Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette This photo, taken last fall, shows the water tank at the Quincy railroad house now restored.

By GRAHAM JAEHNIG

Houghton Mining

Gazette

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP — The volunteer group dedicated to restoring the Quincy & Torch Lake Railroad recently received a donation of 100 railroad ties from Coppers’ L’Anse Tie Recovery Yard.

The purpose of the ties is to lay railroad track from the Q&TL RR engine house approximately 200 feet to the water tank, which is located on the property of the Quincy Mine Hoist Association, Chuck Pomazal said.

Pomazal is a retired civil engineer from the Illinois Department of Transportation. He is also an avid model railroader. He and six to eight other volunteers, all friends who share the common interest of trains and railroad history, have dedicated the past quarter-century to preserving the history of the Quincy Mining Company’s short-line railroad.

It did not transport people; it was not a public railroad. Built and owned by the mining company, it served just two purposes: to haul copper rock to the company’s stamp mill on Torch Lake, and to haul coal back to the mine site from the mill’s wharf. Preserving it is a deep passion for these volunteers.

“I am planning on laying track along the upper grade in front of the water tank to the engine house,” Pomazal said. “Then, where it meets the engine house, I’m going to install a stump switch, which will switch down the incline, then lay that track.”

That sounds technical, but essentially, Pomazal and his crew will construct a Y at the point where the former rail line descends a grade from the level of the old shaft house, past the water tank to the engine house.

While Pomazal said the plan is for that project to be completed by fall 2026, it is one part of a larger project anticipated to require 10 years to complete.

With the track in place, the next step will include moving one of the old steam locomotives from its spot near the Quincy Mine Tours tram. It will be parked in front of the water tank. But the locomotive, Number 1, first needs to be rehabilitated.

Pomazal said it needs extensive repair and replacing of iron plate that has rusted away. The wooden cab, he said, is at zero percent.

“Currently, we’re working on the tender,” he said. “We’ve got the new frame built, and the trucks rebuilt.”

When the restoration is further along, the engine will be rolled down the tracked incline and into the engine house, where its restoration will occur.

During the workshop week in May, the crew will assemble the frame on the trucks, and start the metal work on the tender’s water tank, Pomazal said. Eventually, the plan includes replacing 100 feet of the snow fence behind the water tank.

These projects are just the ongoing work of historical preservation of as much of the Q&TLRR between the mine and the engine yard as possible. The Q&TL was a 3-foot narrow gauge, 6-mile-long line that operated between the engine yard, past the mine shafts, transporting copper rock to the stamp mill in Mason.

On the return trip, the railroad would bring coal back up the hill to the boiler houses at the mine shafts.

Pomazal said the preservation of the line is important to interpreting the industrial history and landscape of the Copper Country during its mining era. Railroads were crucial to the industrial region due to its distance from industrial and marketing hubs.

“It was not directly connected to any one place,” Pomazal said, “so, everything had to come in by ship or train, and it had to go out by boat or train.”

As railroads in the region declined, then disappeared, he said, today there is very little evidence of their existence. In Calumet Township, on Red Jacket Road, there is the 1912 Russell snow plow. On the Quincy Mine Hoist property are three locomotives.