Towns and Nature

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Joliet, IL: Joliet Marine & Drydock and Alexander McKenzie Sternwheeler

The office when it was in business? (Satellite)

The work area: (Satellite)

The derelict Alexander MacKenzie: (3D Satellite)

David Gulden posted two photos with the comment: "ALEXANDER MACKENZIE."

Curt Smith: She's still at Joliet rusting away. Went by her a month ago. I don't even think Joliet drydock is in business anymore. Seen that small boat they use for moving stuff in the back. In the day that little boat was built at Dubuque Boat Boiler she was Mary and Floyd Thompson and other names.

Tom O'Dell: One of the last big Steam Sternwheelers built by Marrieta Manufacturing at Point Pleasant. She and her sister the Jason (Herbert E. Jones). Both built to use Bunker C Fuel Oil and later converted to Coal. Her wheel was at Port Amherst for many years. Amherst had bought for one purpose to use fir spare parts for the Jones.

[Some comments indicate that it is headed towards the CB&Q Bridge]

David Gulden posted three photos with the comment: "ALEXANDER MACKENZIE."

David Gulden posted 9 photos.

Rob Smith: Curt Smith It still there…. I’m very sure there is still a lot of topside welding going on…. Not sure if they are still using the Drydock.

Tom O'Dell: Great pictures of a great lady taken right here in Marietta Manufacturing Company just prior to our entry into WWII. She and the Jason, her sister boat were the last of the big steam Sternwheel towboats to ply the Ohio, Mississippi and Kanawha Rivers clear into to the middle and late 1950’s. Originally built to operate on Bunker C Fuel Oil and later switched to coal. The Wheel of the Jason (Herbert E. Jones) still rest at the Pittsburg point where the Ohio is formed. I’m not sure on the Mackenzie’s wheel but it was for many many years on the bank of the Kanawha at Port Amherst.

Joshua Sasfai: Her big brother just got scrapped last week the Jason

Buzzfile has not purged its record for this company:

Joliet Marine & Drydock is located in Joliet, Illinois. This organization primarily operates in the Barges, Building and Repairing business / industry within the Transportation Equipment sector. This organization has been operating for approximately 25 years. Joliet Marine & Drydock is estimated to generate $186,498 in annual revenues, and employs approximately 1 people at this single location. This organization is engaged in manufacturing activities at this facility.

The Port of Joliet has the following description:

Joliet Marine and Drydock Inc. owns and operates the Joliet Marine & Drydock Landing in the Port of Joliet to moor and repair floating equipment and barges and to moor its floating dry dock. At the head of the slip is permanently moored the office boat Alexander McKenzie, and a 450-ton floating dry dock is moored next to the office boat. Another 200-ton floating dry dock is moored at the outer end of the slip. The Port of Joliet's Marine & Drydock Landing has berthing space of 335 meters (1100 feet) NPE.

David Gulden posted
Tom O'Dell: They are looking awfully hard at the Pitman Arm. Wonder if there was a problem.
Dick Karnath: My father, Walt Karnath, was pilot on her for several years. As I recall he took her to Joliet for her retirement about 1951 or 2.

I've read that the price of scrape steel has gone up, so I better save the current image.

3D Satellite

The crane looks old, but not the U-shaped thing under it.

3D Satellite

Is the dry dock a submersible that is pumped out so that it floats and the working area is dry?

Satellite

We can see the sterns of the "office boat" and the little towboat.

Screenshot, 20150603

Screesnshot, 20250603

I've taken photos of the sternwheeler from the other side of the river because it caught my eye, but I have too many "Joliet" folders to easily find those photos. If I come across the photos when looking for something else, I now have a place to put them.

Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Port Allen (Baton Rouge), LA: Export Grain Elevator and Four Mill

Export Elevator: (Satellite)

Flour Mill: (Satellite)

While studying the Port Allen Lock, I noticed on the satellite image that there is a huge grain elevator that no longer has any rail service. The yard tracks have been removed. Then I realized that the incoming grain is now from barges and the outgoing grain goes to ocean-going ships. The USACE maintains a 45' shipping channel to Baton Rouge.

