Western Railroad Discussion > Kennocott Copper's Magna Motors

Utah's Kennocott Copper Corporation rostered a fleet of seven 125-ton electric ore haulage locomotives. The husky 3000 volt, 3200 horsepower "Magna Motors" were built in 1947 by General Electric. Pairs of Magna Motors ran 18 round trips per day between Kennocott's Copperton yard and the mill complex at Magna.

In this Kodachrome image from May 20, 1978, a well worn KCC motor #43 enters the yard limits at Copperton with a train of ore empties from Magna. #43 was by this point living on borrowed time, at least in daily mainline service. By the following December it would be banned from mainline haulage duties, and would be retired altogether by 1982.

One GE "Magna Motor" was preserved at the Western Railway Museum at Rio Vista Junction, California.

James

---

Of the very few images I have of Kennocott's Magna Motors, this one is my all time favorite. KCC #46 has a long train of loads approaching Central Junction on a delightful Spring morning in April 1977. The reason I like this photo so much, is how overwhelmingly typical the setting is. Snow capped Oquirrh Mountain peaks rise in the distance while fields of new "dry" wheat plants germinate in the foreground.

I wish today that I had taken more photos of Kennocott's electrics, but I had yet to receive my driver's license.

James

---

Great photos as usual, James! Thanks for sharing them with us.

the Boone and Scenic Valley have a few of these kennecott copper electirc loco's stored on there property rusting away.
JC

Hiya Jim-

Is this Kennocott Copper Corporation line still in existance today? Regardless, where is (or was) the line located? Looks like one end is "Magna"...where is that relative to, say, Salt Lake? ;-)

Nice shots, by the way! I particularly like the second one. Very nice snow-capped mountains!

Kevin
The Front Range
http://www.drgw.ws/

FrontRange Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Is this Kennocott Copper Corporation line still in
> existance today? Regardless, where is (or was) the
> line located? Looks like one end is
> "Magna"...where is that relative to, say, Salt
> Lake? ;-)
>
Hey Kevin,

Kennocott's remaining ore haulage lines are out of service and rusting away. Kennocott built a slury line from Copperton to Magna in the mid-1980's that replaced haulage by rail, although one rail line was still utilized until a couple of years ago.

Magna is more or less directly west of Roper Yard across the Salt Lake Valley nestled along the Oquirrh foothills. Copperton is within the Oquirrh Mountains at Bingham Canyon, southwest of the town of Midvale.

James

GrandeGold Wrote:
> Kennocott's remaining ore haulage lines are out of
> service and rusting away. Kennocott built a slury
> line from Copperton to Magna in the mid-1980's
> that replaced haulage by rail, although one rail
> line was still utilized until a couple of years ago.

What about the ore cars? Do they still exist, and where are they stored?

tvrha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> What about the ore cars? Do they still exist, and
> where are they stored?
>

I'm not exactly sure where they are. Most of Kennocott's private property is pretty inaccessible. I do know that there are several ore cars stored between the Magna area and Garfield, but that's definately not all of them.

James

I have some old 16mm film clips of the operation in the film/video archive at http://www.trainorders.com/movie.

Todd

GrandeGold Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> FrontRange Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Is this Kennocott Copper Corporation line
> still in
> > existance today? Regardless, where is (or
> was) the
> > line located? Looks like one end is
> > "Magna"...where is that relative to, say,
> Salt
> > Lake? ;-)
> >
> Hey Kevin,
>
> Kennocott's remaining ore haulage lines are out of
> service and rusting away. Kennocott built a slury
> line from Copperton to Magna in the mid-1980's
> that replaced haulage by rail, although one rail
> line was still utilized until a couple of years
> ago.
>
> Magna is more or less directly west of Roper Yard
> across the Salt Lake Valley nestled along the
> Oquirrh foothills. Copperton is within the Oquirrh
> Mountains at Bingham Canyon, southwest of the town
> of Midvale.
>
> James


Back in the fall of 1999 I was working in Salt Lake City and my job took me onto the Kennecott property. I made it down into the pit several times and also into the Kennecott engine house near Magna. At that time, the rail line from Copperton to Magna was still in use.
Kennecott has two concentrators: the new one at Copperton which is supplied by a conveyor belt directly from the pit and the old "North Concentrator" at Magna. The North Concentrator is supplied by rail. So as long as the North Concentrator was operating, the railroad was too. When the North Concentrator was shut down (date unknown) it was the end of the rail operation to Copperton. Kennecott still does a lot of intra plant switching with their own engines within their huge plant complex.

I was lucky enough to bag exactly two photos of the old steeple cab pit locos in operation back in the spring of 1981. It was #702 and it was working on catenary maintenance. At that time there was an extensive dead line of out-of-service electrics high up on the side of Bingham Canyon. In those days there was virtually no security and I was able to photograph the deadlinbe at leasure. It contained both the large "Magna Motors" discussed above and many of the smaller pit electrics.

Dick
Roosevelt, Utah

You need to look up some of Don Stracks postings here and his companion site of hundreds of photos of the Kennecott Operations. He also has a published book specifically detailing the history of the railroad operations and equipment which is really excellent. There is one ore car at the Tooele Fairgrounds along with one of these motors and a caboose. On the hill behind the Smelter at Garfield there is a string of 11 that can be seen from State Road 201. I left Kennecott in 2011and I know there were a few additional cars on tracks above Magna in the Refinery area at that time. Much of the original line is still in place but it is just a question of time before removal. The bridges where it crosses State Road 111 are narrow and have been the scene of accidents. All of the signals have been removed to prevent copper thieves from injuring themselves (at one time they were removing it while energized). The last time I was at Copperton the yard was intact where ore cars were staged but the old Rio Grande interchange tracks had been pulled up down to the Interstate Brick plant.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/14 10:03 by Ruger338.