Himrod salt plant

PC CR NS wrote:The PC local EC14-15 which operated out of Horseheads............

It must have been incredible to see a train run north from Horseheads. The valley gets pretty narrow in places. Rt 14, the railroad, and the canal were all sandwiched in. I marvel at the route every time I drive there.

During the CR era, I rode the YAEL-01 a few times into the Holding Point. Crew was ex-LV; ex-DLW, and ex-ERIE. Arguments about who's RR was best were frequent and quite heated.

There were a few cave ins in the himrod mine's I'm not sure of how many. It is from my understanding that the last cave in that happened was a few years befor the mine closed 12 men were lost and never recovered. There is not much on the accdents at the mine outher than a few old news paper clipings from the local librays in the area but even thows old clips are being added to the trash pile.

SRS, I think you're full of baloney. We're talking the 1970's, not the 1870's. Many of the folks on this forum including myself were adults then and if something as dramatic as a mine cave in killed 12 people, right in New York, it would have been all over the news and TV. And your claim that the only record is a few old clippings which the libraries are throwing away is silly. If this had happened there would be government reports, state reports and so on. And since when does a library throw out a clipping because it's old? For many years old papers have been microfilmed so it would certainly be on record if it had happened.

Maybe you're a bit mixed up. I do recall somewhere about 15 or 20 years ago there was an incident in the RETSOF salt mine which killed one or two men. Their bodies were recovered. Obviously, this was before the cave-in which led to the abandonment of that mine - fortunately nobody was around when that one happened.

Or maybe you're thinking of a cave in in a Pennsylvania coal mine in the 1800's. Can you give anything specific such as a date, the name of the newspaper the alleged clippings are from, or anything FACTUAL to support your report? If not, we'll conclude this whole idea is bogus.

Retsof colapse was in 94 or 95 I remember being woken up by the rumble that morning and I was living in Bloomfield which is at least 20 miles away. I went back to sleep for a half hour and then turned on WHAM and they were thinking it was a minor earthquake.

Edited to put the S in retsof.

You just a trouble maker anyway who loves to give everyone a hard time and to lazy to look the info up your self. But I'll over look that and just ignore you.

One of the biggest problums with that mine was that they were recoveing a lot of shale stone in the salt which also lead to the closeing of it.

Lucky ya! I was either in Honeoye or at RIT, I never felt the earthquake...

as well as 4,5, or 6 other earthquakes Since 1980's, unrelated to cave-in... Once I was driving and I picked great time to drive because the drive was only like 2 miles... the rest, I slept through.. lol...

only earth shaking I ever felt were train passing by...

ken

joshuahouse wrote:Retsof colapse was in 94 or 95 I remember being woken up by the rumble that morning and I was living in Bloomfield which is at least 20 miles away. I went back to sleep for a half hour and then turned on WHAM and they were thinking it was a minor earthquake.

Edited to put the S in retsof.

My bedroom was right over the garage, I thought someone had gone out in the car and it was the door opening.

SRS, I'll try to answer in a polite way so we don't incur the wrath of the dreaded keeper of the forums "Sir Otto The Locker". This is an interesting thread and I'd hate to see it locked up.

Many times we all rely on previous posts to gather information. So if something incorrect is posted, there is a chance it will be cited as a reference next time the topic comes up. After a while it becomes accepted as fact. We all need to be clear whether we are stating something which is a fact, or if we are taking a guess. Mnay people on these forums will use phrases like "as far as I know" or "Maybe..." or "one possibility is".

I appreciate that in your first mention of the supposed cave in, you said it came from a friend's uncle so you are (properly) warning us that it's second or third hand information. But when people ask you for further proof or documentation, that's not causing trouble, it's trying to establish facts which is why we are all here.

Your accusation about being too lazy to look it up is way off mark - I did both a Yahoo search and a Google search, and found no mention of a cave-in with multiple fatalities at all. Scottychaos came up with the same article I did, and was kind enough to post the whole thing here. He also came to the conclusion the stories are not true.

I'm open-minded on this. If ANYBODY can find any accurate details of a cave-in at the Himrod mine with great loss of life, fine. But let's not take the lazy way out by clinging to ghost stories and unproven tall tales. The mine operated in very recent times - either show us some hard evidence, or let's agree that the incident never happened at all.

I found this statement about the closing in a 1976 Bureau of Mines/Minerals yearbook report:

"In March 1976, Morton Salt Co. announced the closing of its salt mine at Seneca Lake, N.Y., owing to high operating costs and an oversupply of rock salt in the market area.

Cargill, Inc., acquired majority ownership in Watkins Salt Co., an evaporated salt producer located at Watkins Glen, N.Y. "

Josh, you could feel the rumble of the Retsof collapse in the city of Rochester!

CR6618, I saw a few trains on the line between Holding Point (Horseheads) and Watkins Glen in the late '70s or early '80s. Most of them had 1 or 2 engines and a short string of cars. My father generally liked them, too, 'cause that was the way he rode from Elmira to Penn Yan (and back) during the '40s and early '50s.

However, one of CR's trains on that line did irritate him. We were leaving the Grand Prix ('79?) at the Glen to go see my grandma in Elmira and that train came thru. It really compounded a traffic snarl! I was kind of surprised 'cause local trains were pretty rare on Sundays. I don't think I saw a train in that area again- CR tore up those tracks in the mid '80s.

I remember nothing about any mine collapse at Himrod when I was growing up in Elmira and Hammondsport, and I'm sure that would've made the local news, if not the national news. I do remember the double track road crossing for the yard at the mine, but never saw a train there. The mine might have been closed by then...

I wish I could've been there to hear arguments between LV vs DL&W vs Erie employees. No ex-PCers?

---SRS, I'll try to answer in a polite way so we don't incur the wrath of the dreaded keeper of the forums "Sir Otto The Locker". ---

As an aside, this is the funniest thing I've read here in a while. Thanks for the laugh!