Port of Greater Baton Rouge-Export

Port of Greater Baton Rouge-About

Port of Greater Baton Rouge

Port of Greater Baton Rouge-Gallery
1955 Completion of Grain Elevator

They began with four steel bins, rail service and a load-out conveyor to the dock.

Port of Greater Baton Rouge-Gallery
1955 Grain Elevator Conveyor System to Dock

Port of Greater Baton Rouge-Gallery
1955 Molasses Storage Tanks

By 1960 they went from 4 to 12 wide bins and two rows of tall bins.

Port of Greater Baton Rouge-Gallery
1960 Grain Elevator Ship Loading
[Note the flour mill in the background. Grain is still delivered by rail service to that facility.]

3D Satellite

The following four Global Earth images show that the 1960 configuration lasted until after Nov 2011. And the configuration we see today was built by Aug 2014. Unfortunately, the resolution of the Global Earth images are not good enough to determine when rail service was removed.

Global Earth, Nov 2011

Global Earth, Jan 2013

Global Earth, Mar 2013

Global Earth, Aug 2014

In addition to the new configuration replacing rail shipment by barge shipment and replacing a leg by conveyor belts, it includes a couple of six-silo clusters that I have never seen before. On the south side, they replaced three of the wide bins with a row of rather large silos. It looks like all the new silos were built with slip forms rather than jump forms.

Satellite

Is the "white boom" that is just above where the two conveyor belts cross doing some bank stabilizing work?

Street View, Jun 2019

At first, I thought the "white boom" was unloading barges. But I see that their unloading dock is covered and the contents of the barges is white and they don't appear to have covers.

3D Satellite

Street View, Jun 2019

This view confirms that I would not be able to get better photos by driving there because I could not get any closer to the elevators that the street view car did.

Street View, Apr 2019

I don't cross fences, especially if they have barb wire on top.

Street View, Apr 2019

I tried to get a better view of the barge unloading operation before I realized it was covered. Note that in April, as opposed to the June views, we can see the exhaust stack of a ship that is being loaded.

Street View, Apr 2019

Monday, May 31, 2021

Ottawa, IL: CSX(IAIS)/Rock Island Jointed Rail

I have been intending on commenting on the condition of the track in Ottawa because CSX has not properly maintained it. Roger's pictures below show that in 1963 the track was in good shape.

Posted by Marty Bernard. Stuart B. Slaymaker commented "Great shots. Second pic has two suburban passenger RS-3s in the trail, one of which is the 490. This is probably a Saturday or Sunday, as they were used as fill ins on freight, on the weekends."

A July 1963 Roger Puta Photo

I started taking some closeups of the track because I noticed that many of the rivet heads were well above the base of the track. I found a stretch of nine ties in a row that had loose rivets. (2021 update: since these photos that I took in 2015, I have been observing rivets in tracks on BNSF, UP, etc. It turns out, loose rivets are quite common.)

20150809 4090

The fact that the track is still jointed rather than CWR (Continuous Welded Rail) indicates that CSX is forcing IAIS to run over a bad route. I wonder how well IAIS maintains the former Rock Island route further west that it owns. Checking out the track that IAIS owns would be a reason to do a field trip further west. (Update: it probably is still jointed because the mainline track speed is just 25 mph. [Facebook post])

While I was taking photos of the depot, and the above pulled rivets, I noticed to the west across Columbus Street that there was a "dimple" at each rail joint. This is a common problem with jointed rail and one of the reasons railroads put up with the Summer kinks and Winter breaks of CWR. Also notice the gauge pinch at the edge of the crossing. To catch that bend in the rail is why I lined this photo up along the left rail. (The rail joints look like they are closer than 39' because I took this photo with a telephoto lens.)

At first, I thought that CSX had installed CWR. But...

