View allAll Photos Tagged LOADOUT
CSX E091 rumbles out of the north portal of Natural Tunnel near Duffield, Virginia. Natural Tunnel is an 838ft cave that was converted to a railroad tunnel in the late 1800’s. It is still in use today by Norfolk Southern with CSX having trackage rights over this line. CSX uses the NS Appalachia District between Frisco, TN and Big Stone Gap, VA to reach the Cumberland Valley Subdivision. E091 is an empty coal train out of Eastman Chemical in Kingsport, TN bound for Corbin. Usually symboled E090 to Loyall, E091 tends to run when the cars need inspection and repair in Corbin. Sometime this week, they will load at various loadouts along the Cumberland Valley Sub.
The sun has just crested the horizon as three RIO GE's creep through the loader at Gudai Darri. After a few hours the train will be put in Auto Haul and sent on its way to one of the two ports.
RBMN QASD is just moments away from emerging out of the 3,500-foot Mahanoy Tunnel under Buck Mountain with cars for the anthracite loadouts west of Mahanoy City. The tunnel was completed in 1862 and was responsible for the development of mining towns west of the mountain.
A CSX Tennessee Valley Authority unit coal train is flood loading at the Wen-Lar loadout near Field, KY on May 14, 1992 with SD40-2's No's. 8154 and 8331, Road Slug No. 2264 and GP40-2 No. 6418.
The Grise is an articulated flatbed that provides support for its BT-9 handler during cargo loadouts and catalyst conversions when paired with a Duroc. The treaded vehicle can move steadily over any terrain and in any conditions providing a stable base from which the BT-9 can operate safely.
The BT-9 is a single man short range utility handler able to lift 80% its own weight while having the dexterity and precision to perform detailed operations even in harsh conditions.
Birdsboro Materials Railroad SD38s 2002 & 2005 work the loadout at the Haines & Kibblehouse quarry in Birdsboro, PA on the morning of May 6, 2009.
What an aptly named loadout. 810 has jumped on the loaded train left behind from a Elmore-based "U" crew from earlier this morning. The road crew has traveled up here from Bluefield and there still some more patience to be had as they have to pull the train north and pull the caboose up to the conductor to allow him to ride the shove down the Cub Creek Branch.
I definitely sympathize with the need to pull the train ahead honestly. In the two hours of time to kill waiting for the crew arrive on my last day in West Virginia, I made the trek down to the caboose. It was not easy at all to get to from the road. Especially on a sloppy cold and wet Fall day...
RJC2 hauls 99 cars of loaded coal from RES Loadout to Cresson for delivery at NS, the matched set of black hoppers has always been attractive to me and I had to go out and shoot this in the early morning after a long night at work, with Kerr at the throttle he puts her in 8 and gets the train rolling to 25mph.
CSX R231, the 5am Hazard crew, eases hoppers under the batch loader at Typo on the famed EK Subdivision. They are starting on their 8th car of this Georgia Power train bound for Plant Bowen.
BNSF 8749 sit swith a coal load ready for departure, near Thunder Jct, WY on Sept 4, 2022. The loadout can be seen in the distance behind the train.
Just outside of Superior, BNSF 1785 West speeds down the Lakes Sub. with a healthy Grand Rapids Local back on August 29, 2019. Every year at this time of year, I'm always looking forward to these beautiful summer evenings but especially now.
It was a fun late summer chase from Superior to Carlton that evening with Jon Clark. Hopefully, by this summer things will be "normal" again and can enjoy a meal in a crowded Streetcar in Carlton after a chase like this, which we did that night.
The Rapids is still a normal evening departure out of Superior, but 1785 is no longer around. It suffered heavy damage this past winter at the Minorca Mine pellet loadout north of Virginia and was sent from the Rapids/Kelly Lake pool for repairs.
2 motors and 75 loads of coal from Greenbrier Smokeless' Anjean WV loadout make their way through the small community of Bellwood, WV
With a fresh crew aboard, empty coal buckets exit the yard in Loyall, Kentucky and pass the shuttered interlocking tower at Baxter on former L&N trackage. After a few miles of snaking through the Cumberland River valley, the crew would make a reverse move up the branch to Coalgood to make a few slow passes through the Creech loadout.
After an offer of a cab ride while they loaded the last half of the train, they blasted off from the loadout. I recall they said they very rarely saw railfans at the time. Seems I chased to the Cow Springs curve and opted to swing by Monument Valley that afternoon and end up in Helper UT that night!
A trio of FMI Geeps takes a cut of gondolas loaded with copper concentrate from the North end of the mine downhill toward an intermediate yard. The mine usually has two crews on duty, one that works the gondola loadout and acid spurs at the North end of the mine and a second crew that works all the boxcar loading docks and other mixed freight a little further South near the Columbine Gate. The second crew normally takes cars to the interchange once or twice a day, and the crew switching at the North end of the mine will also sometimes run down to the interchange with empty acid cars or loaded gons of copper concentrate. Morenci, AZ
A pair of NS GEs lead eastbound loaded coal train 826 past one of the loadouts in Switchback, WV on the Pocahontas District.
