Canadian Railroads > Tumbler Sub in Northern BC May Reopen Soon

A West Virginia company plans to purchase three Tumbler Ridge mines by September 1, and CN is clearing debris from the right of way.
See http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tumbler-ridge-coal-1.3737094

Loleta Fernbridge

How long until Elizabeth May jumps on this to divert attention from her party's new anti-Semitic moves ...

 

Will MacKenzie
Dundas, ON

Sure hope it works for all those people.

loleta Wrote:
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> A West Virginia company plans to purchase three
> Tumbler Ridge mines by September 1, and CN is
> clearing debris from the right of way.
> See
> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/tum
> bler-ridge-coal-1.3737094

Unfortunately, the CBC story and the company's website are vague about which mines are to be acquired.  There are several mines in the Tumbler area that would use the Tumbler Sub., each owned by a different company and each using a different loadout. Has the West Virigina company struck an indivdual deal with each of those companies?  That seems unlikely.

There is one company, Walter Energy, that owns three mines in the general area, but only one of them is on the Tumbler Sub.  That's the Wolverine Mine, which ships from a loadout at about Mile 61.5. The other two are the Brule Mine and the Willow Creek Mine, which ship from a point on the Chetwynd Sub. It's a basic set-up without any silos. Instead, the product is loaded into hoppers using front-end loaders.

The West Virginia company's website lists a previous transaction with Walter that closed in February, so perhaps this is a follow-up to that deal.

railsmith Wrote:
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> Unfortunately, the CBC story and the company's
> website are vague about which mines are to be
> acquired.  There are several mines in the Tumbler
> area that would use the Tumbler Sub., each owned
> by a different company and each using a different
> loadout. Has the West Virigina company struck an
> indivdual deal with each of those companies? 
> That seems unlikely.
>
> There is one company, Walter Energy, that owns
> three mines in the general area, but only one of
> them is on the Tumbler Sub.  That's the Wolverine
> Mine, which ships from a loadout at about Mile
> 61.5. The other two are the Brule Mine and the
> Willow Creek Mine, which ship from a point on the
> Chetwynd Sub. It's a basic set-up without any
> silos. Instead, the product is loaded into hoppers
> using front-end loaders.
>
> The West Virginia company's website lists a
> previous transaction with Walter that closed in
> February, so perhaps this is a follow-up to that
> deal.

Interesting info, thanks for doing the research. CN ran a work train on the Chetwynd Sub. a couple of weeks ago to clear stored well cars out of the siding at Falls--the siding for Walter's Willow Creek mine. So the speculation that this WV company has acquired Walter's mines may well be correct. So we may see trains serving one mine on the Tumbler and once again serving the mine at Falls.

- L.F.

Hi,Where does the Tumbler Sub hook up to the BC Rail line please??
Thanks in advance and Cheers,
Brian in New Zealand.

RogersPass Wrote:
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> Hi,Where does the Tumbler Sub hook up to the BC
> Rail line please??

At Wakely, Mile 537.2 of the Chetwynd Sub., about 75 miles north of Prince George.

Interesting to hear that it might opening yet again. Hopefully for a bit longer this time

ATSF854 Wrote:
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> Interesting to hear that it might opening yet
> again. Hopefully for a bit longer this time

Yet again is right. This would be the third era of operations on the Tumbler Sub.

The first was 1983-2003, serving the original two mining operations (Quintette and Bullmoose), with electrification lasting until October 2000. After a 16-month gap, the next was 2004-2014, which saw two different mines in operation (Trend and Wolverine).