I found this today. Here is what I know about it. Pics at bottom.
Halfway down a plateau is a old railbed which scaled this plateau. It was opened in 1875.
On the outer side of a spot along the railbed is almost like a creek drainage tunnel opening, except it is only on the outside. Concrete it seems, with a metal beam across it about 8 feet wide. The earth inside of this goes at a slope from the railbed, diagonally down. Further down are sets of concrete "bases" with thick metal round bar sticking out with massive bolts on them. Must of held up the structure. So that goes halfway down then there is some earth work on the left side which goes down further and curves to the right. It seems to channel it diagonally, for a bit then there is a earth work V shaped trench that is steaper and goes down even further where it ends up right in someones backyard. The houses below there are from 1950-1970's. There is a cable half buried in the trench and the earthwork which is metal, 2 inches thick and made from coiled smaller, thick wires.
I do not know the age of the concrete, i would like to know. I met a guy who noticed me looking around there and he was oh about 60 years old. He said it looked like the way it does back when he was a little kid so this is pre-1950ish for sure.
I know of very small limestone quarry which used a similar setup to get something to the bottom of the plateau, except the source was not a train, but from the quarry at the edge of the plateau itself. The concrete bases and "building" beside it are probably same vintage, and look very similar except they are larger than these. I got an archaeologist to look at it and i found references for it and it is a quarry from the 19th century.
Ok so what do I think this was? well it looks to me that the train came along half way up/down the plateau, stopped, and from a certain railcar it dumped its contents into this "chute". I guessed coal at first, there is coal in the area but not nearly enough to even suggest this was a coal chute. I'm also guessing something metallic, maybe metal or ore, OR (heh) steel slag.
THere was clearly nothing below here save for this, before all of those houses in the area below this. So why was this here? was this transported elsewhere? probably not since the railway, once it got to the bottom was in the middle of the city. So why was this dumped here? well i walked up to 100 m eters west of this, on the same level as these foundations and there is all kinds of earth work. its not very noticeable but there is undulations of the earth and slope, rises and falls, all parallel to each other. its man made for sure. just not sure for what purpose. The soil is red here and oh about a km to the west (again below this railroad) is an old brick works which made bricks from this red soil, but it was dig there at the brickworks.
I found several bricks in this area by this foundation, but not in it. They are weird, never seen bricks like this. It looks to me like they are metallic! but they are not very heavy like made from metal or slag. however they have the constistency of slag and the inside looks like slag with the little holes in it. I think these bricks are related to the purpose of this chute.
LOL any ideas?
Halfway down a plateau is a old railbed which scaled this plateau. It was opened in 1875.
On the outer side of a spot along the railbed is almost like a creek drainage tunnel opening, except it is only on the outside. Concrete it seems, with a metal beam across it about 8 feet wide. The earth inside of this goes at a slope from the railbed, diagonally down. Further down are sets of concrete "bases" with thick metal round bar sticking out with massive bolts on them. Must of held up the structure. So that goes halfway down then there is some earth work on the left side which goes down further and curves to the right. It seems to channel it diagonally, for a bit then there is a earth work V shaped trench that is steaper and goes down even further where it ends up right in someones backyard. The houses below there are from 1950-1970's. There is a cable half buried in the trench and the earthwork which is metal, 2 inches thick and made from coiled smaller, thick wires.
I do not know the age of the concrete, i would like to know. I met a guy who noticed me looking around there and he was oh about 60 years old. He said it looked like the way it does back when he was a little kid so this is pre-1950ish for sure.
I know of very small limestone quarry which used a similar setup to get something to the bottom of the plateau, except the source was not a train, but from the quarry at the edge of the plateau itself. The concrete bases and "building" beside it are probably same vintage, and look very similar except they are larger than these. I got an archaeologist to look at it and i found references for it and it is a quarry from the 19th century.
Ok so what do I think this was? well it looks to me that the train came along half way up/down the plateau, stopped, and from a certain railcar it dumped its contents into this "chute". I guessed coal at first, there is coal in the area but not nearly enough to even suggest this was a coal chute. I'm also guessing something metallic, maybe metal or ore, OR (heh) steel slag.
THere was clearly nothing below here save for this, before all of those houses in the area below this. So why was this here? was this transported elsewhere? probably not since the railway, once it got to the bottom was in the middle of the city. So why was this dumped here? well i walked up to 100 m eters west of this, on the same level as these foundations and there is all kinds of earth work. its not very noticeable but there is undulations of the earth and slope, rises and falls, all parallel to each other. its man made for sure. just not sure for what purpose. The soil is red here and oh about a km to the west (again below this railroad) is an old brick works which made bricks from this red soil, but it was dig there at the brickworks.
I found several bricks in this area by this foundation, but not in it. They are weird, never seen bricks like this. It looks to me like they are metallic! but they are not very heavy like made from metal or slag. however they have the constistency of slag and the inside looks like slag with the little holes in it. I think these bricks are related to the purpose of this chute.
LOL any ideas?
