Copper Basin Ry. - Thurs. 04-25-2019 - OT-1 Ray to Hayden
The 12:10 OT-1 was loading at Ray mine as the eastbound “Local” slowly trundled along the remote line from Magma Jct. Communication between trains, maintenance-of-way and the “CB base” is very good.
1. OT-1 loading from the ASARCO mine overlook. As you can see, they don’t take hours to load the train as at a coal mine. CBRY 301 loading. Ray mine AZ.
2. CBRY 301 loading. View 2. Ray mine AZ.
3. Just east of Ray Junction AZ, OT-1 behind CBRY 301-401-502 approaches Tunnel 2.
4. CBRY 301-401-502. View 2. near Ray Jct AZ.
5. CBRY 301. Tunnel 2. near Ray Jct AZ.
6. CBRY 301. Tunnel 2. View 2. near Ray Jct AZ.
7. CBRY 301. Tunnel 2. View 3. near Ray Jct AZ.
8. CBRY 301. Tunnel 2. View 4. near Ray Jct AZ.
9. East portal of CBRY Tunnel 2. near Ray Jct AZ.
10. East portal looking east toward Hayden Jct. CBRY Tunnel 2.
11. West portal looking west toward Ray Jct. Tailings from the Ray mine are in the background. CBRY Tunnel 2.
12. OT-1 has just passed Hayden Jct AZ and is assaulting the steep grade up to the dumper. CBRY 301.
13. CBRY 301. View 2. Hayden Jct AZ.
14. OT-1 grinds up the hill with 40 loads of copper ore. Keep an eye out for rattlesnakes. CBRY 301-401-502. View 3. Hayden AZ.
15. CBRY 301-401-502. View 4. Hayden AZ.
16. That’s the crusher on the hill just to the left of the engines. CBRY 301 tailings pipeline. Hayden AZ.
17. That trestle is the old tailings pipeline. Behind it is the new one. CBRY 301 tailings pipeline. Hayden AZ.
18. This wider view gets one of the two giant smelter stacks. There is a website that shows many views of the community. CBRY 301 smelter stack. Hyden AZ.
19. OT-1 arrives at the south side of the dumper. CBRY 301. ASARCO dumper. Hayden AZ.
20. Gate closed and the signal is red. CBRY 301. ASARCO dumper. Hayden AZ.
21. The gate has been manually opened, and the yellow signal indicates the train to approach. CBRY 301. ASARCO dumper. Hayden AZ.
22. Starting to dump the ore. CBRY 301. ASARCO dumper. Hayden AZ.
23. Because of the limited siding space OT-1 moved over to the north track to dump the rest of the train. CBRY 301. ASARCO dumper. Hayden AZ.
24. CBRY 1539 hopper was built 07-1985. Hayden AZ.
25. Shoving the rest of the train through the north side. CBRY 301. ASARCO dumper. Hayden AZ.
26. CBRY 502-401-301. ASARCO dumper. Hayden.
27. Soon as he puts the train back together OT-1 will be ready to go back to the mine. On the right is the interchange with the San Manuel Arizona Railroad. CBRY 502. ASARCO dumper. Hayden AZ.
28. From Hayden we headed south toward Tucson. At San Manuel we paused to photograph the San Manual Arizona Railroad (SMARRCO) trans-load facility. From here they loaded copper concentrate from the mine near Miami AZ. But after reading some of the websites including owner Capstone Mining, rail transportation to a port in Mexico has been replaced with a truck haul. Being a mine property there was a guard house leading down the hill to this facility. SMARR had several GP38s. The locomotives are probably parked in the covered trans-load building shown here. However we saw a couple of large trestles from AZ 77 near Mammoth. The the rails looked shiny and in good condition. I couldn’t determine the reporting marks on these hoppers. San Manuel Arizona RR transload San Manuel AZ.
We headed on past Tucson for a motel at Green Valley.
Train images used by permission of Everett N Young