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Caption: From high on the rocks, here is an overview of the great Sinter Plant that used to provide so much employment to the town of Wawa, Ontario as well as the former Algoma Central Railroad. The purpose of the plant was to supply blast furnaces with sinter, a combination of blended ores, fluxes and coke which is partially "cooked" or sintered. In this form the materials combine efficiently in the blast furnace and allow for more consistent and controllable iron manufacture. From here, material was transported out to Michipicoten Harbour, about 12 miles west, for GreatLakes shipping. Awaiting next assignment are WC 6604, 6655, 3012 and 6506. The F45, 6655, was retired in 2002. Later on this year 1998 the plant was closed, buildings removed, track removed, and nothing is left but a blight on the landscape. The plant had been in continuous operation since 1939, and is now but a memory.
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This is a great overview of the main part of the facility at Wawa!
I’m an ACR modeller, and plan to model this area (someday, when I have a house and space!).
Doing a model of the old Michipicoten Sub would be a real project seeing that most of it ran thru unaccessable wilderness. Sure, you condense it all, but the Magpie Mine and Helen Jct would be a challenge. Where are the photos?
Well, actually I’m looking at doing it in the 1980s, so the Michipicoten sub end of things would mainly be the harbour and Wawa. And of course much will need to be compressed or left out, but hopefully I can capture the feel of the harbour and sinter plant facilities. Helen wasn’t rail hauling anymore at that point, and I stand to be corrected on this, but I don’t think Magpie mine was a going concern after it shut down in the late 1920s. While “Magpie” remained a station sign on the timetable into the 1950s, there’s no evidence that any spur still existed here (this was originally a 9-mile spur to the mine.)
This site has a bunch of cool archival photos of some of the older operations around Helen and Wawa (then Jamestown):
http://www.michiwawa.ca/
Now that’s a great shot!
Chris: THANKS for mentioning that connection to the historic photos from Wawa & Michipicoten. Great old photos, and just going thru that stuff gets the blood flowing once again………….a personal e-mail from a viewer reminded me the two stacks in that photo were infamous as being responsible for more disseminated arsenic pollution than any other spot in the province. Guess you’ll have to work THAT into your layout as well..
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Well, maybe not the arsenic part!