Western Railroad Discussion > Central Texas and Central Oklahoma Coal Train Question

To All,

It was reported a while back that a Jewitt, TX area power plant was converting from lignite to Wyoming coal. My question is who received the contract, BNSF or UP? Also, which direction do the coal trains come from to gain acces to the plant.

My Oklahoma question is in regards to the O&GE facility in Red Rock. Does UP still handle the trains via BNSF trackage rights from Topeka?

Thank you ahead of time for all comments that are hopefully generated from the question.
Jeremy

UP and BNSF havent interchanged Red Rock coal trains in Topeka,KS since around 2007.

UP could use the traffic on their coal lines. There is a webcam that shows the UP line along Lake McConaughy in Nebraska. It has a three hour playback so I will go through and count trains in those three hours. 5 trains was the most I've seen in any 3 hour period. Usually around 3-4 trains is normal in that time.

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Is there a website for said railcam?

http://www.viaero.com/community/live-weather-videos/lake-mcconaughy-ne

There are a bunch of webcams placed on Cell towers around Colorado and Nebraska. They tend to move as they are weather cams but more than half will show trains at some point if pointed in the correct direction.

The Lexington Neb cam currently shows the UP triple track. The playback currently covers about the last three hours and if you go to 11:10am on the clock a train is seen rolling west just before a large cloud of white smoke erupts. Not sure what happened but the train kept moving and other trains have passed since.

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