Association Need Help? 850-547-0102 - Ronnie 19 APRIL 2024 WorldWide Drilling Resource® No. 47 by Rick Jordan Retired Mineral Processing Engineer At the end of the nineteenth century, Butte, Montana, was the copper mining capital of America. In 1889, Anaconda Copper Mining Company owner Marcus Daly built the world’s largest copper smelter 26 miles west of Butte. At the foot of Smelter Hill, sprang up the town of Anaconda, populated by the smelter workers and their families. Daly initially paid Montana Western Railroad to haul the ore from the Butte mines to the Anaconda smelter. Montana Western’s rail line passed through the narrow Durant Canyon where there was only room for one set of rails. Knowing Daly had no other options for sending his ore to the smelter, Montana Western soon began raising their freight rates. Daly tried to negotiate a reasonable financial agreement, but Montana Western would not budge. So in 1891, Daly transferred some of the miners from his deep Butte mines to Durant Canyon where they excavated a cut to widen the canyon, thus making room for Daly to lay track. Daly’s new Butte, Anaconda, and Pacific (BA&P) railroad was born in 1893. The BA&P initially utilized steam locomotives, but Daly, forever the entrepreneur, thought, “I mine copper and copper is used for electricity, so my railroad should run on electricity.” Daly’s engineers worked with General Electric who designed and built what came to be called boxcab locomotives. Powered by 2400-volt DC motors, the first boxcabs arrived in Butte in 1913 and, by 1917, the BA&P had a fleet of 27 boxcabs, becoming the first all-electric heavy freight line in America. The strange little locomotives proved to be extremely efficient and required very little maintenance. The boxcabs operated until 1967, when they were retired, not because they were worn out, but simply because diesel-powered locomotives were by then more efficient. Unfortunately, all but one of the boxcabs were scrapped shortly after the BA&P converted to diesel and the last of Butte’s underground mines were shut down in 1980. Boxcab No. 47, built in 1914, survived and was restored by retired BA&P railroaders in 1996. Today, No. 47 sits proudly below the Anselmo mine headframe, one of the many mines from where it pulled thousands of ore cars so many years ago. Rick Rick Jordan may be contacted via e-mail to michele@worldwidedrillingresource.com BA&P electrics hauling ore from the Butte mines to the Anaconda smelter. No. 47 today. MIN eranhenderson@gmail.com New & Used Tricones PDCs Drag & Claw Bits Drill Collars Bit Tipping Subs & Stabilizers HDD Bits & Reamers DTH Hammer & Bits Custom Fabrication Junk Mills / Fishing Tools Rod Henderson 661-201-6259 Eran Henderson 661-330-0790
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