Wyoming Rail Report

[ericsp]

I was looking for information about C&NW in Wyoming and found this interesting report.

State of Wyoming Rail Plan

[ericsp]

I also found these CNW painted cars in Torrington.

[Dakguy201]

From the first page of the introduction of the "plan":

"Wyoming had the good fortune to lie directly in the path of that first transcontinental route, with Union Pacific contruction crews pushing westward from St. Louis ..."

That is not quite the way I learned it!

[CShaveRR]

That was those Mo-Pac guys rewriting history again! 

[PNWRMNM]

It is also an indicator of the sophistication of Wyoming's rail planners.

Most if not all states have a "rail plan". Most of them are of the quality of Wyoming's, that is something ginned up by a consultant to qualify the state for Federal Money to pay for it and the bureaucrats only know what else.

A few states are actually doing constructive things with the freight carriers, but not many.

Mac McCulloch 

[Murphy Siding]

Dakguy201

From the first page of the introduction of the "plan":

"Wyoming had the good fortune to lie directly in the path of that first transcontinental route, with Union Pacific contruction crews pushing westward from St. Louis ..."

That is not quite the way I learned it!

   Well duh!  Every school kid knows that the first transcontinental route pushed westward  from Plymouth Rock.

[Murphy Siding]

Thanks ericsp for the link.  That was an interesting read.

Some tidbits I found interesting:

*Mineral extracted from the earth covers just about all the originating traffic.  Coal is the 800# gorilla.

*Wyoming has had very little line rationalization.  (Apparantly just those lines not connected to a coal mine?)

*BNSF's north-south line will alow them to participate in expected growth in NAFTA trade?  Wow.

*Amtral was refered to as a skeletal national passenger rail system.  That may not be too far from the truth

*There is actually ag products shipped out by train.  I lived a couple of years in Gillette, which was basically a desert, so I was surprised to see that there were a dozen or so elevators shipping by rail.  By comparison, they are dinky- a couple could hold 50 cars, but most were 6-8-10-12 etc..  Figures were from 2002(?)  and this may have changed.

* In 2002, Wyoming had 880 tons of misc. manufactured goods shipped out by rail.  What would that be?  Isn't 880 tons about 9 carloads?

* Average railroad worker compensation was $85,000.  When I lived in Wyoming, the wages were high, and the cost of living was high as well.............and there were no women..........and it never seemed to rain.

*The population of Wyoming (in 2002) was 525,000 people.  Were there no railroads there, the population *might*  be 1/10 of that.  Wyoming is very dependant on the railroads for economic sustainability.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

It's the "State of Wyoming RAIL PLAN" by Wilbur Smith Associates, dated October 2004 (so before the HSR craze), 64 pages, PDF file is approx. 1.36 MB in size.