Ka-Ching!

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by piouslion

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

Ahem! This posting is like the mosquito one - you have to wave away all those pesky mosquitos before you can do some serious gardening.

Reprints of this brilliant statement available - contact Mookie

Hello Mookie: I am glad to see that the subject can be maintained. If you put the average amount of .02/ton/mile to 110ton loads per car with an average of 86 cars to he train at a distance of 1960 miles Craig CO to near Macon GA, you get an idea of the kind of money we are talking about. It is a pleasure to meet you and to write you on such a topic as this - With Kindest Regards, Piouslion[ ^][;)][tup]

Hi Piouslion - we are almost 2nd cousins - lion, kitty - anyway -

I think it is an interesting subject. We watch trains usually only one day a week - maybe two at the most and only for about 2-3 hours each time. The coal trains that go past us are usually 8-12 in number. These are both empty and full. But it staggers my math ability to think of all the coal that is going by from the west. I don't have a problem with the railroads making $. I am just trying to bring it down to something I can understand. The coal investment amount times the number of coal cars going by.

It really give me new insight into just exactly what I am watching - besides just "another coal train!"

Mookie

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

PS - who actually owns all that coal before it is dug out?

Whoever owns the mineral rights. Sometimes that's not the same as the landowner, although in the case of surface mining, it probably is.

Perhaps there is an expert in real estate law that can fill us in further... It can probably get complicated...

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tree68

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

PS - who actually owns all that coal before it is dug out?

Whoever owns the mineral rights. Sometimes that's not the same as the landowner, although in the case of surface mining, it probably is.

Perhaps there is an expert in real estate law that can fill us in further... It can probably get complicated...

It is pretty complicated. Mineral rights is a big thing, particularly in Texas and Oklahoma with oil. For most folks who buy a property, it is no big deal, because your not going to drill for oil in a neighborhood. But other places it is. The University of Texas maintains its low tuition becasue of the Permanent University Fund, they can tap the interest on it but not the principle. The University, as a land grant system received a large amount opf worthless property in west Texas. It later sold alot of it off but retained the mineral rights...and bam instant money. If you are buying property the title company should apprise you as to whether or not you own the property in its entirety or if some else owns mineral or land use rights to it. 'Cause if they do, a resource company can come tap your property if they own the rights...they have to pay you to be on it and any thing they do to the surface in the extraction. But then again you can't drill your own well and start producing it either.

[Mookie]

OK - so we get into mineral rights. I understand a teeny bit of that - but say in the case of Wyoming's coal - that is one big piece of mineral rights. Do they go back to who owned the land before they started mining? And are there several companies that mine the coal or just one big JR Ewing company?

[mudchicken]

(1) The one who understands real estate law is usually neither the lawyer or the judge. (and never-ever the real estate agent)

(2) Minerals go back to the patent holder (out west where mookie is) and sometimes the grant holder from the previous country who owned it (Mexican Land Grant, Indian Nation, Reservations, Colonies, etc). Gets very involved, especially if somebody pitched the document to their interest in mineral rights because they thought it "worthless"and the heirs are long gone.

Cynical Surveyor

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

OK - so we get into mineral rights. I understand a teeny bit of that - but say in the case of Wyoming's coal - that is one big piece of mineral rights. Do they go back to who owned the land before they started mining? And are there several companies that mine the coal or just one big JR Ewing company?

Well, let me use Oklahoma as an example. When they opened up Oklahoma to the settlers and they all rushed to claim land, the original claim staker owned the land lock stock and barrel. Over the years the land traded hands. But let's say Farmer Joe decides to sell part of his land to Farmer Bill. Farmer Joe knows that there are minerals there that might be worth something someday, but needs to sell the land because he needs some cash. So when he sells the parcel, he retains the mineral rights to it in perpetuity. Farmer Bill doesn't care, becasue he just wants to build a house and raise cows. Farmer Bill dies and his hiers sell the land to Farmer Mookie's family. Now fifty years later Farmer Joes family is digging a well and strikes oil. So they sell their property and mineral rights to Texaco and move to Beverly, Hills that is, swimming pools and movie stars.......Texaco moves in and starts drilling and tapping the oil reserve under the land which also happens to be under Farmer Mookie's land. Texaco's little dude knock on Farmer Mook's door one day and says, "We'd like to set up a rig on your property". Famer Mook says "No way" I'm going to drill my own well and tap into this gold mine". Then Mr Texaco pulls out the minerals rights deed and says "not so fast hon." We own the mineral rights, we bought them from Farmer Joe's family. If Farmer Mook's title company didn't disclose that, then you have a case against them for negligence, but more than likely there will be a little paragragh that was initialed along with 10,000 others that says the the mineral rights are not included, blah, blah, blah, and you acknowledge and waive all claims. Now you say Texaco still can't come on the property and drill. State laws takeover here. The state may say that you have to allow access to a certain degree but they have to compensate you at a value for it and all damages. Or it may say that you don't have to but you cannot tap into the resource yourself. In that case, Texaco will a) make a handsome offer to either allow access or buy the land from you, or b) provide a local elected official a large sum of compensation for his civic duites to have your land rezoned as industrial so you have to stop farming...which means you'll have to move anyway...... that's the lay person explanation.

