Could it be the Black Tom explosion during 1916, in New York harbor, caused by German sabeteours trying to deny munitions to the Allies or, as Ed posted, Port Chicago, in 1944? A more recent disaster and the one Ed refers to was the 1973 detonation of bombs in Southern Pacific’s Roseville Yard, in Antelope, CA. It was caused by sticking brakes igniting the wood floor of a boxcar. The Roseville disaster is well documented on Youtube.
I believe, based on the research of my prototype, that the dynamite factory prototype that I am working off of was a collaboration between Dupont and one of the local mining conglomerates, in fact.
In that case I am assuming that they’d be shipping in blasting caps, glycerine, acids, and the dope, and shipping out the final assembly dynamite for delivery to the local mines. Does that seem like a reasonable I/O flow for such an industry to you fine folks?
Additionally, how would the glycerine and sulfuric acid be transported in bulk? Would they be using chemical tank cars in the pre-war period?
It was the Black Tom explosion. The History Guy did a great story on it. THG has quite a few railroad history stories if you ever want to look him up.
We should probably start another thread. My heartfelt apologies to the OP.
Pete.
Blasting caps would not be anywhere near dynamite manufacturer, storage or transport. The quarry I worked at blasted at least once a week. The detonators would not arrive until the amonium nitrate truck has left the property. The shot was initiated remotely and traveled through plastic tubing to each hole. The shot couldn’t go off without a delegation of officials.
I’m sure the rules were similar in earlier eras.
Pete.
That may be true of modern safety standards, but the historic site I am looking at had a blasting cap storage site.
Are you modeling an explosive distributor or a manufacturer? A manufacturer probablwouldn’t have blasting caps anywhere near their facility. A distributor might get in blasting caps and packaged dynamite and then distribute that to the mines. Remember explosives are used in relatively small quantities. A 70 ton tank car of glycerine, a 70 ton car of nitric acid, a 70 ton covered hopper of clay is going to make LOT of dynamite. A stick of dynamite weighs about 1/3 to 1/2 pound. 210 tons is equivalent to 800,000 to 1,200,000 sticks of dynamite. 210 tons is the bomb load of a dozen B-17’s. That’s a LOT of dynamite. They might have recieved carloads of feedstocks, but they probably weren’t using spots every day, maybe a a couple times a month or so.
Going to Historic Aerials, they have an image of the plant from 1938 and the only place it appears there are railroad cars is over by the magazines, there appear to be three of four boxcars.
Yes it’s rail served, but it doesn’t appear busy from a rail traffic standpoint.
The arrangement is very similar to the DuPont facility at Hagley, even to the narrow gauge railroad.
Which leads me to ask if its a dynamite or a blasting powder plant? The reason I ask is on the map shows “soda storage”. Soda (sodium nitrate) is more associated with blasting powder. They might not be making dynamite at all.
I guy I worked with 40 years ago was from Houghton.
Based on my research of the site, the location is described as manufacturing both dynamite and blasting powder. If I pursue this further I will be in contact with archivists at the university in Houghton, which has a collection about the company.
In short though, the mining in the copper country was quite intensive at the period when the factory was originally constructed, accounting for 95% of copper mined in the US and the largest single copper mining region in the world. However, due to its isolation, there was a lot of high overhead cost from shipping in necessary materials, which is part of why the Atlas Company was built, to replace an older factory which had a poor safety standard and outlived its useful life.
I believe that the spur in the north-east quarter of the map was used to provide coal to the factory’s on-site powerplant. The primary loading/unloading would, I believe, be done off of the switchback in the south-west.
Ya I think blasting powder / gunpowder is more in demand than dynamite sticks. But then, Wikipedia does mention that when DuPont’s monopoly was broken up between Atlas Powder Co. and Hercules Powder Co.:
" Atlas received the explosives manufacturing portion of Du Pont’s business (including the facilities acquired from the Giant Powder Company), while Hercules received the gunpowder portion."
Since the factory in question is an Atlas one, it does seem likely it is doing dynamite rather than powder - but more research is needed.
Getting back around to the original point of this thread:
Inflow to industry:
Glycerine (low volume)(tank cars)
Dope (medium volume)(box cars?)
Blasting caps? for distribution/constituent components to assemble blasting caps(explosives-marked box cars)
Coal for the on-site power plant
Output:
Dynamite (explosive marked box cars)
Blasting caps (explosives marked box cars)