Beets were moved from approximately October to March, it was called Beet Campaign. The last campaigns were in the 1980's before the Great Western Sugar factories were closed and dismantled. This is what the old PS-3 coal Hoppers from the Utah Railway were purchased for. Prior to that the GW used old drop bottom General Service gons with tall beet racks. Beets are not very heavy.
The beets were hauled to the various factories and unloaded over a wet hopper (named because there was a constant flow of warm water falling over the hoppers to dump them more easily. Since Sugar Beets float, they were floated to an Archimedes Screw and conveyed in that manner to the second floor of the sugar factory where the slicing and chemical processes to separate the beets from the sugar were begun.
During beet campaign, there were also hopper loads of stoker coal received by the GW to power the boilers. There were also cars of limestone used for bleaching the sugar as well as cars of diatomaceous earth, who's use I cant really remember right now.
From the Beets there was, of course, white and brown sugar, There was molasses, both BE and CSF, one was food grade and the other chemical grade, The beet pulp was made into cattle feed. It was seemingly a very efficient operation.
By the time that I got there the one NW-12, NO. 121 had been sold, so of the original locomotives there were the 60, 61 and 62, all SW-1's (600 hp) and one NSW 12, the 120. During Beet Campaign the GW leased an NW-5 (ex BN) and used it during the campaign season.
The line from Windsor, through Severance to Eaton had not been abandoned at that time.
A lot of posters to this forum, including myself, worked for the GW.
Where Phillip Marshall calls the GWR in the UK "God's Wonderful Railway", (the late) Randy Dean just called its Colorado Counterpart the "Grease Wad".
After I left in 1982, a lot of changes took place, including the bankruptcy of Great Western Sugar (after having been acquired and soaked dry by Nelson and Bunker Hunt of Texas). The Railroad trying to go into the locomotive rebuilding business. The reorganization as "Western Sugar" and their subsequent failure. Then the acquisition by a Real Estate mogul from Denver, Pat Broe and their reincarnation as "OmniTrax".
Rick
