Pomazol is a retired civil engineer from the Illinois Dept. of Transportation. He is also an avid model railroader. In his view, the Q&TLRR is a life-size railroad model. And thanks to his dedication, visitors can walk past the railroad’s fully restored engine house much as it looked the year it was built, in 1889.

Pomazol and six to eight other volunteers, all friends who share the common interest of trains and railroad history, have dedicated the past quarter century to preserving the history of the Quincy Mining Company’s short-line railroad. It did not transport people, it was not a public railroad. Built and owned by the mining company, it served just two purposes: to haul copper rock to the company’s stamp mill, on Torch Lake, and to haul coal back to the mine site from the mill’s wharf. Preserving it is a deep passion for these volunteers.

What is the significance of historic preservation? Pomazol told the story of how the cab of the Q&TL locomotive No. 5 was restored. It was a tribute to a local elderly gentleman whose father was a locomotive engineer who was killed on November 15, 1937, in a train derailment near Mason.

“Bob used to stop by when I working on (another project). We’d chat and things like that. He was getting on in age and I thought that one of the best things I could do for him is to fix up Locomotive No. 5.”

While no sign of the tracks and sidings remain, the recently restored engine house is in the same condition as when it was built in 1889. (Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette)

The wooden cab had deteriorated drastically, the floor boards had rotted through, said Pomazol. Over the next number of years, he and a college friend, along with their wives, came to the mine location. They sandblasted and re-painted the engine, rebuilt the cab and the doors, and made it look new again. The five-year, volunteer, out-of-pocket project was completed in 2008.

It was around that time that an $800,000 grant, through the Michigan Department of Transportation, was awarded for funding rebuilding the 1889 Q.&.T.L. R.R. engine house.

LJJ Construction, of Houghton, was awarded the contract, Pomazol said. LJJ removed the roof, tuckpointed the stone walls, installed new doors, restored or replaced the main doors, installed a new roof.

With six to eight volunteers working for a week each summer, the railroad’s No. 6 was brought back from New Jersey, in 2009, where it had been since 1975. Once the engine was back at the  engine house, Pomazal hired T and L Trevarrow Painting, from Lake Linden to sandblast and primer paint the engine. Rustoleum donated 12 gallons of zinc-rich primer, Superior Sand and Gravel donated a pallet sandblast sand, Gundlach Construction loaned an air compressor.

Engine No. 6, which railroad personnel had nicknamed “the Beast,” now looks better than it did when it was running. It didn’t stop there.

The next project was the restoration of the water tank located near the engine house.

To fund the restoration, Pomazal approached the Quincy Mine Hoist Association with a proposal: If he wrote a book on the history of the Q.&T.L.R.R. with all proceeds going to the restoration fund, would they publish it? They agreed. Pomazal’s book, Rock Down, Coal Up: the Story of the Quincy & Torch Lake Railroad was published in 2014, and royalties from its sales funded nearly most of the restoration project. Royalties and a generous donation from a rail fan for $28,000 has been funding projects,

The next project, to begin next summer, is restoring the Q.&T.L.R.R. No.1 locomotive, even while the tender from Engine No. 5 is in the process of being restored.

Pomazol and his crew are volunteers. The reason why they have worked on restoring what they have of the Q.& T.L.R.R. is because so much of it still exists. It is important to preserve what is left, he said, for future generations to see and understand the past.

The railroad is an important aspect of the Quincy Mining Company, and now the Quincy Hoist Association, in the preservation of the industrial and cultural landscape of the Copper Country. Like the Quincy hoist, and the No. 2 shaft house, the Q.& T.L.R.R. is just one element of a much larger picture, which includes the Quincy Smelter, in Ripley. The smelter is the only remaining industrial site of its type left in the world and illustrates 19th and early 20th century machinery, refining and casting processes that made Michigan copper production important not only to the nation, but to segments of Europe, as well.