mcords19
Arrival At Alma
On an exceptionally humid morning along the upper Mississippi, loaded DAPX coal train C BTMALM diverges from BNSF’s St. Croix Subdivision and enters the Dairyland Power Cooperative loop track in Alma, WI. High atop Buena Vista park, a birds-eye view offers an interesting perspective of the John P. Madgett Generating Station and surrounding facility. Coming online in November 1979, this 369-MW plant handles roughly one shipment of sub-bituminous coal per week, with traffic “peaking” during the Summer months. On average, it takes about four hours to unload these 120-car long trains, as each hopper is clamped and rotated by special machinery in the coal pit.
The Alma site is an outlier among many coal-fired plants today as Dairyland has yet to announce an official decommissioning date. For now, Powder River coal will continue to replenish the mounds of black diamonds here—but for how long?
Arrival At Alma
On an exceptionally humid morning along the upper Mississippi, loaded DAPX coal train C BTMALM diverges from BNSF’s St. Croix Subdivision and enters the Dairyland Power Cooperative loop track in Alma, WI. High atop Buena Vista park, a birds-eye view offers an interesting perspective of the John P. Madgett Generating Station and surrounding facility. Coming online in November 1979, this 369-MW plant handles roughly one shipment of sub-bituminous coal per week, with traffic “peaking” during the Summer months. On average, it takes about four hours to unload these 120-car long trains, as each hopper is clamped and rotated by special machinery in the coal pit.
The Alma site is an outlier among many coal-fired plants today as Dairyland has yet to announce an official decommissioning date. For now, Powder River coal will continue to replenish the mounds of black diamonds here—but for how long?