Placerville Gondola loads
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Don Bergman
Folks,
I have long been fascinated with several photographs at Placerville of gondolas with mill equipment. I have modeled the first one of the 3 gondolas and am working on the second one.
What might the "back" hidden side of item being loaded onto the wagons look like? (See second URL below.)
What would any of the objects on all 3 gondola loads be used for? In the third gondola what might the farthest item be? Looks like a big grinding stone to me.
Thanks for the help.
Don Bergman
Holland, MI
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Don Bergman
Folks,
I have long been fascinated with several photographs at Placerville of gondolas with mill equipment. I have modeled the first one of the 3 gondolas and am working on the second one.
What might the "back" hidden side of item being loaded onto the wagons look like? (See second URL below.)
What would any of the objects on all 3 gondola loads be used for? In the third gondola what might the farthest item be? Looks like a big grinding stone to me.
Thanks for the help.
Don Bergman
Holland, MI
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kevin b
What might the "back" hidden side of item being loaded onto the wagons look like? (See second URL below.)
What would any of the objects on all 3 gondola loads be used for? In the third gondola what might the farthest item be? Looks like a big grinding stone to me.
Thanks for the help.
Don Bergman
Holland, MI
hello Don. hidden side: as for the back side, and or unseen side, it is quite possible there would be an access panel bolted on to allow someone inside to remove the big chunks once the thing got to the point it needs cleaned out and or to change the screens and so on. see below for explanation. can't say for sure what the third car holds, my guess would be part of the machinery it takes to crush ore. as for the first car, i can get you pretty darn close. ok, one of the jobs i used to have was at titan fab. in Owesnboro ky. we made just about anything you can think of out of steel. one of the projects i was on, was to make just almost exactly what's in the first car. the purpose of what we made was for water treatment. the flat disc was inserted at the top of the cone with all kinds of equipment and so on above. the holes only let water and debris of a certain size through and went on to the next phase of whatever they were doing. the water filtered, was not for drinking etc. but for cleaning material at some long forgotten processing plant. (it was at least 30 years ago when i did the work) ok, so, the loads in these gons would have been for porcessing ore probably, or whatever. a load of whatever, would have came in from above, and water (see pic of cone on wagon) would enter from the chute looking thing on the side. the water coming in from the side, would serve to make the mix swirl etc. and help clean and separate the (whatever) that comes in from the top. only the water and what was small enough to pass through the holes in the disc goes on the next part of the operation. what we're not seeing in the cars, is of course, the large diameter "stuff" that is above the cone. where loads of ore would have been dumped and possibly ran through a crusher. so, before anybody throws stones and names me a heretic and so on, i am basing my estimation of what is in the photos off of things I made in the past that i KNOW exactly what did. for what it's worth..... Kevin.
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kevin b
I have long been fascinated with several photographs at Placerville of gondolas with mill equipment. I have modeled the first one of the 3 gondolas and am working on the second one. hello Don. looked at some other photos from Placerville..... found this: ok, so, this equipment may be for power generation. the caption says: D&RG flat car #9484 at Placerville with mine or mill equipment aboard. This may be a hydroelectric generator kit. RGS Placerville, CO ca. 1913 In book "Narrow Gauge Pictorial, Vol. III: Gondolas, Boxcars and Flatcars of the D&RGW" page 204 Thanks to Don Bergman for additional information. the load on that flat car sure looks like a turbine to me. ok, so if your gon loads are for the power plant, then those loads are for filtering out debris from the water stream to protect the turbine from damage. whether the cones etc in the gons is for mining or power generation, they still serve the same purpose, to get chunks out of water. have a happy day. Kevin.
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kevin b
sorry, pic didn't come through, lemme try again. sigh.... oko, the link then. thanks. Kevin.
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they sure look like percolation tanks for cyanide gold processing. lloyd lehrer, MANHATTAN BEACH, CA (310)951-9097
On Sun, Aug 9, 2020 at 1:48 PM Don Bergman <DBRenegade@...> wrote:
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lloyd lehrer
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geo. Konrad had an article in the Jan. 91 gazette. He describes the ones he mentioned at 42"dia. lloyd lehrer, MANHATTAN BEACH, CA (310)951-9097
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lloyd lehrer
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Ted Wilton
The large conical devices in the gondolas in Placerville look like cyclones for a mill to me. The large "wheel" in the far end of the last gon might be a reel of canvas hose perhaps [?]. Placerville was the loading/unloading point for the Standard Chemical Company, who built a uranium/radium/vanadium mill [the Joe Jr. mill] at the Club Ranch area [now known as Uravan [sort-of]] downstream along the San Miguel River [near the confluence with the Dolores River], several miles from Naturita. Mill construction started in 1910. Water issues being what they were, Standard first employed a dry process for recovery but it was ineffective, and they converted the mill to a wet recovery circuit in 1914. Perhaps this photo depicts some of the equipment required for the conversion of the mill to that process? The conical devices are not ball mills. While they are bulky, they are light weight as there are three in the gondola. Ball mills, on the other hand are very heavy pieces of machinery and multiple units would greatly stress the strength of these wood gondolas. Regards, TED
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John Stutz
Don My guess is that these are inner and outer sections of three counter-flow density separation cones for a milling operation. With a cone's wide end up, a mix of materials having two distinct density ranges is introduced at the top, into an upward flow of liquid that has a controlled density. The upward flowing liquid acts a bit like quicksand, but its density and flow is adjusted so that the lighter of the inputs flows off at the top, while the denser sinks, and is periodically flushed out the bottom. The "Chance sand-flotation process" used such cone separators, running with a mix of sand and water, to separate coal from slate and boney coal. The EBT outlived most other NG railroads because Rockhill Coal had built a Chance process plant at Mt Union, and needed the railroad to move raw coal from multiple small, otherwise non-competitive mines, to the processing/transfer plant. In a metal ore mill, separation cones would be an alternative to the vibrating tables. Compared to such tables, separation cones might be more sensitive to small density differences, would probably be somewhat less selective, but would have far higher throughput. But as I lack any detailed references on metal ore milling, this is mostly speculation. Hope it helps. John Stutz
On August 9, 2020 at 1:48 PM Don Bergman <DBRenegade@...> wrote:
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Russ Norris
Great explanation of the Chance facility in Mount Union. When I lived there from 1972 to 1978, the plant had been idle since 1956 and was in the process of being dismantled. After they removed the corrugated siding you could see the internal mechanism, conveyors, sand flotation tank and the rest. Somewhere I have photos of it. Russ Norris, MMR
On Wed, Aug 12, 2020, 4:33 AM John Stutz <john.stutz@...> wrote:
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