TUCSON, CORNELIA & GILA BEND RAILROAD

 

Flat Car No. 304


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The Tucson, Cornelia & Gila Bend Railroad carried mine products from Ajo to Gila Bend, Arizona, for interchange with the Southern Pacific Railroad, and hauled incoming freight and supplies back to Phelps Dodge's New Cornelia copper mine at Ajo.

Most of the railroad's traffic was in the form of ore cars and anode cars, but the company also had a small fleet of box cars, tank cars, and flat cars. This flat car was used for miscellaneous freight items that did not need protection from the weather.

After the open pit mine closed in 1985, this car remained on site for twenty years. A  property cleanup placed it in peril of being scrapped, so it was donated to the Arizona Railway Museum in 2005.

Builder information for this 35-foot car is lacking, but it was probably built in the 1920s. It rides on arch-bar trucks made by the Monitor Company.

The TC&GB railroad was built by the New Cornelia Copper Company in 1915 after copper ore was discovered in the Ajo area. The railroad brought in equipment for digging the open pit mine, then transported loaded ore cars to the Douglas smelter until the Ajo smelter was built in 1951. Shipments after that consisted of processed copper anodes going to refineries.

Phelps Dodge took over the operation in 1931 and ran it until the pit closed in 1985. The railroad ceased operating at that time but re-opened temporarily in 1995-1998 so the Ajo smelter could be dismantled. Some of the remaining equipment has been donated over the years.

This car was trucked via a lowboy trailer to the museum's Armstrong Park location on October 28, 2005. It then moved south to the museum's new Tumbleweed Park location along with the rest of the fleet in 2006.
1/27/2021 - Car has new floor and paint and currently holds Southern Pacific 20' Container.
2/17/2013 - Car is being prepped for a new floor and paint.
August 2005 - Flat car #304 in Ajo, AZ on "moving day" to ARM.

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