Western Railroad Discussion > Powder River weekend

Spent some time between Friday afternoon and this morning in the Basin.  It is definitely a bleak situation!  Only ~10 moves a day in the Basin during daylight hours - a far cry indeed from the peak.  The scenery is still spectacular.  With the low traffic volume, you just have to keep moving now.  Enjoy!

1)  In the last light of day, BNSF loads roll north past Cordero Mine
2)  BNSF power awaits its next assignment at Belle Ayr Junction
3)  UP loads start south from Belle Ayr Mine

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4)  The same UP loads head downgrade at Lawyer Road
5) and 6)  BNSF at Coal Creek Junction - loads north and empties south

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7)  The same BNSF empties head through open ranchland towards Reno Junction
8)  A BNSF ballast train grinds uphill at County Road 37
9)  At Steckley Road, a BNSF DPU finishes shoving over the top of Logan Hill with Antelope Mine in the background

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Its been several years since I was there so thanks for the nice photos with a good description on the location.
RB

Lots of dirty wedgies :) - I have only been once in 2002. SD70MACs ruled the road. Thanks for posting.

Nice shots!  Man, that is a sad situation on the Powder River from what it used to be.  I kept saying I was going to go back about 2008 and I just never went.  My bad.

Randy Lundgren

Thanks for your great efforts. My only visit to this area was in 2010. I got several shots at Steckley Road, one of them similar to yours except there were three trains in my picture.

Kim Heusel



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/20 18:33 by KimHeusel.

Thanks for posting including the details of locales.

Bismarck Bill 

Good stuff, thanks for posting.
That whole area in Wyoming is just fun to explore, just don't break down or run out of gas.

Only 10 or so trains in daylight now?  Amazing.  It doesn't seem that long ago when you could see that many in an hour or two at the Steckley Road overpass.  Wonder how much longer it'll be before some of that incredible physical plant starts being removed?

Bob

Likely not that long. At this point the cost ratio of maintenance vs. revenue is getting worse - I would expect some of these tracks to slowly get pulled out over the next few years and the rail to be used elsewhere.

I've never visited unfortunately and I'll likely never see it as busy as it once was. If it ever gets super busy again for a while, even temporarily, I'm hopping in the car and heading there.

bobdavis Wrote:
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> Only 10 or so trains in daylight now?  Amazing. 
> It doesn't seem that long ago when you could see
> that many in an hour or two at the Steckley Road
> overpass.  Wonder how much longer it'll be before
> some of that incredible physical plant starts
> being removed?
>
> Bob