Re: Vance Coal Pocket Chute-de-Chutes ...

HighCommander Wrote:
=======================================================
> All,
> I stand corrected. The doors do open from the
> bottom. The levers are actually locking
> mechanisms. I'm getting fuzzy in my old age and
> thought I had figured it out years ago. There were
> extensions below the doors to keep the coal from
> falling on the ground between the doors and the
> tenders.


Hi, Bill -

The most likely explanation is that when you were exploring Vance Junction in the 'Olden Days' of the early seventies - around the time I was living in To-Hell-You-Ride - at least some of the outer doors / chutes were still partially intact, and that's what you remember seeing.  By the time the facility was restored by the FS, the chutes had long since finished rotting away (or had been burned in campfires), and - figuring that the FS guys are not foamers and had no clue or interest as to how things had really worked, or where to look for further info - they restored only what they had at least a few parts and examples of (and which probably looked complete to them), and didn't research the original builders specs or plans.

- Russ