After making the perilous journey through the conveyer belt, P001 winds around the curve under the inactive Collco loadout.
The Wildcat Loadout seemed to be the busiest of the coal loading locations on our trip out there. Unfortunately, this and all the other coal loading spots on the Utah have become history. The railroad in this area is still around but down to only running 1 or 2 road trains road trains per week from what I've been told. During 1996 they weren't as busy as they once were, but still seemed to be doing at least 1-2 coal trains per day. And the SP was still handling a good amount of Utah coal too.
Norfolk Southern train 830 goes rolling past one the very last remaining Norfolk and Western dwarf signals at Coeburn, VA.
This loaded coal train came from Alpha Metallurgical's nearby Toms Fork loadout. After taking their signal to rejoin the Clinch Valley mainline, the crew will have a long night ahead getting over the steep grades going to Bluefield, WV.
RJ Corman works the logging operation that occupies the former National Coal loadout site in Turley, TN on the Jellico Branch.
Photography by Doug Harrop • Essay by Mark W. Hemphill
In 1969, Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad’s Director of Unit Train Operations J.E. Timberlake developed a scheme to convert coking coal transportation to U.S. Steel’s Geneva Works north of Provo, Utah, from carload to unit train. Geneva Works was then consuming 1.9 million tons of coking coal annually, delivered from three different mines: U.S. Steel’s Geneva Mine, on the Carbon County Railway via Columbia Jct. on Rio Grande’s Sunnyside Branch, 128 rail miles from Geneva (including CBC’s 6 miles); U.S. Steel’s Somerset Mine, on Rio Grande’s North Fork Branch east of Grand Junction, Colorado; 351 rail miles from Geneva; and Mid-Continent Coal & Coke’s Dutch Creek Mine, loading at Carbondale, Colorado, on Rio Grande’s Aspen Branch, 362 miles from Geneva. Coal from Somerset and Geneva Mine made an intermediate stop at U.S. Steel’s coal wash plant at Wash, Utah, 95.8 miles from Geneva, where the coal was unloaded, washed, blended, and reloaded. Mid-Continent ran a wash plant at its Carbondale loadout and moved direct to the Geneva Works.
Three unit train symbol pairs handled the movement:
734, empties from Geneva to Columbia Jct., and 735, loads from Columbia Jct. to Geneva, 48 cars between Columbia Jct. and Wash, and 40 cars between Wash to Geneva, with two SD45s. The “shrinkage” in cars was because approximately 17 percent of the raw coal from the mine was dirt, shale, and sulfur, which was washed out and sent to the wash plant’s tailings ponds. 735s loaded Monday through Friday.
782, empties from Geneva to Somerset, and 783, loads from Somerset to Geneva, 48 cars between Somerset and Wash, and 40 cars between Wash to Geneva, with two SD45s. The “shrinkage” in cars was similarly due to the wash plant reduction. 783s loaded Monday through Friday.
798, empties from Geneva to Carbondale, and 799, loads from Carbondale to Geneva; 70 cars nominal, with three SD45s. 799s loaded Saturday only.
The operation was necessarily complex because it was required to mirror the production and labor schedules and the facility capacities at U.S. Steel’s and Mid-Continent’s coal mines, the coal wash, and the steel mill. It had to withstand the scrutiny of the Interstate Commerce Commission, which flyspecked unit train contracts, had to comply with Rio Grande’s labor agreements without creating exorbitant differentials and arbitraries, and not the least, had to efficiently utilize Rio Grande’s coal hoppers and locomotives.
These unit trains were small by post-deregulation standards, though this was very common in the early unit-train era, when few shippers or receivers could accommodate long trains. Coal mines, wash plants, steel mills, power plants, sugar factories, cement plants … all had been designed and constructed in the loose-car era with the expectation that railroad service was provided daily or at least every weekday. In every 24-hour period, what was delivered empty was loaded, what was delivered loaded was emptied. To accommodate longer unit trains at coal mines required construction of storage facilities to retain enough of each day’s production to fill an entire train every second or third day, and at least one track long enough to accommodate an entire train. The same applied at steel mills, power plants, wash plants, and other coal-consuming facilities, except now provision had to be made to rapidly empty and stack, store, and reclaim the small mountain of coal empties from a single train. Eventually that happened but not overnight; small trains were the norm for nearly two decades for most existing coal receivers and mines after the ICC finally gave the go-ahead for unit coal trains, in 1958 (the first was on the Baltimore & Ohio).