Street View, Oct 2019

...when I looked closer, the new rail is just part of the crossing upgrade. When I look past the crossing replacement, I see jointed rail again.

Street View

In fact, the track in front of the depot still has dimples.

Street View, Oct 2019

Here is another example of well maintained jointed-rail track from back when railroad managers worried about serving their customers rather than their Operating Ratio bonuses, paying dividends and buying back shares.

DeBruler

Sunday, May 30, 2021

Marietta, PA: Lavino/Musselman-Vesta Furnace

(Satellite, the ruins are kept free of vegetation for educational lectures)

Facebook and RiverTownes

Frank Jacobs III posted
1920 Vesta Furnace, Marietta, Pa. A few years back.

Facebook

The furnace was built in 1868 by Henry Musselman and Henry M. Watts. They kept remodeling it so that the "annual production of pig-iron increased from 5,400 tons in 1870 to 22,500 tons in the late 1800s....The furnace had four hot blast stoves which preheated air to 13,000 F. Two large blowing engines delivered 14,400 cubic feet of air per minute into the furnace. A gas washer and dryer were used to condition the furnace gases before they were sent to preheaters and boilers to make steam to run the plant and pumps." It went idle at the beginning of the 20th Century so it was one of the furnaces that E.J. Levino bought during WWI to produced ferromanganese, which was shipped to companies that made steel. Since the manganese ore came from all around the world, it is interesting that this plant on the river ceased production in the 1920's but the furnace in Sheridan, PA, continued until 1970. [RiverTownes]

This was the last of eight anthracite-fired iron hot blast furnaces built in the flood plain between Columbia and Marietta. Iron ore and limestone was sourced locally and the anthracite coal was initially shipped in from northeastern Pennsylvania via the Pennsylvania Canal System. The coal shipments later used railroads. Then they switched to using coke and had to get iron ore from Maryland and West Virginia as well as from local mines. [MariettaRestoration]

Courtesy of Margaret Landis via LancasterOnline
"In this photo of Musselman/Vesta Iron Furnace from 1888, the office is on the right and the furnace is on the left."
[This site has some additional photos.]

During the early 20th Century, the iron industry moved from Lancaster County to the Pittsburgh area.

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Marshfield, IN: Wood and Regional Grain Elevators

(Satellite)

Any wood frame grain elevator that is still standing is worth noting.

Brian E Jones posted
Marshfield, Indiana 5/27/21
David Brier: I’ve been in there several times. Owned by local farmer now.

Dennis DeBruler commented on David's comment
I presume he bought the old elevator. I see that a couple of silos have been added.
Street View

I see there is a siding that is still attached to the former Wabash mainline. But I don't think the elevator is rail served because I don't see a fall protector. It looks like NS uses the siding for storing MoW equipment.

Satellite

Friday, May 28, 2021

Sheridan, Newmanstown, PA: Lavino Furnace/Berkshire Iron

(Satellite, the iron works was sold for scrap in 1970)

The plant was on the Harrisburg-Reading mainline of the Reading Railway. [Pacific Southwest Railway Museum] The route through this area is now owned by Norfolk Southern.

Abandoned, Old or Interesting Places - Eastern PA posted
Sheridan Furnaces, E.J. Lavino & Co. (Sheridan, Pa.) ca. 1932. View of a furnace built in 1862 by the Berkshire Iron Company. The furnace was converted to anthracite in 1867, and rebuilt at later dates. A second furnace was erected in 1874. Note the name of Lavino Furnace Co. on the locomotive. E.J. Lavino & Co. purchased the plant in 1916.
Andrew Denelsbeck shared

Terry Gockley posted
In this photo of the Sheridan furnace you can see where I lived in the large apartment house very close the the railroad tracks 1940s and 50s.

When E.J. Lavino bought this company, he converted it to manufacture ferromanganese, "which was about 85 percent manganese, 15 percent iron, and 5 percent carbon" [Steamtown]