I‘m wondering if anyone can help answer a question. My layout is going to have a Power Plant in a corner, for daily rail service. The stub track is 36” long so I’ll be able to put 4-5 modern cars in.
Do the railroads serve coal plants with a dedicated train? Or would they be pulled by the local?
What scale will this be? Four to five modern cars in three feet sounds like HO. Up until the mid 1970s, many hospitals, universities, and industries had their own power plants that were coal fired. As environmental awareness increased, many smaller cosumers of coal, such as these plants switched to other fuels or, simply went away, their owners purchasing power from large, municipal suppliers.
A coal burning power plant must have on premises storage for at least a month's supply of fuel. As environmental regulations tightened, expensive pollution mitigation became necessary. Then, there was the need for coal handling equipment such as pile groomers, conveyors, crushers and such. Once the coal was burned, ash disposal was a necessity. Fortunately, the manufacturers of concrete products found it to be an excellent expander for concrete.
As you can see, it simply became too complicated to operate these smaller coal fired power plants. I keep saying smaller because most users of modern coal cars receive their coal in dedicated unit trains of up to 100+ cars. The power plants, just like most mines, use a balloon track for unloading without uncoupling ANYTHING. The trains are "flood" loaded as they creep around the balloon track at the mine. The whole operation is aimed at keeping the process moving. The only switching is usually done when a car needs repairs.
One thing about using a stub track is the most efficient way of using it would be to put the unloading point midway on the track. You must have as much room for empties as you do loads so, if your facility is HO scale, your 4-5 cars now becomes two or three. Unit coal trains are often owned by the coal customer and operate on a regular schedule. The old, small operations were usually served by a local switcher, using common carrier rolling stock
Not all power plants have baloon tracks. Some have multiple tracks where the unit train is broken up. My first job as a new conductor was spotting a loaded coal train at a power plant near Marshalltown, IA. They also had to unload through the bottom, no rotary dump installation.
The municipal power plant at Ames, IA (since converted to natural gas) used to receive 100+ car trains. However, they couldn't handle that many cars at one time. They could only take about 13 cars at a time at the plant. The loaded train was left at a small 4 track yard a few miles away. Every day the local freight would pick up loads and take them to the plant, pulling the empties and taking them to the local's home terminal about 15 miles away. Once enough empties accumulated, a unit train was ran back to the mine in Wyoming.
The railroad switching the plant got tired of having to do this so kind of forced the power plant to change the way things were done. They looked at unloading the cars at the small yard, but the serving railroad wasn't too keen on that. So they approached a different railroad. The power company had an unloading facility built on this other railroad and trucked the coal about 40 or so miles from there to the power plant. This lasted about 12 or 15 years until the outcry over the use of coal (It's a college town) finally got them to convert to natural gas.
Jeff
Small coal-fired power plants for hospitals could take 4 cars at a time.
We used to put 4 at a time onto the unloading trestle for the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Hospital in Wingdale, NY. That job came out of Danbury, CT. Then pick up the empties on the next trip.
I also worked the Campbell Hall local (in Orange County, NY), and remember putting 4 cars of coal at a hospital located on the old Erie main line in Middletown, NY. They emptied them "on the spot" and I still remember the request to bang the cars back-and-forth against the bumping block on the unloading trestle to shake out the remaining coal!