NEB&W Layout Guide - Port Henry, NY

More on Port Henry in the Photo Gallery. Also see the history of Port Henry iron making.

Port Henry

In 1920, a concrete ore dock was built along the shore opposite the station. An article in a 1920 issue of Iron Age shows the "electric mule" which was a two-foot-gauge, 17-ton electric loco that ran along the base of the concrete ore dock. It was used to move cars into position under the overhead crane for loading, by means of "poling" them, a dangerous practice using a handheld pole to push against hoppers on the adjacent track on either side of the narrow gauge line. (All steam-era freight cars had poling pockets on the end sills, a small dimple on each corner. Poling was a common enough method of switching to warrant poling pockets as an industry standard.)

Port Henry's narrow gauge line ran only the length of the ore dock, and ran on 220 volts via a pair of overhead wires (not a single wire with the ground return through the rails as on city trolleys). There was but one switch, so the pint-sized loco could run into a diminutive engine house. The narrow gauge was still in operation up until the diesel era.

By the late-1920's, the no-longer needed wood trestling was replaced by a single steel trestle solely to provide a switchback from the hillside track to the concrete ore dock. The iron ore was either processed here at lakeside or sent to Troy, Elizabeth, NJ, or elsewhere, either by rail or barge. Ore was stockpiled along the lake opposite the station.

Witherbee-Sherman owned a blast furnace north of the station, while opposite the station was the Cedar Point furnace, dating back to the 1880's. In 1912, Witherbee-Sherman took over the Cedar Point complex, and rebuilt it, including a new blast furnace. At this time they probably abandoned their original site. Only ten years later Witherbee-Sherman totally modernized the complex again. They built new buildings for blowing apparatus and power generators and built a whole new blast furnace. They left the old 1912 furnace still standing next to it, which was also modernized with new hoisting mechanisms. A year later, in 1923, a sinter plant was also added. For a while, then, Port Henry had not one but two blast furnaces, but this extensive complex did not last long.

The entire operation, including the LC&M RR, had been purchased by Republic Steel by 1940. The blast furnaces saw little use after WWII, but stood for several years longer in standby service. The sinter plant became the only form of processing. In the 1940's, Republic Steel built a new sinter plant outside the tax limits of the village, and eventually the lakeside sinter plant was abandoned. (Sintering takes the fine ore dust produced by other operations, and using heat, melts it into shippable chunks. The dust would blow away if shipped in open hoppers.)

Because there was so much traffic generated at Port Henry, the D&H maintained a locomotive there to handle the daily switching. In the last century, the D&H had a two-stall roundhouse and 50 foot turntable near the station. Prior to 1940's, a 2-8-0 Consolidation-type engine was assigned here, but the turntable was too short. A new 65 foot table was built separated from the roundhouse, as there was no room to expand the old table.

Rather than purchase specialized ore cars, the D&H was proud of its ability in effective car utilization. They had a daily stream of hoppers loaded with coal heading north, which normally would have to be returned empty. Instead, they diverted some of the empties to Port Henry to be loaded with iron ore, which was to be shipped south. Since iron ore is so much more dense than coal, the hoppers were only filled a fraction of their volume. Unless you could see down into the hoppers, you might think them empty.