Nostalgia & History > On the Deadwood branch

In better days--here's the Deadwood Branch.......this is all gone now except for Keystone branch from Hill City, home of the 1880 Train.

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what kinda traffic waas bn handling in and out of the black hills then? any idea how many carloads they handled daily?

Not much. The train ran triweekly, MWF north and TTHSat south.
Mostly coal to the Kirk Power plant near Lead/Deadwood. Some feldspar shipped in box cars and covered hoppers. Some aggregate out of Pete Lien quarry and that was about it.
Ceased running Oct. 1983, then only Custer turns until 1986.

I think they used 2-6-6-2's on that branch in the steam days.

Cool shot, I love this area.

Great shot!

Posted from BlackBerry

The operator and his wife at the BN Sidney, NE wood 2-story depot had a huge collection of Black Hills stuff, as they staffed several stations there. He was a quiet railfan, and also had a huge collection of switch keys, lanterns, and railroadiana. The depot was torn down upon their retirement in the 1990's, I often wondered what happened to all the great Black Hills CB&Q steam and early diesel photos, and railroadiana. Early diesels? Yup, along with CB&Q's rather ungainly-looking mallets, there were shots of FT sets, and F's doubleheaded with those mallets! I talked to them off-duty once, I do not recall their name. Most of the time we sped past the white building, the height of the cab window was just about even with the second-story bedroom windows. Bet that place just shook the dishes off the shelves when we would blast through there with horns blaring for the crossings, exceeding the speed limit of 45 on loads as much as 15 mph to get the run at Sidney Hill south to Lorenzo. === === = === JLH

I drove from back east to Deadwood in 1974. I remember some place in the Black Hills that had a Zephyr set. Where would that have been, and whatever happened to it? Thanks.

That was the Black Hills Central at Hill City, I do not know what happened to that equipment. === === = === JLH

Thanks for the shot! My instructor at Choo choo U had his first trip on the Deadwood branch. Never see many shots from there. Drove through couple weeks ago, two Zephyr cars still there. Will try to post them later.

Posted from Android

The family at Sidney were the Kreitzers. Their son was a signal maintainer at Edgemont and inherited their collection. He is now down in TX somewhere.

I'm not sure of the location, but I'm guessing somewhere between Hill city and Custer,
possibly on the Keystone Spur. Note there are two SD9's in the picture. This dates this
pre-1974 when the 16 hour law was reduced to fourteen hours. this necessitated the addition
of another SD to the consist, and when the law was reduced to 12 hours, many times four
units would be on the train.

As long as BHP&L's Kirk plant took coal, a switcher was stationed in Deadwood. It went
on duty at 7am, and was usually done by noon. The assigned unit was SW1 91, unique in that
it had snow plow pilots on each end of the unit. When it needed it's annual, it went to
Alliance and was usually replaced by BN 160, not to be confuse with C&S 160, which hung
around Denver. When the switch engine didn't work, holidays, then the road power would
switch the plant before heading south. Since the SD9's were prohibited from being on
the coal trestle, they had a cut of four empties between the engines and the loads.

BHP&L had an 80 Ton Whitcomb switcher that I never saw run. In fact, they gave it an
$80,000 overhaul in 1976 for some reason no one could figure out.

Sometime after I left in 1977, BHP&L started trucking their coal from the Wyodak mine, which
they co-owned, to Rapid City. When the Kirk contract ran out, they started trucking there too.
BN didn't care because their coal business was booming by then.

The Deadwood job still hauled an occasional carload up to Homestake Mine in Lead, usually grinding
balls. These gons went to the Yates(??)Shaft where they were parked on a steep spur that
required the cars to be chocked. These trips were infrequent.

The Deadwood Branch is why I so infrequently chase branches today. Nothing beats the regular
frequency and scenery of that operation.


Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

The three Texas Zephyr cars are still in Hill City,pretty much just empty shells. They have been for sale for some time.
Steve


poffcapt Wrote:
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> I drove from back east to Deadwood in 1974. I
> remember some place in the Black Hills that had a
> Zephyr set. Where would that have been, and
> whatever happened to it? Thanks.

Here are a couple of post cards from 1907 - 1915. Is this the same line we are talking about in the Black Hills?

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No-that is Spearfish Canyon line. The Burlington ran from Englewood off the Deadwood branch to Spearfish. The line washed out in the mid- 1930s and not replaced.

Well,the first is the Spearfish line and the second is the Deadwood branch north of Custer.