Time to load a Coal train?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone out there know how long it takes to load a coal train and what procedure is used? I was curious as to the Powder River Basin setup out of Wyoming. Is the train slowly advanced forward under the coal silos or do they stop at each car?

[CMSTPP]

Quote me if I'm wrong but I think they use a coal silos like that at coal mines. I know that when raw ore is loaded they use silos to fill the cars and I would think it's the same way as filling coal.

James

[Modelcar]

...No authority on subject. My thoughts would be the unit train is advanced very slowly and any overflowing coal is recovered down under grates, etc....and train moves forward until it is loaded.

[jeaton]

Flood loading-coal dropping directly from silos into the cars-probably takes about an hour or so. Many years ago, I watched a 100 car, 10,000 net ton coal train loaded in thirty eight minutes.

The mine had two clean coal storage silos side by side. As an empty rolled under the first chute, the gate was opened dumping anywhere from one half to three quarters of the load into the car. Coal from the second silo was used to fini***he load and the chute was configured to trim the load. The mine operator had to stay very focused as failing to close the chutes in time would result in coal dropping between cars. Enough of a spill and car wheels would ride up over the coal and derail.

Given the volume of coal shipped from the PRB, I would guess that all the mines there use a one or two silo flood loading system. Loading from older mines or mines where space is a factor could be a system that conveys coal by belt from a storage pile or silo to a hopper positioned above the car. The hopper might hold coal for one to two cars and the loading rate is dependent on the capacity of the conveyor belt. I have seen those loading systems and I recall that the loading rate may have topped out at 7500 tons per hour.

Jay

[waltersrails]

depends on size and how many docks there are to load the coal.

[LehighValleyman]

Insted of silos maybe the train rolls under a tipple and loads from coal bunkers above in the tipple housing, Idon't know it's just a guess.[:D]

[CShaveRR]

I thought of the late Dunkin' Donuts spokesman when I saw the title to this thread! Can you imagine how he'd have looked after loading a coal train instead of baking the batch of donuts!

Tipples are passe...it's usually silos now, at least out west! Jay has it pretty well correct. I believe the trains are kept moving at a steady speed during the loading process.

[Bob-Fryml]

At Hanna, Wyo., the coal mines served by Union Pacific used a system that was crude by Powder River Basin standards. Here, basically, is how it worked.

The mine would pile-up crushed and washed coal around a central shaft. The whole thing looked like an inverted cone with a pipe running down the middle. During the loading process the mine would run D9 Caterpillar earth movers that would be continually moving the piled-up coal towards the central shaft. Coal would move through the central shaft onto a conveyor belt and into a 200- or 300-ton capacity overhead tipple located above the track.

Typically, a 105-car empty train would show-up and get an inspection from mine personnel to make sure that all of the bottom dump doors of each open top hopper (coal car) were closed. The train crew would run its four-unit locomotive set (3-G.E. C30-7s and an E.M.D. SD40-2) underneath the overhead hopper and spot the first car underneath the tipple. Upon request of the tipple operator, the engineer would dial-in a speed of about 0.30 to 0.33 m.p.h. and steadily pull the train underneath the tipple.

The tipple operator would open the tipple gates and crushed coal would pour like a giant wave into each slowly-moving hopper. After about 3/4s of the car passed underneath the tipple the operator would shut off the flow to top off the car. As the next car moved into the place, the tipple operator would open the tipple gates at just the right moment and the whole process repeated. If everything worked right, the train could be loaded in about two-and-a-half hours; but, more typically it took four hours due to process snafus (belt breakdowns, not enough CATS moving coal into the shaft, and removing contamination that got into the coal).

As the loading process advanced, the system measured the amount of coal going into each car. After the whole train was loaded the, mine operator would give the conductor a "scale ticket" representing the amount of coal loaded into the train, anywhere from around 9800 to 11,000-tons. Add that figure to the light weight of the freight cars (3360-tons) and that would be the total weight of the train.

It's an interesting process to watch and it makes the railroad a lot of money, but the job of loading coal quickly gets boring. As one of my friends so aptly put it, "Loading coal isn't a job, it's a social disease!"

[Anonymous]

Having retired from the KCS over 6 years ago, I'm writing from memory but I was told that one locomotive in the consist has an "INDEXER." The tipple operator is then given control and then runs the train under the loading chutes at a very slow speed. I feel the time was supposed to be about 2 1/2 hours for 110 cars. Now that longer trains are used, a slightly longer time is probably reflected.