[coalminer3]

Stated another way, "The meek shall inherit the earth; nobody said anything about the mineral rights."

This issue is somewhat like a child's set of "nesting boxes." You keep taking them apart and there is always another box inside; this is particularly true when you start looking at ownership of coal companies. Then you have subsidiaries of subsidiaries.

You may want to look at Joseph Lambie's book, From Mine to Market: The History of Coal Transportation on the Norfolk and Western Railway. It's tough going in some spots, and defintely not a "railroad" book. But it will give you a lot of background information on land, minerals and ownership questions.

It's important to remember, as mudcicken and darmon suggested, that you have a lot of situations of absentee ownership which complicates things even more.

work safe

[JoeKoh]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

QUOTE: Originally posted by JoeKoh

pictures are worth a thousand words
secret agent Auntie mookies picture with face in chocolate cake priceless
stay safe
Matthew

Matt - Didn't Daddy tell you not to share family secrets with strangers?

AM

Auntie Mook
dont forget when a 3 yr old hides something it wont be found for a long long time.[:)]
stay safe
Matthew

[locomutt]

DARN! Mookie,that's why you haven't gotten your tiara yet. Nobody knows who owns the diamonds!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

OK - so we get into mineral rights. I understand a teeny bit of that - but say in the case of Wyoming's coal - that is one big piece of mineral rights. Do they go back to who owned the land before they started mining? And are there several companies that mine the coal or just one big JR Ewing company?

Mookie: Not just coal. oil and mineral rights; but also huge investments in electric generating plant $ 750,000,000 per unit (coal and oil) Transmission lines ($ 15,000 to 35,000 per section) and all the fuel, equipment, labor, service maint, taxes and other requirements for transport over rail or pipeline.Everything moving represents either a sale or a transaction in progress. In short Mookie what you are looking at as you count the cars, look up in the sky at the air freighters, see the container ships and tankers in a sea port, or see those large (unmentionable simi's) on the highways you are looking at what amounts to aprox 1/3 to 1/2 of the gross national product of the North American economy. J.R. Ewing would be a piker (a poor one at that) when compared to the public and private companies that play in the transportation, mineral and fuels league. Just to think all we were doing was counting the cars on a train. I Kindest Regards as always - piouslion [:)]

[jeaton]

So trhe AAR said that in 2003, the 7 Class 1 Railroads (The big guys) originated 784 million tons of coal and got $7.89 billion for their efforts.

So that means you could probably take one of those treainloads of coal and it probably wouldn't be missed for a couple of weeks. But, your neighbors would probably notice something.

Jay

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

So trhe AAR said that in 2003, the 7 Class 1 Railroads (The big guys) originated 784 million tons of coal and got $7.89 billion for their efforts.

So that means you could probably take one of those treainloads of coal and it probably wouldn't be missed for a couple of weeks. But, your neighbors would probably notice something.

Jay

My neighbors next door would think that was "pretty cool, dude!" Duh....

I am going to print this all off and study it over the weekend.

Meanwhile I am still wondering about freight cars. Are those priced by weight, commodity, miles traveled and who carries the insurance on them in case of damage (would think the railroads do) and who insures the railroads? Do they split the insurance up among several carriers nationwide, so no one gets the bulk of loss?

I will be back Monday with possibly some more coal train questions. Have to let this all sink in.

Mookie [%-)]

[CShaveRR]

I've always heard that railroads are "self-insured", which means that damage comes out of the corporate coffers. The common expression dealing with a car, or carload, damaged beyond repair is, "we just bought it."

I'm sure the price for shipping a carload is dependent on just about any factor you can think of, including weight, distance carried, value of the commodity (how badly do you want it to get there, and how quickly? Or, a SUV in that color and with those options isn't as easy to find a substitute for as a pile of coal), and the costs involved (unit coal trains don't have to be switched in yards, for example).

[mudchicken]

Ton Mile & Tarriff...

If the lease car is the cause of the derailment, the lessor can get socked with the bill. Watch the pig feathers fly when this happens!

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

Ton Mile & Tarriff...

If the lease car is the cause of the derailment, the lessor can get socked with the bill. Watch the pig feathers fly when this happens!

Pigs have feathers[?] I thought only chickens did[:)][}:)]

[PNWRMNM]

Mookie,

The value in a coal train is the train itself. AC locos are just under $2million each. Cars are about $60,000. Three units $6 million, 100 cars another $6 million. Coal only worth $770,000 (110 net ton cars). You would have a hard time selling a purloined train however.

Mac

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by PNWRMNM

Mookie,

The value in a coal train is the train itself. AC locos are just under $2million each. Cars are about $60,000. Three units $6 million, 100 cars another $6 million. Coal only worth $770,000 (110 net ton cars). You would have a hard time selling a purloined train however.

Mac

I dunno - you could probably get a few bids on Ebay....

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

So trhe AAR said that in 2003, the 7 Class 1 Railroads (The big guys) originated 784 million tons of coal and got $7.89 billion for their efforts.

So that means you could probably take one of those treainloads of coal and it probably wouldn't be missed for a couple of weeks. But, your neighbors would probably notice something.

Jay

That's easy...you simply wave your hand in front of thier face, use the Force and say "This is not the coal train you're looking for." Works every time.