The way it was: Mine train 1966Jun 3, 2012 - Staff Everything still had the shine of the new on it in 1966 at U.S. Steel's Atlantic city Iron Ore Mine south west of Lander near South Pass, including these Union Pacific Railroad cars loaded with pelleted iron ore. Part of opening the mine three years earlier was the construction of a 76-mile railroad up the mountain to the mine site, connecting to the main UP line at Winton Junction just north of Rock Springs. Processing plants on site turned the raw ore into taconite pellets, and carloads of the upgraded ore rolled out of the loading stations on the mountaintop as they began the 255-mile trip to blast furnaces in Utah, where they would be transformed to steel. The mine was the largest private-industry employer in the Lander area for two decades until it closed in 1983. |
