I was traveling on I-44 in MO where the BNSF line runs along the highway. I saw a unit train of 50' low side gondolas. This struck me as odd, and I had never seen 50 or more gondolas in a unit train before. What would this kind of train be used for? I could not determine if there was a load or not, I was driving. The train did not seem to be a work train, although it could have been. The reporting marks were not all the same and seemed to be private company's that I did not recognize.
Probably fracking sand to be used in horizontal drilling to extract needed oil or natural gas. Either under load or returning for more sand empty.
This whole horizontal drilling thing has created a boom. For ordinary folks and the railroads. A 20 year old with a high school education can make $80,000/year in the oil fields. The railroads haul sand in and empties out. They then haul oil out and empty tank cars in. Can't beat it with a stick.
CSX/BNSF are running trains of haz mat sludge from Hudson River to Oklahoma. This typically has been moving thru Chicago, but perhaps routing was changed due to the congestion in Chicago.
It would work as the Frisco line is not as busy and the St. Louis line for CSX is not nearly as busy as the Chicago line.
Just a guess...could be something else.
Ed
In the east, unit trains of mill gons are slab steel trains, taking steel made at one mill to another to be finished by rolling into sheet, structural shapes or pipe.
Frac sand moves in low sided gons? I would think covered hoppers....or even open top hoppers.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
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Something like this? This train had dried mud with PCB's extracted from the Hudson River near Port Edward, New York. I filmed it near Cameron, Illinois entering the ex-Santa Fe Transcon last August 24. It was enroute to Avard, Oklahoma.
henry6Fracking sand is precious and cannot be wetted down in transit nor given to the wind from open top cars so would not be in low side gons or hoppers. Thus fracking sand would be in covered hoppers. And because it is a mineral product with little value, it would have to be in larger cars than open hoppers or gons. What's in the gons? Probably scrap metal or metal coils.
There are numerous metal products that move in unit open gon trains. Coiled metal normally travels in 'coil gons'; specially equipped gons that have cradles for the coils and are covered to keep the weather out.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Henry,
Which is it - precious or with little value?
In sizing cars for bulk anything the issue is density. In the covered hopper world, since sand is relatively heavy per unit of volume it moves in small cube cars while plastic, which is relatively light moves in high cube cars, holding weight capacity of the cars constant.
Mac
Crushed rock is often shipped in gons. The KCS regularly delivers unit trains of rock to a transload facility near my home. The gons are unloaded by backhoes which run on top of the sides of the cars to transfer the rock to trucks waiting alongside the train.
Mark
A lot of 'frac sand' is initially moved in 50' gondolas. The UP moved out a unit train at Winona, MN every week. IIRC, the train then moved to a washing/grading plant where the actual frac sand is loaded on 100 ton capacity covered gons for final delivery to Texas. The DM&E(CP) moves clay east in 50' gondolas as well. Not sure where the final destination is.for the clay.
If the mine/mines are producing 7-10 trains/week, many times there will be a large plant to wash or sort the sand and load covered hoppers. There are quite a few of those in Western Wisconsin.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Fracking Sand Products are not normally a placarded product.. So identification of their contents may not normally be noted on the exterior of the cars... It used to be an identifier for certain types of cars in what would be considered a 'dedicated service' to be stenciled with a notation to return that specific car to a terminal location for reloading. NOt sure if that practice is still followed?
In this area, we have more of less a junction(s?) of BNSF's Southern Transcon and a line coming from Oklahoma, and Texas(BNSF's Ark City Sub) areas.
There is a heavy presence of smaller covered cylindrical hopper cars ( denoted by two drop doors). This type of car would be used heavier weigh and smaller volume loadings. Like Bulk Cement or Sand and of course the larger cars with four drop doors ( used for lighter volume products,Grain,Plastic pellets,etc.).
Southeastern Kansas produces a lot of Bulk Cement at a number of locations; the rest of the State is of course origin for lots of grains. Regulars around here, are long strings of smaller hopper cars, Sand(?), Loaded going Northward, and empty going South.. Just some non-scientific observations of an interested party. It does seem like there is a lot of this activity,though.
Noted in the video - the loads are tarped, and there appeared to be weed stalks sticking out from under one of the tarps close to the front of the train. I'd go with the contaminated river sludge - tarped to keep from spreading PCBs all over the countryside.
No good reason to tarp raw sand - and it's hardly a placarded product. (Been to a beach lately?)
Chuck
greyhounds Probably fracking sand to be used in horizontal drilling to extract needed oil or natural gas. Either under load or returning for more sand empty. This whole horizontal drilling thing has created a boom. For ordinary folks and the railroads. A 20 year old with a high school education can make $80,000/year in the oil fields. The railroads haul sand in and empties out. They then haul oil out and empty tank cars in. Can't beat it with a stick.
