I've Been Working On the Railroad Part 6

Working in Ore

In 1977, the BN was still hauling raw ore from the mines on the Iron Range to the Allouez ore docks. The Allouez yard clerk, in addition to crew hauling duties was charged with not only verifying inbound trains but getting a list and creating cards which would tell which mine the load came from and the grade of ore. On the side of the cars was a steel framed pocket that usually was used by the carmen for marking a car bad order but in Allouez the yard clerk also placed the cards they created in these pockets.  If the yard clerk was lucky, they could tag the cars as they rolled by, but often the yard clerk would need to walk alongside the track to tag the cars. Additionally, the yard clerk would occasionally be called upon to be a weighmaster. Allouez at that time had a digital scale that would allow for quickly weighing the loads. The clerks in Allouez did not have computers and did everything on paper in 1977. Train arrivals and departures were entered into the computer by the clerks at 17^th St.

Never did I dream that I would be called to work on top of the ore docks! The first day, I met my coworker and person who would train me at the base of the dock. He motioned to a rickety looking box and chuckled as I questioned the elevator’s safety. I doubt if it had been upgraded since it had been installed, but with blind trust I quickly learned how to operate the elevator and stepped off at the top of the dock where there was an extensive office building.  Here I was introduced to a ticker tape machine, the precursor to the punch cards of 17^th St. and was quickly put to work entering data while mountains of tape accumulated on the floor. The building shook as a train of ore cars shoved by onto the dock. As soon as they stopped, my partner hustled me outside for a walk down the dock. There were four tracks on the dock. It was our job to collect the tags from the ore cars and note which dock pocket the car would be emptied into. This was the data that was entered on the tapes. Other clerks were busy billing the ships for their loads, and making sure the weights were recorded accurately. I enjoyed working the dock, but as it was a 24-hour job, I mostly got called for the night shift. Shipping season was only closed a couple of months so there were many cold nights, which made it especially dangerous as the steel would be covered with frost and slippery. Later, when they first started shipping taconite, the round pellets would spill onto the walkway making it even more hazardous to walk the dock. I always had a fear of falling into a pocket and as the walkways were narrow, felt it could happen. The ore punchers would also walk by and release the cars’ loads into the pockets. If the ore was frozen, the car would need to be moved to the gantry which was a mechanism to shake the load loose. The sun offered a spectacular show as it rose over Lake Superior announcing a new day.

 

Ore Dock in Superior where I worked.

Working on top of the dock was short lived as the raw ore was depleted and taconite became the commodity shipped. The BN built a long conveyer system which could take the pellets from the stock pile in the Allouez yard to the docks and load the pockets. There was no need for grading, as taconite was a uniform manufactured commodity from the Iron Range, a combination of low grade ore and bentonite clay which is used as a binding agent. Alas, though the docks still stand, there are now trees growing on top where I once worked.