(see below for the satellite)
http://cantontornado36.blogspot.com/2017/04/coal-mines-around-norris.html
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Justin Curless posted
Truax Traer Fiatt Coal Mine
Roger Kujawa You can make out the Burlington Coal hoppers under the tipple. The distinctive slanted “Everywhere west/ Way of the Zephyrs” slogan can be seen on the cars.
Glen Spencer My dad worked there for the life of this plant & retired at the Norris plant in 1971.
Justin Curless posted
Truax Traer Coal Mine Fiatt West Of Canton and North of Cuba (Tipple Preparation plant)
Roger Kujawa shared
[I answered a question about Little Sister Mine.] |
I've learned that when there are lots of long, skinny lakes, that is a
meta land scar for lots of strip mining. And in Illinois, most strip mining is for coal.
Most of the mining east of Cuba and below the tracks was done by the
United Electric Coal Co. Cuba #9 Mine during 1923-71. The little area west of Cuba around Lasswell Road was also part of the Cuba #9 mine. The bigger area below that was mined by David E Rowland during 1937-38. The mining done above the tracks all the way north of Il-9 was done by Truax Traer Coal Co as the Fiatt #2 Mine 1935-42 and the Red Ember mine 1943-69. The tipple for the Fiatt mine was just south of Fiatt marked by the "X" with a bold numeral 704. The various grey 704's mark the polygon mined by the Fiatt Mine.
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| ISGS, I recommend you right-click the map icon and download the .pdf and open it with your favorite .pdf reader. It is a complicated file, and it took a lot of CPU time on my desktop to display it. Normally, .pdf files open quickly in my reader. |
This old aerial shows the tipple, the CB&Q branch, and that they had been stripping west and south of town. It also shows that Fiatt evidently never was very big.
Note that the haul road built for the trucks is about twice as wide as the county roads. While trying to trace the CB&Q branch to the south, I discovered that they were also stripping coal to the east. In this excerpt, I included the tipple on the left to provide context.
Land reclamation regulations didn't exist back then, so the land scars of that area are still easy to see today.
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Justin Curless posted
Truax Traer Coal Company (Fiatt Mine) illinois Tipple Area. |
Dennis DeBruler
posted ten photos with the comment:
Russel Lee was hired by CB&Q to take "Daily Life Along the CB&Q" photos for their 1955 centennial. Fortunately, the Traer Coal Co. Fiatt, IL was one of their stops in May, 1948.http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/search/collection/nby_rrlife/searchterm/truax-traer/mode/all/order/nosort/page/1, http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/nby_rrlif
David Lidwell I rode empties to the that tipple just before it closed
Myron Dudenbostel What year did it close?
Dennis DeBruler 1969
https://towns-and-nature.blogspot.com/.../fiatt-il-truax...
Myron Dudenbostel I was working at TT #3 mine Scheuline (Sparta) when TT closed all those mines up that direction. We got 3 Cat haul trucks and some other equipment and a bunch of just junk at that time.
(It was also shared to
Illinois Coal Mines, Miners & Railroads, but Facebook changed saves for the worse last week and now I don't know how to get a permanent link to the share.)
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Nick Koba Jr. the stripping shovels look like Marion 350 Shovel & a 360 dragline |
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It looks like they ran more than one "little" shovel and parade of trucks on the coal seam. They do need to remove the coal at least as fast as the big equipment can expose it so that the big equipment doesn't have to wait for the coal to be removed.
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Justin Curless posted
Truax Traer Coal Company Open Pit at The (Fiatt Mine) Illinois |
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Justin Curless posted
Truax Traer Coal Mine Shovel
John W Newlun This is where my dad ,Francis Newlun started out then went to Consol Cal at Norris Il, Then To Industry, where he retired. |
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Justin Curless posted
The 9-W at Sunset the 9-W Dragline in operation at the (Fiatt Mine) |
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Justin Curless posted
Fiatt Mine Spoil Banks #1: Entering the back roads to the closed pits at the. (Fiatt Mine) |
To better trace the route of the CB&Q through Fiatt, I found a 1974 topo map. I include what was the tipple area. (HistoricAerials goes back to just 1988, which is not much older than Global Earth. So the 1938 view is the only aerial I know of that covers this area when the mine was active.)
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Larry Senalik posted
Strip Mine - probably east central part of the state based on the other pictures in this collection 10/24/1951
#sangamonvalleycollection
James Stine Well, it took me a bit, but we can tell you where and what’s here.
This is the United Electric Coal’s Cuba No. 9 which was located near Cuba, Illinois. The machines are a BE 950-B stripping shovel in the foreground and the W-1 Koble Wheel at the back of the cut or pit.
James Stine If you look in the upper right hand corner of this photo, I believe that’s another 950-B belonging to Truax Traer Coal and is their Fiatt Mine.
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Given James' comment about the 950-B, I believe it is in the red rectangle in this cropped photo.
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| The above photo cropped to photo resolution plus paint |
It is hard to believe that in less than three decades they will have stripped a lot of that land on the other side of the train tracks.
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Stine James posted
On August 4, 1965, the first example of a Marion 5860M shovel went to work at the Norris mine of Truax-Traer Coal Co., Division of Consol. The Norris Mine, near Fiatt, Illinois in Fulton County produced 5000 tons of coal per day and was marketed under the "Red Amber" label. The shovel carried a 80 cu.yd. dipper on a 180 foot boom. |
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Justin Curless posted
Truax Traer Coal Mine Tipple |
Tim Garren
posted some photos with the comment: "
German Wheel, Norris, Illinois"
Myron Dudenbostel This wheel was first set up at Truax-Trear's mine in South Dakota. It did not work out because of too many "sleepers" in the overburden. It was replaced with a dragline and wheel was moved to Norris.
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Bruce Weirauch posted
1969
Bob Cebuhar I know what the Ledger caption says about this picture but to me it looks like the German Wheel Excavator (GWX) being built at the Norris Mine, not the Prep Plant (Tipple).
Dennis DeBruler Bob Cebuhar, I agree. That has to be the German Wheel. You can see the profile of some of the crawler tracks under the superstructure. And looking at some photos of the tipple buildings, they don't have "arms." (Since this link is to this group, I hope it works even through this group is Private.)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2015518782047838/permalink/2015816465351403/ |
William J. Beck
posted four photos with the comment:
I would like to share a few of the mining photos I have taken over my career. The following photos are of the Kobly 360 Bucket Wheel Excavator taken in 1975 at Consolidation Coal's Norris Mine near Canton, Illinois. It was reported that the Kobly 360 (built around 1937) was the first BWE to operate in the US. It was constructed on an old stripping shovel with a wooden house (see the photo of the house). The BWE had a 36 inch conveyor belt to move the overburden from the digging wheel to the stacking boom, thus the model name 360. I do not believe the BWE operated at Norris Mine (if it did, it was only for a short time) since the mine had two BWEs. It was parked at Norris mine prior to dismantling. I believe it operated at Truax Traer other mines in the area -- Fiatt or Little Sister
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I was the chief electrician at Consol - Truax Traer mines from 1968 until 2015. I worked on all these machines but the oldest one.
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