Montana Coal Line Plan on Hold

[Victrola1]

The Tongue River Railroad (TRRC) has asked the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to suspend the permitting process for the railroad's plan to build a 42-mile line that would haul coal from a proposed mine in southeast Montana.... 

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/bnsf_railway/news/Tongue-River-Railroad-puts-Montana-coal-line-plan-on-hold--46608

[Norm48327]

Sounds like a logical thing ro do. With the future of coal uncertain, it doesn't seem sensible to build a new railroad to haul it.

[dakotafred]

Norm48327

Sounds like a logical thing ro do. With the future of coal uncertain, it doesn't seem sensible to build a new railroad to haul it.

 

Yes, and I'll bet stakeholders in the old Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern and/or its successors are feeling lucky now that the proposed extension into the Wyoming coal fields never got built.

[Murphy Siding]

     Hasn't this line been held up 10 years or so?

[kgbw49]

First incarnation was approved by the ICC in 1986.

Second incarnation was approved by STB in 1996.

This seems to happen over and over again with coal and oil projects where Federal approval is required.

The fracking revolution has occurred for the most part accessing resources under lands with state jurisdiction.

[erikem]

I first heard talk of a Tongue River RR in 1976.

P.S. There was some grading done for the "North-South" Railroad done somewhere in the 1920 to 1930 time frame - a bit of the grade was still visible from the air in 1976.

[kgbw49]

Oy vey

[MidlandMike]

IIRC the first incarnation of the line was to run all the way to Wyoming to form a shortcut for PR coal moving to the former NP.  The second incarnation was scaled back just to serve new proposed Tongue River Mines.  The present incarnation was scaled back further to connect a proposed mine to an existing branchline.