Doug Harrop’s wonderful photograph shows Rio Grande’s U.S. Steel unit train 733, operated weekdays from Columbia Jct., Utah, to Wash, with an average of 48 hoppers of raw coal, and from Wash to Geneva with an average of 40 cars of washed coal. Typically empty 732 left Helper at 9:05 am with 2 SD45s and 48 Rio Grande 100-ton empties. It dropped these at Wash and picked up between 39 and 57 70-ton Carbon County Railway empties. Upon arrival at Columbia Jct. at 11:30 am, the CBC interchange on the Sunnyside Branch, the 732 swapped the empties for 39 to 57 CBC loads, and became the 733. Departing Columbia Jct. at 2:00 pm, it dropped the CBC loads at Wash and picked up nominally 40 loads of washed coal, now in Rio Grande 100-ton hoppers. At arrival back at Helper at 4:55 pm, the 733 recrewed and picked up a two-unit helper, and departed for Geneva at 6:00 pm. It arrived Geneva at 9:30 pm, dropped its loads and picked up empties, became the 732, and was back in Helper at 1:00 am. Its road power helped the U.S. Steel 783 loads up to Soldier Summit, returning in time to take Tuesday’s 732 to Wash and Columbia Jct.
Doug photograph of the 733 on April 19, 1977, west of Kyune on the “flat track” above the 2.40 percent helper grade in Price River Canyon. It illustrates that Timberlake’s operating plan had been modified somewhat. His careful apportionment of locomotives and cars had been abused by realities of mines, steel mill, and railroad. Locomotive and car utilization had declined. The SD45s were no longer assigned. Coal power on the Rio Grande by the late 1970s was typically a mix of SD40T-2s, SD45s, and GP40s, without discrimination because good locomotive utilization was much more important than perfection of a plan. Typically one more road locomotives was now used because the two-unit trains, even with helper, were a little too slow climbing Soldier Summit. On the rear of the 733 is a two-unit GP40 helper enthusiastically adding speed to the 733 above the 2.40 percent. It cut off at Soldier Summit.
Rio Grande painted yellow lower corners on its system hoppers assigned to U.S. Steel, and green on the lower corners of system hoppers it assigned to Kaiser Steel.
Conrail SD40 6271 leads a train loading at Emerald Mine No 1 at Waynesburg, PA on June 2, 1991.
The train is loading on the Emerald siding and the near track is the Waynesburg Southern Branch to the mines in West Virginia. The track diverging to the left is the Manor Branch to Bailey Mine with the switch being the junction at CP MAN at MP W0.8. Emerald Mine had a loadout that flood loaded trains with two separate dumpers thereby cutting the time required to load nearly in half as compared to other mines at the time.
Conrail SD40 6271 was built in January 1971 as PC 6271 and became CR 6271, it later was rebuilt to a SD40-2R in October 1993 as CR 6992 and became CSXT 8882.
Agfachrome CT100.
A T-Bird loads at the Thunderbird North Loadout on frosty afternoon. The steam plume in the background is from Minorca.
A Canadian National empty coal train heads up the Luscar Industrial Spur near Cadomin, Alberta, on August 8, 2016. This is the third section of a 150-car train—steep 3% grades on this spur of out of Leyland make this necessary. The train will soon reach the Luscar Mine loadout that is part of Teck’s Cardinal River Operation, which is located at the highest elevation on the Canadian National system. Much of the past mining activity has now been reclaimed in the area, with green grasses now covering the rolling hillsides attracting a lot of grazing wildlife, and in turn, grizzly bears…
The mine produced steelmaking coal for 51 years and, unfortunately, ceased operations in June 2020.
Passing land that once held two tracks for a coal mine loadout, INRD 4002 swings through the curves south of Odon, Indiana, on their former Milwaukee Road Latta Sub. In five miles, the train will arrive at Crane, home to a U.S. Navy base and destination for all those containers.
The eastbound Mountain Job passes the railroad car loadout just west of Mahanoy City. The operator is waiting for a dump truck of anthracite to finish loading the rail car. Friendly enough chap that said they ship 15 to 20 cars a week, primarily to sugar beet processors in Wyoming. Much of their production is bagged, shipped by truck, and used for residential heating.
Ore is moving again to UP interchange at Iron Springs, UT, and Santa Fe Warbonnets have been called in to shuttle to and from the mine loadout! Seen here running up the hill out of Iron Springs to fetch more hoppers for an outbound train.
With a train of empties for the Lynch 3 loadout, R614 cruises railroad south past the former siding at South End Barbourville. While the siding may look intact from this view, it stub ends just out of sight around the curve. As downgrades face the L&N's Cumberland Valley, Pineville is now the only intact siding on the Kentucky side of the railroad.
