B10I1640 – Stone Train at Sabattis – June 29, 2022

This video depicts the stone train at Sabattis. Paul Mitchell of Tupper Lake NY had a fleet of 40-ton trucks, most days 3 of 40-ton trucks would each make three round-trips between Tahawus Mine and Sabattis NY. Each round trip was slightly more than 90 miles in length. Additionally, each night the stone trucks returned to their home base on Route 3 in Tupper Lake for fueling and servicing, and in the morning would depart from Tupper Lake to Tahawus Mine, from which they would depart to Sabattis to begin their 3 daily round trips. The quality of stone ballast from Tahawus Mine was considered to be of the highest possible quality. Daily, Monday thru Friday 3 40-ton trucks would make 3 round trips daily; so 3 (trucks) multiplied by 3 (each truck made 3 round trips daily) multiplied by 5 (working days per week). Hence, in the average week 45 round trips would be made and each trip carried 40 tons of ballast stone. In an average week 1800 tons of high-quality ballast stone would be delivered from Tahawus Mine to Sabattis NY, where at the exact location of the former Sabattis Station a huge stone pile would be formed, the height of which would easily exceed the top of the locomotives by many feet. While Mitchell’s trucks were the supply side, the stone train was the distribution side. There were 8 specially built stone distributing cars in the train, each car could carry a maximum of 100 tons of stone, or one train could carry a maximum of 800 tons of stone. A train carrying 800 tons of ballast stone would be able to cover anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 mile of railroad track with sufficient ballast stone. Each car in the train had chutes arranged along the bottom of the car controlled from controls mounded on the base of the car on either side of the car, and these regulated the rate of stone distribution, as determined by the 2 operators who were each walked along either side of the train. The average speed of the train during stone distribution was walking speed, i.e., 1 – 1 1/2 miles per hour. The chutes under the ballast cars; the speed of distribution of stone was controlled by the 2 operators walking on either side of the train. Hence stone was disturbed in 4 directions simultaneously (2 chutes per direction) normally, but flow of stone to each of the 8 chutes was independently controlled. Hence, when track turnouts (switches) were encountered appropriate adjustment of the rate of stone flow to the inner two chutes could easily be controlled. Four chutes (two on each side of the car) disturbed stone outside of the rail. The other four chutes were positioned to disturb stone inward between the two rails, two chutes on either side of the car. Since each stone train could carry a maximum of 800 tons of stone per trainload, and a maximum of 1800 tons of ton could be delivered by the trucks each week, it becomes obvious that 1800/800 equals 2.25 or only 2.25 trainloads per week could be disturbed. A system was devised whereby the stone trains would run only every other week, and usually running on Tuesday and Wednesday of that week. Mathematically: 3 trucks per day multiplied by 3 trips per day per truck multiplied by 8 days multiplied by 40 tons of stone per truck trip equals 2880 tons total stone delivered during 8 days/800 tons of stone per train load 3.6 full train loads. A front-end loader with a 10 ton per load maximum per trip was used to load the train’s cars. If the train was maximally loaded (after often each car was just loaded with 700 tons), it would take 10 trips of the loader per train car multiplied by 8 cars, or 80 trips. Consequently, to load the train would take 1 – 2 hours, depending on conditions. Coupling the loading time with moving the train to the location at which stone distribution would begin, distributing the stone at 1 – 1/2 miles per hour, and returning the train to Sabattis one can easily see how a maximum of two train trips daily was possible. Of note was that in each direction from Tahawus Mine to Sabattis the last 6.6 miles of road was dirt, and although it is the best dirt road I have ever seen, it had multiple curves with climbs and descents frequently; consequently on days with inclement weather additional hazards would prevail. On days lacking rain for a significant period of time, a large cloud of dust would be raised by the trucks. Moreover, in the last 2 miles of paved road, a bridge had a 20-ton weight limit. However, a structural engineer pointed out to me that the bridge carried 2-way traffic; hence, the weight limit in EACH direction was 20 tons, or the entire weight limit was 40 tons. The bridge was narrower than the paved road, and with a stone truck occupying the bridge, traffic in both directions would be improbable or suicidal.

The locomotive engineer on this particular stone train was Mike Waterman, and the conductor Bill Moll (seen riding atop of one of the stone cars).

source