Western Railroad Discussion > OISST iron ore train to Stockton

The first iron ore train should depart Iron Springs, UT sometime tonight. Two additional train sets will arrive sometime next month. There will be 4 ore trains per week going to Richmond and Stockton.

Mike Root
Madras, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/11 18:39 by shortlineboss.

Why? Are we shipping our raw materials to a third world country?

Because they have money and we're selling.

Keep the stockholders happy. Pretty soon all we will have here are stockholders and CEO's.

Are the Stockton bound trains going to the port for shipment overseas like the Richmond trains have been?

That's good news, Mike. Is the routing still north to Milford, Provo, Salt Lake and then west on the WP? Tuesday I will be working all day within eyesight of UP's Provo sub a mile north of Roper yard in Salt Lake. I won't be able to get photos but will keep an eye out for it. Thanks for the heads up.

Spencer Evans
Salt Lake City, UT

poffcapt Wrote:
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> Keep the stockholders happy. Pretty soon all we
> will have here are stockholders and CEO's.

All the domestic steel mills have supply closer to their mills. The only potential domestic customers for their product are the pigment manufacturers, or as a source of heavy media for separating shale from coal, or a few other smaller customers. Delivered cost is a big driver of where you source your feedstock. One of the southern steel mills has been buying Venezuelan ore as the price on the merchant market combined with the cost of shipping makes it cheaper than ore from the Mesabi or Marquette mines. At the same time the Birmingham, AL mill of US Steel receives ore from the Mesabi since US steel owns both the mine and the mill, hence the price of the Ore is irrelevant, only the costs of mining, processing, and transportation matter.

The new Stockton-bound trains will take the same routing as the Richmond trains - Milford-Provo-SLC then west on the ex-WP to California. The empties also return east via the FRC to go back to Utah. The old WP west of SLC is certainly getting to be a busier route these days from what it was just a year or two ago.

Boomer Wrote:
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> The new Stockton-bound trains will take the same
> routing as the Richmond trains - Milford-Provo-SLC
> then west on the ex-WP to California. The empties
> also return east via the FRC to go back to Utah.
> The old WP west of SLC is certainly getting to be
> a busier route these days from what it was just a
> year or two ago.


Except that I doubt they run these trains on the old WP main through
the heart of Sacramento, near 19th street. The old WP Sacramento station
was converted to a restaurant, I believe. But then, the last time I caught
the California Zephyr there was September of 1969. <sigh>

I thought I read something on TO in the last month or so about UP expanding capacity on Donner because they wanted to get away from FRC.

BLS

OISST just passed Juab, UT. 75 loads 10200+ tons. Empties have returned via FRC and Donner. Donner saves about 6 hours, but since winter is here, they have returned via FRC. Most of the trains will go to Stockton where the ship will be loaded. After the ship gets a certain tonnage based of depth of channel, the ship will go to Richmond for additional tonnage.

Mike Root
Madras, OR

Boomer Wrote:
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> The new Stockton-bound trains will take the same
> routing as the Richmond trains - Milford-Provo-SLC
> then west on the ex-WP to California.

The routing for these trains through Utah is interesting in the fact that from Milford (mp 576) to Lynndyl, UT (mp 667)the westbound trains follow the Lynndyl sub going timetable east. At Lynndyl the train leaves the Lynndyl sub and for several hundred miles it journeys to Provo and Salt Lake City on the Sharp and Provo subs. At Grant Tower in SLC it renters the Lynndyl sub (at mp 783) heading timetable west for 15 miles until it enters the Shafter sub (the ex-WP) at Smelter. The trains could stay on the Lynndyl sub all the way to Smelter but this would necessitate the crew switching ends of the train at Smelter. Anyway, for what it's worth....

Spencer Evans
Salt Lake City, UT

There have been at least 2 times that the ore trains have stayed on the LA&SL to Smelter where power and crews were changed without going into Roper.

Mike Root
Madras, OR

shortlineboss Wrote:
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> There have been at least 2 times that the ore
> trains have stayed on the LA&SL to Smelter where
> power and crews were changed without going into
> Roper.


Could this have anything to do with the work going on between Provo and Salt Lake for the new commuter rail being built along UP's mainline or is the routing decision based on other factors?

Just to reply to a couple of comments, don't know about the routing through Sacramento, just that most of the empties have been returning east on the ex-WP through Portola, although as Mike said, apparently a couple have routed Donner. It isn't like Donner can't handle the extra traffic, but something else going on. UP also reroutes a couple of other trains e/b through Portola from time to time, just as some of the BNSF traffic was routed that way over the past few weeks - that traffic has since gone back to the regular Tehachapi routing.

Not to get too far off-subject here, but with the economy starting to pick up a bit, and with extra trains being run east out of Roseville over the past couple of months, UP will probably be forced to route more traffic east on the FRC. Somebody mentioned hearing that UP wants to get away from the FRC and running trains that way, but I don't think that will happen any time soon. Running empty unit trains that way just makes sense, if you ask me.

As far as routing the iron ore trains LA&SL to Garfield, UT, then running the power around to run them west, that is the plan I thought they would go with. but most of the trains route through Provo to SLC, then west, so maybe UP doesn't want trains blocking the siding at Garfield, or maybe something else. Plus with more train traffic running on the LA&SL these days, that would mean more use for the siding as well, although one would think it shouldn't take all that long to cut the power off then run it back to the west end and back on train.

I'm glad Mike explained why Stockton is now being used as the primary unload point, with Richmond the backup, as I was going to ask about that as well. The new traffic will certainly make the SLC/Elko pool folks happy.

Half the SLC-Elko pool is LDS, you can't tell if they're
happy or not.

rehunn Wrote:
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> Half the SLC-Elko pool is LDS, you can't tell if
> they're
> happy or not.


Yes, and it's no longer a purely WP Pool, at least on the trainmen's side - all of the former WP conductors are now retired, and there are about 5 WP hoggers left on it last I heard...needless to say, it's rapidly turning into an RG pool. I guess working to SLC-Elko pays a heck of a lot more than SLC to Helper does for those folks, plus not having to deal with the hill.

Boomer Wrote:

> I'm glad Mike explained why Stockton is now being
> used as the primary unload point, with Richmond
> the backup, as I was going to ask about that as
> well.

I see where he explained how (load the ship at Stockton until it reaches the depth limit for the shipping channel through the delta, then float it out to deeper water at Richmond to finish loading), but not why. Are there capacity constraints in terms of ground storage of a bulk commodity at the Port of Richmond vs. Stockton? Do they want to use trainsets of rotary dump "bathtub" gons, and Stockton has a rotary dumper while Richmond does not? The terminal railroad at Stockton (CCT) is partly owned by UP while Richmond Pacific is independent...is that a cost factor?

I do not know the reason for using both Richmond and Stockton. I am not in that loop.

Mike Root
Madras, OR