With a short work train in tow, Southwestern 2428 passes the remains of Empire Zinc's mine and loadout near Hanover, NM. This area is littered with relics from the glory days of copper, zinc, and other mineral mining that dominated the region from the early 1800s well into the 1980s. However, now the only rail served operation is in Hurley and once enough rail and ties have been collected for a project further south, this former ATSF branch will fall silent once again.
Traversing Clinchfield’s 841’ long Boones Creek Viaduct, CSXT 515 grinds south toward Erwin with loaded Santee Cooper train U356-25. (Shelby, Ky - Pennyroyal, Sc). Based on a few sources, my educated guess is this train was loaded on the Pompey Spur at Castleton Commodities LLC’s “Slones Branch” loadout in Millard, Ky.
Interesting fact about the CSXT 515 is that it and 512 were the only two YN2 CW44’s delivered with a non standard number font on the cab.
July 26, 2015.
CSX mine run R613 rolls past the ancient Totz Tipple along the Poor Fork Branch. While it no longer sees rail traffic, Totz is still used a prep plant for the nearby 4th Gen Fuels NRG Loadout.
A nameless rock spire towers above empty Union Pacific coal train CSPWE as it clings to a rock ledge west of Somerset, CO on the former Denver & Rio Grande’s North Fork Branch. The train of IPPX aluminum hoppers are nearing the West Elk Mine loadout and in roughly four hours, the train will be headed back west with loads of coal for the Intermountain Power Plant at Delta, UT.
A full day loading gravel takes place at the Strata Corporation siding west of Roseau. All day long, trucks haul material from the quarry near Roosevelt south of Lake of the Woods and haul it 25 miles to the loadout here for dumping and filling. In this moment, one of the Strata fleet is dumping gravel into the pocket and being sent up the conveyor into the hoppers.
For a few decades, Apache ran an “at least” weekly coal train using Southwest Forest Industries hoppers from the paper plant at Snowflake to a loadout on the Santa Fe’s Lee Ranch Sub in New Mexico. Nicknamed the “Blue Looper” for the unique blue colors on the coal hoppers and the captive loop the train made, they became a railfan favorite to catch. Often running in two cuts from Holbrook to the Plant using five Alcos, here the first cut swings around the curve at MP35 just outside Snowflake, AZ on October 1, 2009. In 2012 this train was discontinued and the cars scrapped shortly thereafter.
Empties from Martin pass the abandoned loadout at Isom, Kentucky on the former L&N Rockhouse Creek branch to Hazard.
With the rear end still on the mainline, FMG 721 and 002 lead empties out the Soloman spur enroute to either Firetail or Eliwana loadouts. This long fill was built to cross over the top of BHP's double track mainline.
An empty coal train destined for Hazard passes through the Deane Mining Mill Creek preparation plant and/ batch weight RapidLoader loadout. Owned by American Resources Corp, Deane Mining has both surface and underground mines nearby with the coal trucked to this installation where it is processed and loaded into unit trains.
CSXT 4724 East ducks under the conveyors of the old Costain Coal Company loadout at Ivel, Kentucky with loaded Terrell train C403. Work is currently being done here to bring life back into this facility under fresh ownership; always good news!
In 1985 Utah Railway acquired their own power again. The first units they got were these four former Burlington Northern F45's 6606, 6607, 6613, and 6608. The four unit set that my dad captured here is very rare. Not long after they got them, one suffered a mechanical failure that it was decided that it would become a parts source. The four green machines are seen here crossing the Gordon Creek Trestle. They are heading in with an empty coal train, to load at the Hiawatha loadout. (Tom Ellis photo)
On a beautiful morning deep in Navajo Country, a Black Mesa & Lake Powell empty coal train is seen along US 160 at Cow Springs, AZ. The railroad parallels US 160 for the last 24 miles between Cow Springs and the Peabody loadout. Aug 2, 2019
On February 1, 2007, four of Utah Railway's six Morrison-Knudsen/Wabtec MK50-3 units creep under the Wildcat loadout near Helper, Utah, as the train's hoppers are filled with coal.
From the Internet: In 2001, the Utah Railway tested and later acquired all six units from Wabtec, the owner of Motive Power. However, after one year of operation, all units were out of service due to problems with the main bearings on the Caterpillar 3612 diesel engine and Kato main alternator. The units were returned to Wabtec and had the Caterpillar 3612 and Kato main alternators removed and replaced with an EMD AR11 main alternator. At the same time, the engine blocks were replaced by EMD 3500 Horsepower 16-645F3B diesel engines from five retired Union Pacific EMD SD50 and one retired Union Pacific EMD GP50 locomotives. The six were reclassed with the designation MK50-3 and put back in service with the Utah Railway.
In 2017, a few months after Utah Railway's coal train contracts expired, all six units were shipped to the Kyle Railroad. The units are still running on the Kyle.
Photo by Joe McMillan.