degg13 Wrote:
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> I *believe* the Mary Murphy Mill was built by an
> investors group named Golf in the mid-1890s but I
> need to do some digging to find the dates. I
> believe it started smaller than the image seen in
> at least one online DPL image and grew to be quite
> large. In that DPL image the Lady Murphy and Pat
> Murphy enclosed ore bins sit above the mill on the
> other side of the DL&G mainline.
>
> There are references to the mill and to the Mary
> Murphy, Lady Murphy and Iron Chest (later, 1890s,
> Pat Murphy) in the newspapers and some in Dan
> Edward's documentary history V1. It has taken a
> lot of digging and cross-referencing to figure
> things out to a rough understanding! I don't have
> the mill's construction date off the top of my
> head, will look. There was a sudden burst of
> activity around all these mines starting in 1886,
> with spurs, tramways, ore bins and powerhouses
> being built over the course of two years. Then
> they go quiet, and the track at Lady Murphy is
> noted in 1890 and 1891 as being used to house a
> work train. Likely on the original siding there
> when it was a water stop. Then in 1892 McBride
> gets the lease on the Lady Murphy, builds the
> Pawnee and things take off for his mine and the
> Mary Murphy for at least 3-5 years. An idea of how
> good this business was: McBride, a significant
> mining man, built the Pawnee for $10K in 1892 and
> within a month the processing proceeds paid the
> investment off! At that point Alpine Tunnel had
> been closed a year and would remain closed for at
> least 2 more--St Elmo/Romley traffic kept the
> branch alive.
I was hoping there would have been more info on mine operations in the mineral belt books, not a lot was written about the Alpine tunnel route , I was expecting more, anythign you can pass on to me will be put to good use. .
> There are also newspaper references to the other
> mines between Hancock and Romley, notably the
> Flora Bell, Allie Bell and the Rarus Warrior (note
> it is spelled "Rarus" not "Raris" as Ferrell did
> in his South Park book). Also, I have some reason
> to believe that the Allie Bell and Rarus may have
> somehow been either the same or corporately-linked
> mines.
>
> I've looked at this area for years but only in the
> past two months really dug into it. Using the
> books, the online CO newspapers, the CnSng forum
> discussions and period documents I've just begun
> scratching the surface! I really got excited when
> I realized that a layout, based just on the Alpine
> (Fisher) to Hancock section would be a fantastic
> layout--great scenery, operations and equipment.
> Especially during the early 1890s when the Tunnel
> was closed, meaning you wouldn't need to have
> dozens of coal cars and engines just to model the
> coal drags from, and the empties to, Baldwin. Just
> the mixed or a freight drag, plus moving cars from
> the mines to the mills at St Elmo. "
That's one of the advantages of a train sim ( or at least the 'Trainz" sim, lots of free content and you can duplicate it and 'reskin' the items , renumber , re-letter etc , as long as you have some basic graphics skills. when you have a selection of engines like these for free download [
trainz-forge.com]
you can see how easy it is to create an entire railroad empire cheaply, the main cost is the computer ( you need a pretty highly specced machine to run it ) but i gave up on model railroading due to lack of space , but also the cost, any NG US models in Australia cost a small fortune . The last one I bought back in the 1980s was missing a load of its small screws for the running gear and I could not get them in oz, very frustrating . I was going to make a route in my garage , but it would have had to be waterproofed and lined and then , when one has to move, the entire thing has to be dismantled and moved, at the moment i can take the whole thing on one hard drive and it can be as large as I want it to be. you don't get the pleasure of holding and running a brass model, but the upsides do overcome the downsides , at least for me . Paul, who gave me the 3d map for this route, i making a session for the Uintah route ( a running schedule and instructions for a train crew to complete a certain set of tasks) and will do the same for this when it gets finished, trainz gives many opportunities for automated running and train control, it has its bugs, but if you persist with it , it is a very good means of making large prototypical routes fairly quickly and cheaply.
