Alpena Questions

[Guest]

Pellets loaded at Taconite Harbor were handled at the mine several times before actual loading on the vessel. Erie Mining had different style furnaces then the other mines on the range. If I remember correctly my dad called them shaft style furnaces verses rotary hearth. The pellets left the furnace and were transported via belt to the stacker at the plant and then were loaded on the railcars via large front end loaders. So they were handled several times before going to the dock. In later years it was said the shaft furnaces contributed to the mine being shut down because the pellets broke more often and caused issues at the blast furnaces because of this. It was not cost effective to replace the furnaces so that was part of the underlying cause for the mine closure. Erie Mining was the first taconite plant on the range, later plants had the rotary hearth furnaces. I suspect this was do to the lessons learned at Erie. My dad took us into the plant many times as a young boy and I spent a summer there working as a laborer. I have followed the whole process from mine to blast furnace. The only place I have never set foot on is one of the working ore boats. My dad and I even took a special trip one foggy morning to Taconite Harbor to watch the brand new thousand footer, Stewart Cort appear like a ghost out of the fog and arrive to load. I have been a boatwatcher ever since I was a small boy. Spent countless hours in the mine at Duluth and Taconite Harbor watching boats, trains, and some of the largest earth moving equipment on this planet.

[Up North George]

The process that was used to load cement at Alpena when I sailed the Huron boats was anything BUT clean. I don’t know if it has been improved or not as that was 40+ years ago. The system used at the Medusa plant in Charlevoix was much cleaner than Huron cements system.
At Alpena, the loading rig tubes drop into the round hatches and the powder is fed by pressure and gravity. The on watch deckhand would have to raise hatch covers outboard and inboard of the loading hatches and “ sound” the hold with a brick on the end of a heaving line. Well, you can imagine the scene with all that cement dust blowing up out of the open hatch. It was a mess and I always wore a filtered mask. Your clothes were a mess and if you forgot a bandana under your hard hat and around your neck, you ended up with dust all the way down your back to your Jocky shorts. It was Nasty to breathe and deal with. One deckhand I knew forgot to stand behind the hatch when he opened it and was bent over looking down. He got a face full of dust and lost eyesight in his left eye from the lye in the cement.
After loading the deck was full of piles of cement around the loading hatches and the whole ship was covered with dust. That had to be shoveled into the holds and after the hatches were secure, The Whole deck was rinsed and “ broomed”. We took corn whisked brooms and swept the whole deck while the bosun hosed down. Was hard work.
Each season the bosun and deck crew would scrape and paint the deck. Can’t count how many long handle scrapers we went through in a season but it was many,lol. Those hard patches of cement did not come off easy.
So, clean? Nope.. easy? Nope.. but, I always loaded the boat as I stood watch for the hometown guys in Alpena so they could go home for a few hours. My reward was lots of free time in discharge ports to explore and relax off the boat. So, all in all, being in a dust cloud every few days worked for me! Now, hoeing out the holds sometimes? Oh,, too nasty to want to remember. Dry skin was a huge problem. I used good old mazola corn oil after a shower and wiped the excess down well then applied lanolin that my folks mailed me by the case,lol. Worked well.
I loaded and unloaded every type of cargo hauled on the lakes in my 8 years career. I would not call any of them “ clean” by any stretch of the imagination. They are all dusty and nasty and quite honestly not healthy to breathe. Freighters are an industrial work place ,dirty and dangerous and not for the weak or feint of heart.
I had a great foto of all the loading rigs in place just before loading began, and, during the process on the old JB FORD. Misplaced it over the years but if I find it I will post it here.

It is still a very dusty with piles on deck. The wash down usually takes about 6 hours to get the decks actually clean!

[Jon Paul]

Jon, I passed the question of the excess fines and dust from the loading process at Tac Harbor onto a friend that is a retired mining engineer for U.S. Steel. I figured he'd have a pretty good answer and here's his response:

Hi Ed,
Was the Barker loading from the pockets or were they taking on pellets from stockpile? This source of pellets can make a great difference. When a pellet is handled more than once (from train to boat) or from a stock pile where the pellet is moved with loaders or pushed with bulldozers or pass through unloading pocket to stock pile they will break down and create fines. Excessive fines are a head ache for blast furnace operator because the up draft of heat can be restricted with fines. Pellets are usually about the same physical characteristics from the plants on the range. But it is the handling of the pellet before it is shipped.
Cheers,
Dan

That was very interesting Ed. Thanks for sharing that.
If I'm not mistaken, all loads at Tac Harbor are dumped directly from the car into the pockets above the belt loaders. That's the only way that the pellets are fed onto the loaders. It's basically the same as filling the pockets at a gravity dock. I'm not sure if at the pellet plant whether they were taken off a stockpile or loaded directly into the ore cars but that could be the case anywhere.
Escanaba C&NW did the most product handling that I know of. However and from what source, direct from production at the plant or stockpile at the plant, the ore cars were dumped onto a belt that took them to their storage place in the field above the dock. A reclaimer dug them off the storage field and put them onto a series of belts that eventually went to the single belt loader at the dock.
We loaded Empire Pellets at both Escanaba CN&W and LS&I Presque Isle and I can't say their was much difference.
I found Groveland Pellets that we loaded in Esky to be consistently the grittiest and had the most fines.They would cover the deck to a depth of 2"- 4" from hatch combing to the fence rail wherever the belt loader had been placed to load each hatch. The deck hands would have to shovel it into the hold and clean off the hatch combing before dropping the cover on.

