Re: [CBQ] Burnt clay ballast

["Rupert Gamlen" <gamlenz@hotmail.com>]

Thanks very much for this information. I wonder if this was scoria or burnt 
clay. Certainly the early reports said that properly burnt clay was not 
affected by the weather and was well regarded for its drainage properties.

Scoria tends to have a lot of little holes, created by gas bubbles, whereas the 
burnt clay shown in on-line photos resembles broken brick and earthenware. 

And if anyone has a good photo of burnt clay ballast I can use, I'd love to 
hear from you off group.

Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ

-----Original Message-----
From: CBQ@groups.io On Behalf Of Winton
Sent: Thursday, 15 August 2019 4:19 a.m.
To: CBQ@groups.io
Subject: [CBQ] Burnt clay ballast

When I hired onto the BN at Alliance in 1974 there was a lot of red/pink 
ballast from Alliance to Huntley. There were stretches of grey& white granite 
ballast within that range but I'd say most of the ballast was the red 
scoria/clay, probably from the Kiewit ballast pit at MP 707. I moved to 
Sheridan in 1975 and we were getting ballast trains out of Kiewit up until 
around 1980 when the BN switched to granite ballast. The heavier coal & grain 
trains pulverized the pink clay ballast and freezing & thawing turned it into 
pink mud. The red stuff from Kiewit was (is?) still used for walkways around 
signal bases and switch stands in yards. While working the Sheridan yard engine 
in the early 2000s we dumped several airdump loads of the red 'fines' from 
Kiewit around the Sheridan turntable and engine servicing tracks. As far as I 
know, the Kiewit 'ballast pit' is still shipping carloads of the red/pink/white 
stuff as 'decorative rock' to places like Chicago.


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