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Coal hauling on a transitional western layout
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<P>Coalminer3's comments are dead on.</P> <P>This didn't happen because there was VERY little coal that crossed the Mississippi from east to west (or vice versa) by rail before the 1970s, except for southern Illinois coal moving to St. Louis. Further, railroads strove very hard to load nothing but their home-road cars at mines they served, with the small exception of some privately owned cars (which were pretty rare in coal service before the 1970s) and some seasonal events. Further, coal was all loose-car until the advent of unit-train coal (on the B&O) in 1958, and unit train moves even by the mid-1960s totalled about 60 nationwide. So there weren't strings of coal cars per se.</P> <P>You could see some occasional foreign-road hoppers moving things like foundry coke traveling far off-line.</P> <P>In the west, you would commonly see Utah Railway and Rio Grande drop-bottom gons delivering coal deep into UP, SP, and WP territory and occasionally up into NP and GN territory in the Far West, and UP drop-bottom gons and hoppers on WP and SP territory. Very little coal moved to California because it had a surfeit of fuel oil, except to Kaiser Steel and foundries. A lot of coal backhauled in ore boats to Duluth, Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Chicago, and moved by rail inland on NP, GN, MILW, CB&Q, C&NW, etc., in home-road cars.</P> <P>Coal sources in the West that shipped heavy amounts by rail in the 1950s would be:</P> <P>Wyoming, UP</P> <P>Utah, D&RGW and URY</P> <P>Colorado, D&RGW, C&S, and UP</P> <P>Kansas, KCS, SLSF, and MP</P> <P>Missouri, SLSF, MP</P> <P>Arkansas, SLSF, KCS, MP</P> <P>Montana, NP, MILW</P> <P>Oklahoma, CRI&P, KCS, MKT</P> <P>New Mexico, AT&SF</P> <P>The typical coal move rarely exceeded 300 miles!</P> <P>S. Hadid</P>
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