Traction Tires for Diesels and Electrics?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Of course if you want some really impressive weight, you could use gold! I worked for Kaiser Steel at their Eagle Mountain Iron Mine back in the early 1970's. I had to go find another job when they closed down and laid off most employees during the long shoreman's strike on the West coast that lasted 6 months. Just before I retired I met a mechanic at one of our customer's shops who had previously worked at Eagle Mountain before they closed the mine completely as far as iron ore was concerned. He told me that there was a guy looking for gold on a claim next to Eagle Mtn's. West pit. Kaiser had been trying to buy his claim to expand the mine for years and finally the guy got discouraged and sold it to Kaiser. They set charges and blew off the side of the mountain. Typically they drilled to set the charges during the day, set the charges and blew them at dusk, and then loaded the truck to take the ore to the pelletizing plant at night. Once the ore went into the plant it would be crushed, iron separated from dirt, and compressed into what looked like rabbit pellets and loaded into ore cars for shipment to the steel mill in Fontana (where California Raceway is today). Nobody noticed until the ore had gone through the smelter and been formed into ingots that their fork lifts could not lift. When they checked on why the fork lift couldn't lift the ingots, they discovered that they had found gold! I don't know if the story is true or a legend, but it makes a good story anyway.

definitely a good story, but as it turns out, lead is still heavier per volume than gold, by a difference of 10.27 atomic mass units. that might be the difference between atoms, but it adds up after a couple moles of the stuff!

Actually, i think i have a similar story. In either 1906 or 1907, there was a barge bringing lead to the National Lead corporation on the Arthur Kill, between Staten Island and New Jersey. they were going up river, when suddenly the barge (which was over-loaded) tipped over, and 2/3s of the lead ingots fell overboard. there was a scramble to recover the cargo, and during this operation, it was revealed that the operators of the barge had been smuggling silver in with the lead. they got a lot of the ingots, but they weren't able to get most of them.

flash forward about 60 years, two teenagers (at the time) my grand parents knew were searching the out-shoot of a dredge looking for arrowheads (they are all over Staten Island), when they found chunks of ingots torn up by the dredging blades. they took these ingots to a scrap dealer, who claimed it was lead and gave them a few bucks for it. years later they would learn they very well could have had silver, and the scrap dealer may have not been so honest with them.

you gotta do your research!