SP Jawbone Branch (Part 3) - Consists & More Bartlett Research

California Division of Mines - Owens Lake Alkali Plants

The previous two posts on my layout concept for the Jawbone Branch has stirred up some friends to dig through their archives and research materials.  David Coscia dug up a great reference from from the SPNG 2014 Convention at Lone Pine which found an entry in the California Division of Mines 1959  Soda Ash Industry of the Owens Lake publication on the development of the industry from 1887-1959.  Included is information on the 1928 Pacific Alkali Company's production plant at the Bartlett.

 California Division of Mines article. - David Coscia collection

Text of article from California Division of Mines article. - David Coscia collection

The 1928 plant was designed to produce 99.5% pure borax.  The yearly production of 12,000 tons of sodium sesquicarbonate (trona mineral), 12,000 tons of soda ash and 2,000 tons of borax.

These production rates would average of about 100-tons each per trip (tri-weekly) of trona, soda ash, and about 1 car per week of borax.  This means 4-5 cars per trip just for Bartlett, which seems possible.  

Oddly I think the document has a typo where it says "2000 thousand tons of borax" - , which would be about 300 cars per trip.  That seems to be too much, and a result of a typo. - Perhaps they mean "20,000 tons"... or "20 thousand tons", which would be about 3 cars per tri-week trip.  

This seems to be a question of scale, and while I could see maybe up to 3x50 tons 3x week of borax... that would put the car loading out of Bartlett at more like 7 cars per trip, which seems a bit high from what the photographs of the Owenyo Local look like during the 1948-1955 era.

However, the possibility that the track arrangement at Bartlett could have had 3 cars spotted, and 3 off-spots stored in the run around track.  They may have had the local respot the cars on the northbound trip, or they could have had a cable or car-mover used to reposition the loaded cars into the runaround and pull the next batch of cars up.

As a side note: There are still remains of charcoal kilns several miles south of Bartlett at Cottonwood Creek, so I'm not sure where they're getting their lime from for this process.  The charcoal was probably being used for the CO2 needs of the processing of the soda ash and trona at the Bartlett facility and others in the area.

Columbia-Southern Chemical Corporation - Bartlett, Calif.

In 1944 the plant Pacific Alkali Company at Bartlett was sold to the Columbia-Southern Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company.  They left the plant alone until the late 1950s by which time they decided that the nearly inexhaustible supply of trona at Owens Lake was worth upgrading their plant.  The upgrades came on-line in 1958, tripling the production rates!

Check out this great website of Owens Valley History!  There's a lot of good information which I'm still trying to digest there.  One part of the website shows a map with Columbia-Southern Chemical at Bartlett, with US Hwy 395, CA Hwy 190, and the SPNG removed, suggesting this map was post-1960 vintage.  Some of the photos of Bartlett (townsite) are pretty good too, which I didn't know about until I saw the pictures... Still so much more to research!

This information was found at http://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/owens_valley_owens_lake/solda_ash_industry_owens_lake_REDUCED.pdf  which is a great dive if you want more information!

Columbia-Southern Chemical Corp wiki
"The plant perfected their sodium carbonate recovery process from the Owens Lake brine, and built the full-scale Pacific Alkali Co. soda ash plant here in 1928. In 1944, Columbia-Southern Chemical, a subsidiary of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, purchased the plant. The plant continued to use the old sodium carbonate recovery methods here until the plant was upgraded late in 1958 to incorporate the sesquicarbonate process, and it had three times the capacity of the old plant."

Clark Chemical Company

The Clark Chemical, which I previously commented on from the Ghosttown.com link actually seems to be farther north by a mile or so in the center of Bartlett Point, which this document from Cal Div of Mines says was abandoned after only having a test plant there.  It would be interesting to find the next page or two of the paper and see what is said about that company.  The Clark Chem Company was planned to make caustic soda (NaOH), a.k.a. 'lye', from soda ash from Owens Lake and lime. - 

SPINS Chart

The SPINS Chart I was sent this week shows a pair of single stub at Bartlett.

