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Been looking through the photo gallery tonight and came across a picture of the Ore Dock up in the U.P.. Being a Car Ferry buff, I noticed the deck of the dock resembled the car decks of the Lake boats. Now when loading the lake ferries, all the boats had to be loaded in a certain order as not to capsize and damage the boats. When the strings of ore cars are spotted for unloading, do they have to fill the tracks in any order or doesn't it matter? Thought that might be interesting to hear. Thanks!

Ironically I am building an ore dock for my layout, it has 2 tracks but does not matter which track they dump into as it falls into the same ramp, the bottom has a swingable ramp which can be raised and lowered, and probably swings the load close or far depending on its position to spread across the boat. I havent read or followed any info on the ore docks, I am just using physics logic to make sense how the dock is built to explain it. Pushing a boat in to load one side then pull it out to load the other side then flip it around again makes no sense as doing that would be very time consuming. So the dock has to be able to spread the load fore and aft and even the loading while it sits.

In the days before pelletized ore, different grades of crude ore from various mines were mixed in the dock pockets according to steel mill requirements. This must have required a pantsload of switching and spotting. Much of the crude ore was 'sticky' and that was only made worse in freezing weather. I've heard that when pellets were first being used, a layer of them would be dumped first into the dock pockets. When the chutes were lowered, and the pocket doors were opened, the pellets would flow out easily, and the unsupported crude ore was more likely to fall out too. Or so the dock workers hoped!
Today, the Tilden and Empire mines produce hematite and magnetite ore pellets. While there is still some sorting of the two ores, it must be nothing like the old days!


Mick

Thanks guys. The main reason for asking was that I didn't know if the ore dock was solid enough to have a whole string of cars moved onto one outside track without causing harm to the superstructure if nothing was on the other side. I found out today that it doesn't matter but your info was very helpful also so thank you!

HERE IS THE HISTORY OF THE ASHLAND,WI. ORE DOCK.

THERE ARE LINKS TO MANY MORE SITES WITH LOTS OF INFO.

http://www.wisconsincentral.net/Culture041907.html

Thanks Pat!

Amazing isn't it!

I have a photo of the underside somewhere, a few years ago I got a "tour" of the dock, there are 4 tracks, on each side there are two sets of pilings going the length of the dock, so its almost like each side is its own structure that is just connected on top by the actual deck. When I find the photos I'll post them for ya.