[Anonymous]

I have a video on the powder river basin railroads. The video has a section showing how they load coal trains. The mines have giant overhead concrete silos filled with coal. The train dials in a creeper speed given to him by the loader. The first loader fills the car about
2/3 full, the second loader tops the car off according to weight capacity listed on the car. this process is repeated until the train is loaded. Load time is about 2 to 3 hours.

[Huck Huckaba]

I have just read an article in the New Yorker Magazine, Oct. and Nov 2005. They have a fantastic story about the coal trains around the country and particularly about the Wyoming coal fields.. I believe jeaton is correct on the method to load the cars.

[jeaton]

You are on the mark on creeper controls for the locomotives. When set they would hold the train speed steady at any point less than one MPH. In the absence of the device, a good hogger would get the job done OK.

Interesting thing about flood loading. The coal dropping into the car becomes fluidized and behaves like a liquid splashing into the cars. It is some sight to see.

Jay

[crzink]

Guys:

Like CShaveRR says above, "tipple" is so very "passe". It went out of use with the Alleghenies in the east. Modern large volume coal mines use "silos" or "loadouts" now, two words for the same thing. When will the modelling craft catch up?

The gentlemen that indicate there is "continuous loading" as well as those "flood loading" are correct. In some continuous loading operations, the hoppers have an extended lip on one end that projects over the end of the next car. Prevents losses between cars, but not over the edge.

At some mines, the coal is blended as it goes into the cars. The entire train of blended coal is normally destined for a single customer, and quality control is extremely tight. Gotta meet those EPA emissions regulations, ya know!

For general interest, there was an article in Mining Engineering a few years back, 2000, maybe 2001, that highlighted coal RR operations in the PRB. Amazingly, the Powder River Basin ships one million tons of coal DAILY! That's almost 100 trains per day. A recent article on Trains or somewhere said that for 2005 the coal mines in Wyo will miss their target because the RR's cannot ship fast enough. But the BNSF plus the UP hit 350,000,000 tons shipped! And missed the mines target! The mines had targetted 385,000,000. At $40/ton, that is $15,400,000,000 worth of coal. Big business!

Oh, one more correction of the verbage. Coal is not "ore". Never has been "ore". "Ore" is a rock that contains both economically valuable minerals (metallic or non metallic) that must be extracted from the ore, and worthless minerals that are disposed of. Coal is 100% value. Coal is burned. Ore is not. Coal is also not technically a mineral, it is an organic substance.

Yeah, I sound a bit snobbish, but I'm a geologist and have been mining for 29 years now.

[jeaton]

crzink-I worked for a coal company in the 1980's and in that period I saw many operations that used tipples for coal loading with the coal loaded on conveyor belts from ground storage. I saw systems that fed the belt in a tunnel under the storage pile or used end loaders to dump coal in a hopper that in turn fed coal to the belt.

I am wondering if silos have become more prevelant at other locations beside the PRB. If so, I would guess that between the relatively low cost of constructing silos using slip forms and the elimination of the need for a bulldozer with operator to shove coal to the gate to the belt, the pay back on the silo could fairly quick.

Speaking of blending, we sold coal to Georgia Power shipping rail-barge to their storage and blending operation on the Tennessee River in Alabama. I toured the facility one time-quite impressive operation.

Jay

[crzink]

Jay -

Virtually all the open pit coal mines I have been to in the last 10 years in the drill bit business have either had on-site concrete silos, or huge, tall rectangular bins. These have been on in North America, South America, Africa and Australia. Smaller Appalachian coal operations I have seen in Kentucky and W. Va tend to truck their coal to a central loading station which serves a particular coal companies mines. Larger Appalachian open pits have had both the concrete silo and the large steel bits. The concrete silos I've seen have been single silos with either a single track with a runaround or a balloon loop if space permits. The steel bits have invariable straddled two tracks, with possible a third on the outside for a run around.

Western US, Australian, Canadian, African and Columbian mines I've been in have had balloon loops, and some have had two loading tracks, so there have been either VERY large silos, or two silos.

What's really a hoot is the parallel rotary dumpers. The Aussies like to distribute power mid-train, and when it gets to the coal terminal, break it in two. Then they both run through the dumpers together in parallel, hook back up empty, and head back to the mine.

crzink