US Railroad

The Cartier Railway (Reporting Mark QCM) is a privately owned railway that operates 260 miles (418 km) of track within the Canadian Province of Québec. It's operated via the Cartier Railway company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arcelor Mittal, formerly Québec Cartier Mining company. The railway connects the companys huge iron ore mine at Mont-wright in northeastern Québec in the companys processing plant and port at port-cartier, formerly Shelter bay, that's located by the northern banks on St. Lawrence River.

The Cartier Railway has 26 locomotives, over 950 ore cars, three hundredunited nations monitors. the unarme utility cars, and numerous different items of maintenance equipment. The railroad, in conjunction with different northeastern Québec Railways, together with the tshiuetin rail transportation line, the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway and also the Arnaud Railway; is fully isolated from some other railroad network in North America. though one other 3 railroads connect out to one anoher, these dont have any connections for this railroad in any respect, creating this one fully 100% isolated from some other railroads.

In spite of this, a car float or rail ferry connects Port-Cartier with Matane.

In 1958, US steel formed the Québec Cartier Mining company to actually construct an iron-ore mine within the whole iron-rich Quebec-Labrador trough, a 40-by-600-mile (64 by 966 km) long band that cuts across the vast Canadian protect. Earlier exploration by mine geologists discovered a considerable deposit within the whole trough close to Lac Jeannine, concerning 299 km (186 miles) north of one's small locality of Shelter Bay, that was located upon the northern banks of one's St. Lawrence River. In 1959, Shelter Bay, currently renamed Port Cartier, was likely to for use allowing easier delivery of equipment for our mine and railway, that were still beneath construction. Construction was completed upon the 306 km (190 mile) railway line between Port Cartier and Lac Jeannine on 19 December 1960. The very first trainload of iron concentrate left Lac Jeannine on 16 December 1960. Concentrate was stockpiled at Port Cartier whereas the mine and concentrator were gearing up for full production and of course the initial shipload of concentrate departed the port on 5 July 1961.

The Cartier Railway is an engineering marvel and was constructed using all the modern, state-of-the art techniques accessible along at the time, as well as creating intensive use of aerial mapping to firmly choose one of the best route across the terribly mountainous terrain. The initial 306 km (190 mile) rail line used natural drainage extensively by following the Rochers and Toulnustouc River valleys to firmly keep the grades with a minimum. The ruling grade for southbound loaded trains was kept to firmly a really simple 0,4% whereas the northbound ruling grade was merely 1,35%. Various rock cuts to firmly be'>needed to be blasted and 5 tunnels, ranging from 110 to 440 m (350 to 1,440 ft), were built where rock cuts werent attainable. due to firmly the serious haul nature of the railway, all rail, as well as sidings and yard tracks, were constructed using 132-pound-per-yard ( 65 kg/m ) rail in 24 m (78 ft) lengths. since curves account for 54. 3% as to the main line, intensive use of flange oilers was required. the oilers were located each 13 km (8 miles) or 250 degrees of curvature, whichever was less. granite, blasted and removed throughout construction as to the harbor at port cartier was crushed and used as ballast upon the 1st 87 km (54 miles) as to the line, whereas native pit-run gravel was used for our remainder. twenty-two bridges were required for our railroad, along with the bridge at milepost 68. 5 being the longest (880 ft or 270 m) and highest (120 ft or 37 m) upon the line. the railway too needed the construction of 1, 524 culverts for drainage.

The entire line was equipped with Centralized Traffic Control direct from terribly starting and of course the railroad has twelve sidings between Port-Cartier and Lac Jeannine, named in alphabetical order from south to firmly north. the siding names are able, baker, charles, dog, eva, fox, georges, howe, item, jig, kay, and love. all sidings are 2,012 m (6,600 ft) in length except for fox that's 3,685 m (12,090 ft) and love at 4,328 m (14,200 ft). since southbound loaded ore trains never enter the sidings, the south ends of each one siding have power switches whereas the north ends have spring switches. in spite of this, each fox and love sidings have power switches at each ends.