And don’t forget all the full time jobs that are created. Perish the thought!
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Well guys, you have no idea about coal dust coming off the trains until you stood where I did in the second segment of this one.
A short distance up that hill they have a sprayer that adds some dust binder (latex) to the loads.
HJ,
Was that train a coal train or a coke train? The Coke trains don’t get sprayed, and they seem to get more dust. Coal trains on the other hand (BNSF) get sprayed once at the coal loading facility.
Just wondering if you knew.
Craig
Craig, I thought that Coke was transported in tankers, not hoppers.
Craig Townsend said:
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Well guys, you have no idea about coal dust coming off the trains until you stood where I did in the second segment of this one.
A short distance up that hill they have a sprayer that adds some dust binder (latex) to the loads.
HJ,
Was that train a coal train or a coke train? The Coke trains don’t get sprayed, and they seem to get more dust. Coal trains on the other hand (BNSF) get sprayed once at the coal loading facility.
Just wondering if you knew.
Craig
As far as I know it is metallurgical coal that gets exported via Point Roberts. When I was up Elk Valley/Sparwood way two years ago I didn’t notice sprayers up there, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have one somewhere in the Columbia Valley (between Fort Steele and Golden)
I’m waiting for my detailed map book and hope it will show that stuff, too, in addition to the detector locations and all that good stuff.
David Hill said:
How awful that the corporations that support coal mining and transportation will “earn a huge profit”. How dare they! Excuse me while I check on my mutual fund portfolio.
Dave,
I got out of mutual funds back in 2005, something told me that there was a crash a-coming.
And the next one? Hmm … hard to say, but …
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
As far as I know it is metallurgical coal that gets exported via Point Roberts. When I was up Elk Valley/Sparwood way two years ago I didn’t notice sprayers up there, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have one somewhere in the Columbia Valley (between Fort Steele and Golden)
I’m waiting for my detailed map book and hope it will show that stuff, too, in addition to the detector locations and all that good stuff.
Port Roberts is the main export of coal from the PRB along MRL and BNSF lines, so I would imagine that it was a coal train if it was headed to Port Roberts.
The reason I asked is because I’ve seen some pictures online of ‘coal’ trains blowing dust, when they are not coal trains, but rather coke trains. Most people don’t know the difference, and/or could care less. The only way to tell if it’s a coke vs. coal is to look at the load and/or the wheel (train list that shows the product as coke vs. coal). Because coke is a by product of coal and not processed onsite, but rather reloaded after becoming coke, coke trains don’t get the spray treatment that coal trains do.
Here’s an image of a coke train along the Columbia gorge.
(http://scontent-b-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/376397_10151044510512668_665387486_n.jpg)
It’s not a coal train…
Meanwhile these trains keep running through without a word…
(http://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1276205_727087277317336_315058474_o.jpg)
Humm… Just found something interesting. Roberts Bank does get coke trains, from MRL/BNSF. Loaded at Laurel, MT. Looks like the coke trains have GATX cars, and not the normal BNSF cars. That may be one way to visually tell the difference, but it might not be 100% correct.
If you notice too that the coke trains have bottom dump hopper cars, verse a rotary dump bethgon coal porter type car. The bottom dump cars can be unloaded via rotary or gravity dump. But what this tells me is that the two types of cars are rated for two different types of load capacity. Say a coal train is 18,000 tons, but a coke train is a light weight at 16,000 tons… Makes a big difference in car capacity.
Same location as the coke train, different day, different train. Notice the car type.
(http://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1278781_721451147880949_1418230623_o.jpg)
Back in the late 1970’s at Bethlehem Steel’s Coke Ovens, we loaded new coke into hopper cars. At the beginning of the “The Steel’s” demise, one job I had was shunting hopper cars full of Chinese coke with a R/C SW1 (?) to a hopper under the cars that moved the reddish colored coke via belts into the screening station to be combined with our coke for the furnaces.
The mined coal came in in hopper cars and were dumped with a rotary platform for charging the ovens.
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
David Hill said:
How awful that the corporations that support coal mining and transportation will “earn a huge profit”. How dare they! Excuse me while I check on my mutual fund portfolio.
Dave,
I got out of mutual funds back in 2005, something told me that there was a crash a-coming.
And the next one? Hmm … hard to say, but …
Interest at the bank is less than inflation. Best to keep your cash under your matress then.
Craig Townsend said:
Humm… Just found something interesting. Roberts Bank does get coke trains, from MRL/BNSF. Loaded at Laurel, MT. Looks like the coke trains have GATX cars, and not the normal BNSF cars. That may be one way to visually tell the difference, but it might not be 100% correct.