SPINS Chart, cropped to show only Bartlett, (east-north to the right) - David Coscia collection

At this point, I'm going to pull up the GoogleMaps/GoogleEarth images of Bartlett and see if I can gauge the width of the spur at Bartlett, to see if there's room for a second spur here.

I don't really see any extra width in the track next to the plant, than the main track arcing by next to the lake to the east.

Freight Traffic to Bartlett

SP 3237 Bartlett on the Jawbone branch - Leo Barusch photo - Inad Akeb Collection

While I don't have a lot of information on what types of cars were used at Bartlett, I can make some good guesses for the late 1940s and early 1950s.  The photo above with SP 3237 shows three standard 50-ton boxcars at Bartlett.  This would appear about right for the 1928 estimate of 12,000-tons per year of both trona and soda ash each would say about two 50-ton carloads per trip of the Owenyo Local of each, or in other words, four empty cars and four loads on average from the plant at Bartlett each trip.

The processing notes suggest CO2 was needed for the chemical processing of the trona and soda ash, plus various levels of heating, furnaces, etc.  There was probably some form of fuel imported to Bartlett to supply this.

Comparison to Trona/West End Fuel Needs

Fuel oil unloading at Trona. - Photographer Unknown - Jason Hill collection

The plants at Trona and West End were located about 30 miles off the Jawbone at Searles, and supplied by its own nightly 50 car train!  They used SP supplied fuel oil with about thirteen 12.5k gallon carloads per day on average, 162,500 gallons per day!  While I'm not 100% sure that Trona was receiving all their fuel oil in 12.5k gallon cars, it still suggests over 100,000 gallons per day if some were 10k or 8k gallon cars, which SP generally didn't have very many of in their fleet.  Assuming Bartlett was shipping about 26,000 tons of material out per year (520 car loads at 50-tons each).  That puts Bartlett at about 1/35th the production rates of Trona.

Kitbashed Athearn 12.5k gallon tank car to earlier class SP O-50-series with radial course tanks for fuel oil service.

Assuming similar fuel requirement rates.  That puts Bartlett's needs at about 4,600 gallons per day, or roughly two-and-a-half 12.5k gallon carloads of fuel oil per week  Combine this with Owenyo's fuel needs for the SPNG's engines and anything they needed for fueling the talc at Keeler and dolomite mining operations... there was probably at least one 12.5k gallon fuel-oil tank car going up the branch every trip (tri-weekly) during this era.

Another option which I suppose could have been a fuel source is the wasted wood, chips, and sawdust from Linnie's lumber operations, although I can't imagine that they would have been able to supply Bartlett's requirements of fuel in comparison to Trona's rate of consumption.

Special Car Types?

One of the SP's earlier covered hoppers class H-70-6 built by AC&F in 1949, model from Kato.

Given that I'm modeling the first few years of the new concept of car construction known as the "covered hopper", most such cars were still be purchased for specialized service with customers that had the volume of traffic to set up for the bulk-loading of such cars.  Smaller plants such as Bartlett, I highly doubt installed large over-track loading silos to load covered hoppers, when they're shipping maybe 600-tons of material (12 boxcar loads) per week.

Trona on the other had was one of the early customers on the SP that pushed for the new technology.  The SP converted a dozen open hoppers for assigned use at Trona, not even waiting for the post-war surge in freight car orders to die down before pushing the SP to provide the cars. - However, I'll talk about those cars another time.

General Boxcars Then?

So it appears that the loading at Bartlett will be done in standard 50-ton boxcars, and from the photo with SP 3237, that foreign cars were preferred by the SP clerks at Mojave!  The SP's home road cars are seen on the loading tracks at Owenyo, so probably are being sent to some on-line customer, where as the cars from Bartlett are going to be interchanged farther from home rails.

