Western Railroad Discussion > Boardman is Done

When the coal trains heading to the Portland General Electric coal fired power plant at Boardman, OR stopped earlier this year, there was a question if they woud resume to power the plant through the end of the year. The question has been answered with a resounding NO. The plant is now shut down forever. It will be demolished in 2022 after parts have been removed and sold off. No longer will BNSF powered coal train run down the UP Washy Line (Ayer Sub). My photo is from 2003.

https://katu.com/news/local/pge-shutters-boardman-coal-fired-power-plant-citing-clean-energy-ambitions

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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That is sad (to me). However, this is a great photo!

Gary R Clark
Griffith, Indiana

Will see how that works out down the line as there was a thought of changing it over to gas.  Once the economy is back to a somewhat normal rate and companies resume production to a higher level and need dependable power.  Over seas they had to restart coal fired at night due to lack of load.

On Saturday of last week saw a BNSF long train, around 14K, going down river with what looked like coal hoppers any idea where that would be going? There was a grain train about the same length following it also.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/20 06:04 by BAB.

Terrific photo, Ted.
TC

Interesting that they have closed a power plant when they could be selling elecricity to California which is having trouble supplying demand and having rolling blackouts.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/20 08:12 by KY_Railfan.

KY_Railfan Wrote:
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> Interesting that they have closed a power plant
> when they could be selling elecricity to
> California which is having trouble supplying
> demand and having rolling blackouts.

But it's the wrong type of power!

Isn't part of the California issue the lack of wire delivery? PG&E shuts down the delivery system, so no outside electricity comes over those wires.

Posted from Android

Can someone at least light a candle?

KY_Railfan Wrote:
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> Interesting that they have closed a power plant
> when they could be selling elecricity to
> California which is having trouble supplying
> demand and having rolling blackouts.

The handful of rolling blackouts that occurred recently were caused more by administrative issues than actual lack of power generation capacity.  It seems someone is/was not keeping too good of records regarding power generator availability.  For example, they had two power plants units listed as "available" but in reality one unit had already been demolished and the other had been shutdown for months and would have taken months to restart.  Then the same someone allowed too many generators to be taken off-line for planned maintenance.  Throw in an unexcepted heat wave (because it NEVER gets hot in California during August) and that "someone" was caught with his pants down.

I got three cars in the garage and need to use one but I can't find the keys to any of them...doesn't mean I need to go buy a new car.

BNSF6400 Wrote:
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> KY_Railfan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> I got three cars in the garage and need to use one
> but I can't find the keys to any of them...doesn't
> mean I need to go buy a new car.

I like that metaphor - I'll try to remember that one!

Very NICE shot Ted with the EMD Warbonnet on the point!

Larry

The Boardman power plant was 20% of PG&E's total power production...at roughly 550 nameplate megawatts.  Supposedly a local wind and solar farm will take over the power production.  It will be interesting to see how the power needs turn out.  Newspaper story on Boardman.

hawkeye Wrote:
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> The Boardman power plant was 20% of PG&E's total
> power production...at roughly 550 nameplate
> megawatts.  Supposedly a local wind and solar
> farm will take over the power production.  It
> will be interesting to see how the power needs
> turn out.  Newspaper story on Boardman.

Hawkeye, Your post could be mis-read by some........PG AND E is a California utility.  PGE (no "and"), is the Oregon utility referenced in the attachment.

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Nice shot!  Strange seeing a SD75 on a coal train.

RC Lundgren
Elgin TX