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In my growing up years our clotheslines (remember those) as well as my grandparent's clothes lline were supported by posts made of scrap boiler flues. Pete
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From: LZadnichek@aol.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Tue, Nov 3, 2015 4:37 pm Subject: Re: [CBQ] Scrapping C&S Steam Power November 3, 2015
Hol - Finally working my way chronologically down saved Emails from
last week, so have now arrived at your excellent images of C&S
steam power being scrapped at the 7th Street Yard in Denver. This was a real, as
we would say in the Deep South, "shade tree" operation. Absolutely no doubt
it was a make work situation for rip track laborers when they didn't have
anything more productive to do at the time.
A couple of images caught my eye. Like Pete says, lots of asbestos boiler
lagging was exposed. In those days, asbestos was not considered dangerous and it
was laying around on the ground or blowing in the wind
at any scrap yard or location where insulated boilers and piping
were being cut-up.
Another image shows that the C&S was saving cut boiler flues
for later use as fence posts, railings or pipe. You can see that flues were
being cut free at the front and back of the boiler and then rolled
down two angled flues onto a flat car. This was not at all unusual as in
my scrap yard days we did more-or-less the same with ship boilers that the
burners first split in two. There were always active buyers for the cut flues
and I suspect they found a myriad of uses afterwards.
The images that really "got" me were the ones of the locomotive
"chunks" dumped into the gondola. The steel mill had to been buying
the cut-up locomotives as "Unprepared No. 1," or, as we termed it, "Torch
Material." There is relatively little weight loaded into the gon as it
would "cube out" with the big chunks long before reaching its maximum
tonnage. Very wasteful.... But, since the C&S was absorbing the
transportation cost to the mill and the labor cost was probably exceeding the
value of the scrap, it really didn't matter. Still, I cringe to this day
whenever I see a car (or river hopper barge for that much) not loaded to
its full capacity.
I suppose the inefficiency and cost of cutting-up their own steam power
lead the C&S to bidding out the remaining locomotives and subsequently
shipping them all the way south to Houston, TX, where Commercial Metals
finished the job. Do you have any images of that final funeral train on the
C&S or FW&D in route to Houston? I imagine the mechanical
and operating departments of both railroads breathed a BIG sign
of relief when the last tender disappeared behind the gates to
the scrap yard. Many thanks for sharing these images. Best Regards - Louis
Louis Zadnichek II
Fairhope, AL
In a message dated 10/26/2015 8:48:40 P.M. Central Standard Time,
CBQ@yahoogroups.com writes:
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