SP 3237 Bartlett on the Jawbone branch - Leo Barusch photo - Inad Akeb Collection

In the SP 3237 photo at Bartlett it appears to be a Seaboard (B-3/6 class) outside-braced boxcar immediately behind the tender.  I can't quite read the second car's reporting marks... possibly CV or CNW.  No herald is visible.  The third car is some form of all-steel car, possibly SP without a black background on the herald, although it could be another RR's car with similar lettering and herald placement.

Consist Photos

Looking at other photos of the SP's Owenyo Local in Tom Dill's San Joaquin Valley book, I see that two photos from Dallas Gilbertson show SP 3227 working the Owenyo Local back to Mojave on a frosty January morning in 1953.  

The train at Lone Pine, westward, it has the following on House Track:

1. ATSF all-steel boxcar

2. SP all-steel boxcar

3. SP all-steel boxcar

4. PRR all-steel boxcar

5. Unknown all-steel boxcar (open door)

Main track in Lone Pine being switched:

4-6 GS gondolas.

Siding:

SPMW water car and other cars seen in the train at Little Lake (below).

The X3227 West at Little Lake, has the following:

1. SPMW bunk car of some flavor at the head-end

2. SP steel boxcar

3. SP steel boxcar - probably

4. Possibly SP outside braced boxcar. Could also be some other RR shorter boxcar.
5. Probably SPMW water tank car.
6. SP all-steel boxcar
7. All-steel boxcar, painted darker boxcar red.
8-10. 3 SP gondolas, the third is interesting as it has a herald on the center panel, which means it's not one of the SP's regular GS steel gondolas. - Probably open loads from the SPNG transfer trestle at Owenyo.

11-13. 3 more steel boxcars.  The second two are SP all-steel cars.

14. Black tank car, possibly a leased fuel oil car for Bartlett or SP fuel car for Owenyo.

15. SP steel caboose, or wood bodied C-30-series with wide rebuilt cupola.

 Another Owenyo Local was captured on film by Andy Payne on Febuary 5, 1952 with the SP 3201 leading at Lone Pine.

1. SP composite gondola

2. WP or MP 40ft all-steel boxcar with its door open.

3. SP-style F-50-4/5/8/9/10/12 class flatcar with short height load. (probably, but could also be UP/T&NO/NWP, etc car)

4-5. Low sideboard gondola versions of SP flats or other low-side gondolas with materials. - Car #3-5 possibly a group of SPMW cars sending supplies and material to Owenyo and the NG?

6-10. Group of five GS-type gondolas, probably SP cars.  I'm guessing going to the NG transfer trestle at Owenyo for loading.

11+. Remainder of train is boxcars and a caboose.  Impossible to tell what else is in the train from the angle of the photo, probably another 4-5 boxcars.

Breakdown of Freight Car Consist

From these three trains we can get a rough idea what a 'typical' SP Owenyo Local would be hauling.  It seems that Mk-2/4 class engines can handle about 14-16 cars over most of the branch.  Usually there's 4-5 GS gondolas for loading with material from the SPNG transfer trestle at Owenyo.  There are also several "ore dumps" at other stations, such as Little Lake & Leliter, which probably received the occasional GS gondola to dump ore into by truck.  The black tank car probably, as I mentioned above, is probably the fuel oil car for either Owenyo or Bartlett's industrial needs.  The balance of the cars are standard boxcars, probably 75% of which are SP in our few samples.

One of the tank cars usually in the consist is a FCR painted SPMW car, usually reserved for water service for the engine.  Although recently I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't always the same water car in the train all the way, where they would drop the water car off and let it fill overnight.  Alternately, the water car movements could be to supply the outfits and company villages along the way when they needed more water.  More questions to answer.

In Closing

I hope you have enjoyed another deeper dive into the Owenyo Branch of the early 1950s and a closer look at Bartlett.

Jason Hill

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