[Ed]

Jon, I passed the question of the excess fines and dust from the loading process at Tac Harbor onto a friend that is a retired mining engineer for U.S. Steel. I figured he'd have a pretty good answer and here's his response:

Hi Ed,
Was the Barker loading from the pockets or were they taking on pellets from stockpile? This source of pellets can make a great difference. When a pellet is handled more than once (from train to boat) or from a stock pile where the pellet is moved with loaders or pushed with bulldozers or pass through unloading pocket to stock pile they will break down and create fines. Excessive fines are a head ache for blast furnace operator because the up draft of heat can be restricted with fines. Pellets are usually about the same physical characteristics from the plants on the range. But it is the handling of the pellet before it is shipped.
Cheers,
Dan

[Jon Paul]

If you look closely at the photo you can see a water jet system spaying the hoppers of pellets just below the ore rail cars. When I sailed for Interlake we usually got a real dirty load out of Tac Harbor.
Depending on the type of pellets we could get some pretty dusty loads out of LS&I Presque Isle too wit Cliffs. Unfortunately we took those to McLouth Steel in Trenton where the unloaders spewed copious amounts of grease all over the deck and cabins. So we scrubbed and cleaned with soogee and degreaser upbound and scrubbed off pellet dust downbound.

[Ed]

Interesting comment by Jon Paul and the image of the Barker loading at Tac Harbor. I was talking to Capt.Elden Brege of the Edwin H. Gott awhile back and he was mentioning also loading at the Tac Harbor Dock. He described a dirty load much like the picture of the Barker, so much dust (taconite fines) he said they had to quit loading. All of those loads came from the former Erie Mining Co. in Hoyt Lakes, MN. Evidently either their pellets were falling apart or possibly the ore itself was of a softer nature.

[Jon Paul]

It should probably be noted that cement is one of the easier and cleaner cargoes to carry on the lakes resulting in cement boats having a lot less staining on cabins and hull to contend with. Loading and unloading is basically done through a closed system unlike pellets, coal, limestone and salt which leave a residue on deck and down the sides of the hull.
Tankers were much the same and during their peak years from WWII until the 80's it was rare to see any tankers that weren't clean and well painted.
I used to cringe everytime I saw the Tadoussac when it had the gray hull and red and purple stains all along the hull from when they carried taconite in between loads of clinker, lol

I've watched the Alpena's deck crew scrub the decks and cabins with an acidic solution to remove cement after loading. While I've never sailed, it looked like a lot of work to me. Painting also seems to be an on-going process, but I don't know if that extends to the hull.

Loading cement is done using a basically closed system of conveyors, a loading tube/funnel that covers the cylindrical loading hatches mounted on the spar deck. There is minimal cement dust that is lost or that needs to be cleaned up after loading compared to loading taconite at a gravity dock or even most belt loading docks. The redish purple grit and dust is ever present.
One of my neighbors sailed for Huron Cement for many years and said one of the things he loved about the cement boats after sailing for ASC for 10 yesrs was that there wasn't the tedious job of opening and closing hatches and the thousand clamps that go along with it.
Without having all the hatches to contend with, it was a simple project of occasionally cleaning a light gray spattering of cement dust off of white cabins and the time saved from doing hatches and constantly scrubbing with soogee they used for painting.
I've attached a photo of a real dirty load at Taconite Harbor. I guess my point had been that there's a world of difference between loading and maintaining the appearance of your average cement boat which was designed to carry that cargo and doing the same with a boat that primarily carries pellets.

[Guest]

The process that was used to load cement at Alpena when I sailed the Huron boats was anything BUT clean. I don’t know if it has been improved or not as that was 40+ years ago. The system used at the Medusa plant in Charlevoix was much cleaner than Huron cements system.
At Alpena, the loading rig tubes drop into the round hatches and the powder is fed by pressure and gravity. The on watch deckhand would have to raise hatch covers outboard and inboard of the loading hatches and “ sound” the hold with a brick on the end of a heaving line. Well, you can imagine the scene with all that cement dust blowing up out of the open hatch. It was a mess and I always wore a filtered mask. Your clothes were a mess and if you forgot a bandana under your hard hat and around your neck, you ended up with dust all the way down your back to your Jocky shorts. It was Nasty to breathe and deal with. One deckhand I knew forgot to stand behind the hatch when he opened it and was bent over looking down. He got a face full of dust and lost eyesight in his left eye from the lye in the cement.
After loading the deck was full of piles of cement around the loading hatches and the whole ship was covered with dust. That had to be shoveled into the holds and after the hatches were secure, The Whole deck was rinsed and “ broomed”. We took corn whisked brooms and swept the whole deck while the bosun hosed down. Was hard work.
Each season the bosun and deck crew would scrape and paint the deck. Can’t count how many long handle scrapers we went through in a season but it was many,lol. Those hard patches of cement did not come off easy.
So, clean? Nope.. easy? Nope.. but, I always loaded the boat as I stood watch for the hometown guys in Alpena so they could go home for a few hours. My reward was lots of free time in discharge ports to explore and relax off the boat. So, all in all, being in a dust cloud every few days worked for me! Now, hoeing out the holds sometimes? Oh,, too nasty to want to remember. Dry skin was a huge problem. I used good old mazola corn oil after a shower and wiped the excess down well then applied lanolin that my folks mailed me by the case,lol. Worked well.
I loaded and unloaded every type of cargo hauled on the lakes in my 8 years career. I would not call any of them “ clean” by any stretch of the imagination. They are all dusty and nasty and quite honestly not healthy to breathe. Freighters are an industrial work place ,dirty and dangerous and not for the weak or feint of heart.
I had a great foto of all the loading rigs in place just before loading began, and, during the process on the old JB FORD. Misplaced it over the years but if I find it I will post it here.

