E&P charged $1.50/carload (20 cents/ton) for emptying the bags into SP cars and returned the empty bags to the mine free of charge.