CPR and CNR run only coal unit trains (AFAIK) out of the Rockies and their Foothills. The ones I see come out of the southeastern coal fields in BC or the western fields in Alberta. Haven’t seen any of the PRB stuff, but I read there was a plan to come up through Montana to Alberta, up to Edmonton and then west to Prince Rupert.
And at one time they mentioned shipping to the coast (Seattle area) then north (bypassing Vancouver), then East through Kamloops to the Yellowhead and then west to Prince Rupert.
On the oil can trains: there is already a mighty buzz. Building the new pipelines going west from Alberta is a very iffy proposition — lots of opposition from all directions. Lac-Mégantic was a big wake-up call, the train derailments in Albert involving petro products did the rest. Most municipalities want answers what is being shipped through their towns and cities. The gist: should we believe the info stickers on the cars and whatever the loading documents state??
Something unrelated to rail transport: our friends from Germany asked why there were so many weigh stations and mandatory brake check locations. My short answer was “too much hanky-panky regarding loaded weight and general maintenance.”
That is closely related to the loosey-goosey enforcement and oversight of rail transportation.
Not all that long ago it was mentioned during a discussion that there are plenty of traction motor failures on CPs 4400 engines. Things are apparently run at the very edge of feasibility as far as loads and power are concerned. Not a very good plan through mountain territory, but hey what do I know, eh!?!
The coke trains I’ve seen run out of the PRB as coal, then up to Billings/Laurel, MT were the coal is turned to coke. Then the coke is shipped Billings- Roberts Bank, via MRL to Spokane, WA, then BNSF along the Columbia, then up the coastline to Roberts Bank.
I never had a traction motor failure on a loco, but about every 6 months to a year we’d get a new RFE (Road Foreman of Engines) that had never ran on mountain grade. They would tell the power desk that we didn’t need the HPT that was required, so the power desk would cut the HPT for the hill. All would be fine during summer, but winter would roll around and trains would start stalling on the hill. You wouldn’t think a difference between 2.5 HPT and 2.8 HPT would be enough to stall a train, but it was!
Those RFE provided some good entertainment. We had one that was doing a ride along and told the engineer that he could start the train on the hill. He promptly had the train rolling backwards… until the hoghead plugged it! 
Craig said: "until the hoghead plugged it! "
Please define. Tango Yankee.
Steve Featherkile said:
Craig said: "until the hoghead plugged it! "
Please define. Tango Yankee.
Putting it in emerg
Back in my former life I wouldn’t ask anyone to do something that I couldn’t or wouldn’t do myself if necessary.
Steve Featherkile said:
Craig said: "until the hoghead plugged it! "
Please define. Tango Yankee.
Sheesh I thought you people knew stuff…
“The hogger (engineer) plugged it (highly technical term for making a full emergency brake application)!”
The conductor wasn’t so pleased either… Let’s just say that the RFE had his territory reassigned to the calmer waters of the Coastline… The best RFE’s we had were former hogheads that worked the mountain for 20+ years. They knew what worked and what didn’t work, but for some reason the company didn’t keep them around for long.
Thanks. Hogger and hoghead I knew, but “plugged it” was beyond me. I’m glad to know that it is in the same class of technical term for railroading as “gone the whole nine yards,” and “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey,” are for naval warfare.
I think “giving 'em the whole nine yards” was an Army Air Corps saying. Maybe Naval Air, I dunno. Those brass monkeys just can’t hold on to their balls when it gets too cold. What about “three sheets to the wind”? Or cursing like a drunken sailor? You Navy guys have such colorful language.
“Garry Owens!”
No, the AAF stole it from the Navy, and they didnt even have the courtesy to file off the serial numbers. Three sheets in the wind belongs to the Navy, as does the drunken sailor.
We are acolorful group.that is true.
Steve Featherkile said:
they didnt even have the courtesy to file off the serial numbers
Steve Featherkile said:
Thanks. Hogger and hoghead I knew, but “plugged it” was beyond me.
When a hoghead or cornductor (sp) “plugs it” they move the brake valve handle from a release position, and exhaust all the air out of the trainline. So I’m not sure how the term came about because you’re not actually plugging anything, but rather releasing… Strange how saying come about huh?
See if you can figure this one out.
Tower calls the helper to let him know the Pig is ready on 5, but first the carknocker has to grab Fred, so the Hogger can hook up Mary with Fred. But first the cornductor wants beans before he leaves so he can get some initial. Meanwhile in the yard, the hump is working 6, but has another cut for 5 so the utility has to lace the air after the joint is made so don’t shove out the house until the hump says they are in the clear on the back track. At the same time over the radio you hear a “one car too far… Looks like we bent the wrong iron”
Oops can I officially derail the thread? Has it gone the required 3 pages yet?
Craig Townsend said:
Oops can I officially derail the thread? Has it gone the required 3 pages yet?
No it hasn’t, but let’s see what Steve does with all the lingo.