[Guest]

It should probably be noted that cement is one of the easier and cleaner cargoes to carry on the lakes resulting in cement boats having a lot less staining on cabins and hull to contend with. Loading and unloading is basically done through a closed system unlike pellets, coal, limestone and salt which leave a residue on deck and down the sides of the hull.
Tankers were much the same and during their peak years from WWII until the 80's it was rare to see any tankers that weren't clean and well painted.
I used to cringe everytime I saw the Tadoussac when it had the gray hull and red and purple stains all along the hull from when they carried taconite in between loads of clinker, lol

I've watched the Alpena's deck crew scrub the decks and cabins with an acidic solution to remove cement after loading. While I've never sailed, it looked like a lot of work to me. Painting also seems to be an on-going process, but I don't know if that extends to the hull.

[Jon Paul]

It should probably be noted that cement is one of the easier and cleaner cargoes to carry on the lakes resulting in cement boats having a lot less staining on cabins and hull to contend with. Loading and unloading is basically done through a closed system unlike pellets, coal, limestone and salt which leave a residue on deck and down the sides of the hull.
Tankers were much the same and during their peak years from WWII until the 80's it was rare to see any tankers that weren't clean and well painted.
I used to cringe everytime I saw the Tadoussac when it had the gray hull and red and purple stains all along the hull from when they carried taconite in between loads of clinker, lol

[Paul A]

The trademark of steamers is a pipe at the rear of the funnel that is the atmospheric vent for the spent steam from the auxiliary equipment like pumps, generators and etc.

[Guest]

I live in Alpena, and frequently enjoy watching our namesake steamer come in. As far as the white smoke is concerned, I’d say it’s condensation during cold weather. Especially because we are on the lake, we reach the dew point quite often.

[Chris M]

None of the steamers have scrubbers

[Ed]

Thanks to all that responded, it was a big help! One other thing, seeing that the Alpena has her original steam plant, I noticed in some pictures of her that she had white coming from her stack. I'm assuming then that this isn't smoke but steam from scrubbers in her stack, much like the Interlake fleet.

Just as others have said, the Alpena always looks good as long as I can recall. It's good to see that her owners place importance on this because she also has such great lines!
Thanks again to all that responded!

[Denny]

I totally agree with you Pete 100% as I was lucky and fortunate to see the Alpena once in 2017 on the St. Clair River and she never looked any better than she did last season. Glad as well to see her in 2017 since it was also her 75th season on the waterways. Like you mentioned in your comments about her and I agree, glad to see at least a few companies out there still care as far as their ship’s appearance when it is sailing and hope she still has many more years left to sail in her great career!

[Pete in Holland MI]

Agree on the comments about the Alpena. Norm Martinson, ILM vessel guy that was instrumental in coverting and shortening the Alpena, would be proud she's still thumping along.

Regarding the discussions about vessel painting in other threads, I've always marveled how she always look good, both above and below the main deck. Shows that there still are companies interested in the appearance of their vessels.

Pete

[Darryl]

Keep the Alpena steaming. Absolutely right. She's also the only AA like example left, so she would be a worthy museum.

[Denny]

I hope that they don’t ever get the idea like they did as far as with the St. Marys Challenger of someday turning the Alpena into a cement type barge! What a crying shame that was the oldest operating vessel on the Great Lakes reduced to simply a barge. That’s when my interest along with the hobby and passion of photographing and seeing ships took a dramatic change and turn. The Alpena is a true classic and survivor of a serious fire that could’ve ended her career but the main things is that she survived it and is still here today with us sailing with pride and as the oldest operating laker on the Great Lakes/Seaway system. They just don’t build and make them like her anymore! Personally I strongly feel she should be saved and preserved as a museum ship somewhere!

[garbear]

Thanks to all that replied, I have one last question. I'm assuming the Alpena has already been converted to diesel?

Still a steam turbine.

[Guest]

Thanks to all that replied, I have one last question. I'm assuming the Alpena has already been converted to diesel?

No, it hasn't. Still a steamer.