English rail at Last Chance
The Pacific Slab Mine, a  hydraulic mine at Last Chance, Placer County, Cal. had a 'riffle' bed about 100 feet long, 4 to 5  feet deep, and three to four feet across.  Through that riffle bed the  earth displaced by the hydraulic monitor was washed, and gold settled on the  bottom.  Rail was used to settle the washed earth, that is to say the rail  was placed in the bottom of the cut, each rail about 6 inches apart from the  next rail, set at right angles to the flow of discharged water, thus catching  the heavier gold as the water passed over the riffle.
 Most of the rail used was steel, however several  pieces were iron 'pear' rail, a few branded RIC 64 (the source of that rail, 54  lbs to the yard, is still a mystery to me) the rest are English or Welsh rails,  unbranded, and weighing ABOUT 58 lbs per yard.  
 The exact rail weight would be difficult to  measure, as the action of the water and earth over the rail, over a period of 75  years (the mine was closed in the mid 1960's) has eroded the rail  somewhat.
 That being said, does anyone know of a railroad  within a reasonable distance of Last Chance (it is 40 miles or so East,  Northeast of Auburn) that used English/Welsh rail weighing 58 lbs per  yard?
 The foot of the rail is heavier than the 60 lb rail  used on the Sacramento Valley Rail Road, however the web is shorter and the ball  smaller than the SVRR rail.
 The rail is unbranded, but has definite  English/Welch charactistics as to profile.
 Insofar as the Towle Bros. lumber railroad used  whatever rail it could find in the 1870's through the 1890's, much of that rail  was English/Welsh of a similiar profile, but also unbranded, it would not  surprise me to find that the Pacific Slab Mine got it's rail from abandoned  Towle Bros. rail beds.
 Thank You.
 Chris Graves, NewCastle, Cal.
 

