Powder River Basin questions;

[nanaimo73]

1) Do many of the coal trains contain steel gons or are they all aluminum now?

2)Are the gons mostly bottom dump or side dump?

3)My map of Wyoming doesn't show many people living there. Do the thousands of miners live in temporary housing with their families out of state?

Thanks.

(I messed up- I should have said hoppers.)

[jchnhtfd]

Dale -- not sure just how many miners there really are, relatively speaking! Although these operations are huge, I recall doing some engineering work in strip mines in southern Indiana back in the '60s, and being quite impressed by how much coal was being removed by how few people -- and how big the machines were that were doing the work (I made a U-turn driving my pickup INSIDE the bucket of one of the drag lines... without having to backup or even stop...)

[trainster1073]

I live next to a line where UP brings Wisconsin Power and Light Co. Bethgon loaded with coal. I think they are steel but as you said the new ones might be aluminum I don't know for sure. The cars are side dump, I know someone who saw them dump the coal cars and he told me they were side dump. When you asked about mining, they have quite a few workers but they use machines so they don't need so many. I can't tell you were they live but I know it is somewhere in WY.

[coborn35]

I live near Allouez in Superior,WI and alot of BNSF Powder River Coal is dumped there. And from what ive seen on over 50,000 coal cars en-route to Allouez via Staples Subdivision, most all the BNSF runs are bottom dump.

Speak of the devil, as im typing this, a BNSF Powder River train is going by bound for Allouez. Looks like their all bottom dump. Cool, an unpatched BN SD70MAC and a brand new GEVO!

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

2)Are the gons mostly bottom dump or side dump?

They only botton dump gondolas (called drop bottom) I have heard of were from the steam ear (there may have been more recent ones, but I have not heard of them). To the best of my knowledge all of the coal gondolas are unloaded by a rotory dumper.

[kevarc]

Ours are aluminum and steel, all rotary dump.

You get a price break of about $0.50/ton when you have aluminum cars.

[CShaveRR]

Some cars loaded at Powder River are hoppers.

Steel cars in coal service are extremely rare nowadays. UP has a few trains of its own, made up with mostly UP, CNW, and CTRN hoppers, that still bring coal out of there, but most of the power companies' cars are aluminum, and most of those are rotary-dump gons (the hoppers are usually rotary-dump as well, for unloading at places where their bottom-discharge can't be accommodated).

[miniwyo]

Nanimo, We have just in the past few years passed a population of 500,000 people for the whole state. I live in the 4th Largest city in the state, and we only have 22000 or so people. Gilette which is near the Powder River Basin is a close fifth. In this state, the Antelope outnumber the humans.

[arbfbe]

Aluminum cars are becoming predominate, it is lighter and the 286,000 lb. max weight of the car can thus be more coal and less car. Rotary dump is most common with the lowered troughs below the floor level the more popular. Bottom dump cars are commonly air actuated. Some cars offer both rotary and bottom dump options.

Just about everyone needed for operations in the Powder River basin live in Gillette or Douglas. Google the towns for the current populations and websites that might interest you.

[dehusman]

There are still steel sets in service. All of the cars (steel or aluminum) are either bottom dump hoppers, bottom dump hoppers with rotary couplers or rotary dump gons. None of them are bottom or side dump gons.

Dave H.

[CShaveRR]

Arbfbe--Detroit Edison (DEEX, DETX) has some aluminum hoppers with rotary couplers that are not air-actuated. They are truly unusual in that respect.

[arbfbe]

CShaveRR,

I suppose just about any type of design that could come from the back of a cocktail napkin in a bar has been engineered and built. The RRs and some coal companies are looking to increase their flexibility in unloading at different facilities. I'm sure someone will have new design built in the future.