Western Railroad Discussion > Coming to your mother's laundry line soon

2009-09-11 approaching Coal Creek Jct on the Orin Sub.

BNSF 9190, rear DPU on a C-WTMLRT coal load.

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great pic........

66

Which way is the wind blowing, you suppose?

I thought they were coating that coal to keep from getting on the right of way. Guess not.

But, we ordered a trainload of "Today's Clean Coal"......

-YD-

Gives real meaning to "the wrong side of the tracks."

NO OPEN FLAMES WITHIN 300 FEET!!!!

holy crap i've never seen a train pic like that before - amazing!

no wonder BNSF & UP are having trouble with coal residue building up along the ROW...

I've seen it on the highways in Kentucky from the coal hualing trucks...

billmeeker Wrote:
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> no wonder BNSF & UP are having trouble with coal
> residue building up along the ROW...

INSANE!

Got my vote for unique Image of the Day!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/10 20:17 by espeeboy.

Great shot, just incredible, and of course the anti-fossil fuel, anti-God-only-knows-what-else folk have coal dust on their ever growing list of harmful substances, compiled, distributed, and discussed Ad nauseum on their computers powered by the very lignite the mining and burning of they so fiercely denounce—irony at its best.
—Mac

How much of the load actually made it to the customer???

MacBeau Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Great shot, just incredible, and of course the
> anti-fossil fuel, anti-God-only-knows-what-else
> folk have coal dust on their ever growing list of
> harmful substances, compiled, distributed, and
> discussed Ad nauseum on their computers powered by
> the very lignite the mining and burning of they so
> fiercely denounce—irony at its best.
> —Mac

For about the last hundred years or so, we've known that exposure to coal dust kills people. The graveyards are full of miners who died from black lung. In this modern age, we can't figure out how to keep the coal from blowing out like that? We can do better, unless we're just too cheap.

For the record, over 90% of the electricity running from my computer comes from hydropower.

radar Wrote:
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> For the record, over 90% of the electricity
> running from my computer comes from hydropower.

Of which has it's own consequences on the river systems like sediment build up, decreased water flows and harm to local fisheries from the erection of the dams and hydro power generation stations. Sure hydro is cleaner, but it also comes at a price.

Having worked on a few hydro, natural gas (also landfill methane capture for power) and nuclear projects, I can say that some are better than others. Bottom line is that all power generation comes at a cost regardless of it's technology or the materials used to make the technology to generate power. The environment is going to be impacted if you want to produce power.


SV

M-636 Wrote:
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> 2009-09-11 approaching Coal Creek Jct on the Orin
> Sub.
>
> BNSF 9190, rear DPU on a C-WTMLRT coal load.

Nothing out of the ordinary, , , ,like in the winter when it snows 8 or 10 inches, but being it's Wyoming where the wind keeps it moving and depending on where you are it's a blizzard! It doesn't snow that much, but it seems like it because it's always moving! 8>)

Butch

>>Author: mkostecky
>>How much of the load actually made it to the customer???

Probably most of it. :-)

Now I don't know the exact numbers, but I have heard this low BTU western coal has a high water content. It's cleaner and costs a fraction of high BTU eastern coal, but they say a 135 car PRB coal train has the equivalent of about 30 cars worth of water in it. Can anyone comment in more detail ??

This photo illustrates why BNSF wants the shippers to deal with the issue at the loading point. A couple of big wrecks in the PRB have been attributed to improper drainage caused by coal dust accumulation in turn causing the track structure to lose integrity. That photo was just how it looked standing there, but of all the trains we saw it was the only one we saw looking that bad, no others looked anywhere close to that bad. It loaded at the West Thunder loadout at Reno Jct (the conveyor fed silo loadout to which the conveyor collapsed when being built a couple of years ago).

radar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MacBeau Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Great shot, just incredible, and of course the
> > anti-fossil fuel, anti-God-only-knows-what-else
> > folk have coal dust on their ever growing list
> of
> > harmful substances, compiled, distributed, and
> > discussed Ad nauseum on their computers powered
> by
> > the very lignite the mining and burning of they
> so
> > fiercely denounce—irony at its best.
> > —Mac
>
> For about the last hundred years or so, we've
> known that exposure to coal dust kills people. The
> graveyards are full of miners who died from black
> lung. In this modern age, we can't figure out how
> to keep the coal from blowing out like that? We
> can do better, unless we're just too cheap.
>
> For the record, over 90% of the electricity
> running from my computer comes from hydropower.

AND it isn't lignite.

To respond to another post, PRB subbituminous coal runs (mostly) 25-30% moisture by weight. What this photo demonstrates is just plain stupidity. Wind loss from unprotected car-tops can be as much as 5%, so that's 600 tons from a 12,000-net-ton train. At the current average PRB spot-coal price of around $10.50/ton, that's $6,300 just blowing away in the wind (recognizing that most PRB coal is sold under long-term contract). Not to mention probably illegal (not familiar with Wyoming's SIP) and as has been noted damaging to the roadbed.

lowwater

i think fartin in the the wind would be a better option.{THAN THE COAL DUST} UNBELIEVABLE GREAT CAMERA WORK

Ron Lee
Brantford, ON