And then the RRs can make more money hauling clean water in for the people who live near the gas wells.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Vet greyhounds Probably fracking sand to be used in horizontal drilling to extract needed oil or natural gas. Either under load or returning for more sand empty. This whole horizontal drilling thing has created a boom. For ordinary folks and the railroads. A 20 year old with a high school education can make $80,000/year in the oil fields. The railroads haul sand in and empties out. They then haul oil out and empty tank cars in. Can't beat it with a stick. And then the RRs can make more money hauling clean water in for the people who live near the gas wells.
The Trains May 2013 issue has an article on frac sand, and they state that raw sand is transported in open gondolas, and processed sand is transported in covered hoppers. BNSF hauls frac sand from mines in Illinois and Minnesota to Texas. A train from IL could travel along that ex-Frisco route. The article shows a photo of a BNSF powered train hauling a unit train of frac sand in open top gondolas on page 52.
Back in the early to mid 1990s Southern Pacific hauled a lot of copper concentrate from the Bingham Canyon mine in Utah to Coos Bay OR to be loaded on a ship for export. Most of this was in open gondolas; sometimes as blocks in general freight trains and sometimes as a relatively short unit train.
I remember seeing an article on how the sand used for fracking was being transported in large sacks that where loaded on boxcars before they started using covered hoppers.
Kyle:
If you want to chastise someone for the political, off topic, argument, THIS is the post that started the debate:
Phoebe Vet Kyle: If you want to chastise someone for the political, off topic, argument, THIS is the post that started the debate: greyhounds Probably fracking sand to be used in horizontal drilling to extract needed oil or natural gas. Either under load or returning for more sand empty. This whole horizontal drilling thing has created a boom. For ordinary folks and the railroads. A 20 year old with a high school education can make $80,000/year in the oil fields. The railroads haul sand in and empties out. They then haul oil out and empty tank cars in. Can't beat it with a stick.
I don't agree. IMO, it wasn't until Henry's second post where things turned political.
Anyone have a key?
Jeff
PS. The other day I had a 85 car train of urea going to Minnesota.
I hate to break up the politics! But Ed might beon to something. The train had two CSX and one BNSF engine on it.
The Ann Arbor RR has been hauling sand for decades, from northern MI to Cleveland (I think) to car engine plants to use in die-casting. I don't know how different that sand is from fracking sand, but they use two bay covered hoppers for moving sand.
NILE The Ann Arbor RR has been hauling sand for decades, from northern MI to Cleveland (I think) to car engine plants to use in die-casting. I don't know how different that sand is from fracking sand, but they use two bay covered hoppers for moving sand.
The sand hauled on the ex-AA has been processed on-site at the sand pit in Yuma, MI. The sand grains have certain roundness, and a micro-pitted texture ideal for foundry sand. The processing yields clean sand grains of a certain size. Processed sand often travels in covered hoppers.
I don't know Missouri and don't pretend to.. but I remember years ago reading about a lead mine operation on a BN branch line that originated 40-50 car trains of lead ore in 50' hoppers. Mabee that is what you saw.
Murphy Siding henry6The gas and drilling companies have proclaimed their poison cocktail as proprietary and thus the ingredients do not have to be revealed to anyone. This has fire departments, first responders, and health departments very upset. Few are very happy in fact. This is a railroad forum. Surely you can find a relevant forum to press your views?
henry6The gas and drilling companies have proclaimed their poison cocktail as proprietary and thus the ingredients do not have to be revealed to anyone. This has fire departments, first responders, and health departments very upset. Few are very happy in fact.
Murphy Siding Said:"...
"...This is a railroad forum.
Surely you can find a relevant forum to press your views?"
Add a big "AMEN" from out here!
Hey MS, who's in charge of the popcorn machine these days?
chad s thomas Hey MS, who's in charge of the popcorn machine these days?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
I'm doing good. Been busy. Just got relocated from St George (land of no trains) to Carlsbad, NM. doing time in motels again. At least here there is pleanty of train action. It's not mainline action but for a shortline(Southwest Railroad) there is pleanty of activity and our shop is right down the street from the railroad shop. Lots of potash and frac mining related traffic. How you been? Still working at the lumber yard? Hear things are real busy with frac mining in your area too.
Steve Sweeney Dear All: I have taken down certain posts which directed this thread off-topic and to an ugly place. If one of your replies happened to be caught up in the deleting, please accept my apologies. Please review your recent posts and kindly remove any vitriol or snarky language directed at a specific person or select group of people. All the best, Steve S.
Dear All:
I have taken down certain posts which directed this thread off-topic and to an ugly place. If one of your replies happened to be caught up in the deleting, please accept my apologies.
Please review your recent posts and kindly remove any vitriol or snarky language directed at a specific person or select group of people.
All the best,
Steve S.
Thanks, Steve:
Your note is appreciated, at least by some of us.
FORUM policing is a nasty job at best > Somewhere between changing a smelly, dirty diaper, and cleaning out the cat box.< Tasks that NEED to be done, but no one wants to do, and somewhat thankless.
Around here it could be the equivalent of herding cats. SO Muchas Gracias!
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