I think about three or four Trains Magaizines ago, Trains ran an article documenting branch lines that evolve into main lines. Of course, the Powder River Basin was one of the chief examples of a line that once saw very light traffic and now has uber-mega tonnage.
The Trains article had a nice picture of a moderately large CB&Q manifest freight pulling out of the yard (looked like three SD units and 60+ cars). I also remember a Trains magazine from at least a year or two ago, noting that, before the Powder River Basin boom, the traffic on this line consited of a lone GP-9 meeting a lone switcher with a small manifest.
Three questions:
(1) When I think of CB&Q’s Powder River Basin Line as it exists today, I think of it as an exclusive coal line. Does BNSF still send out a lone Geep to handle non-coal manifest traffic and does the line still see “modestly large manifest freights?”
(2) What did the traffic largely consist of before the coal boom? Was this largely coal–just in smaller quantities–or was it largely manifest?
(3) DM&E mentioned it would seek other fright hauling opportunities were it to extend to the poweder River Basin. What other fright hauling opportunities are there in the middle of Montana?
When you talk about the PRB (Powder River Basin) you have to remember that what many people think of the PRB is the Orin Subdivision. This line did not exist during the CB&Q era. During the CB&Q era there was the line through Douglas and Casper, this line is completely south of all the coal mines in the Basin, during the CB&Q era this line saw most of the freight traffic. The other line is the line from Alliance through Gillette to Billings, this was the passenger line, but as the Trains article shows handled a limited amount of freight. There were two operating mines that I am aware of during the last years of the Q. The Wyodak mine which feeds a mine mouth powerplant but which ships a tiny amount of coal elsewhere, and the Big Horn mine which was north of Sheridan, WY near the RR location of Kleenburn.
Still within Wyoming, the currently operating East and West Decker mines are across the line in Montana. The Big Horn mine has been closed for more than a decade now. The south line handled mixed manifest traffic, as did the northern line although there was coal for use by the Q. Both lines handled quite a bit of Livestock. Historically the southern line was busier for freight traffic, although today the northern line is now the busier for non coal traffic but neither sees many non coal trains.
The DM&E PRB extension is heading into East-Central Wyoming, not Montana. The DM&E is also rehabbing the Colony line (which mainly hauls bentonite), which comes within a stone’s throw of the Montana border, and as of yet Montana’s portion of the PRB is still relatively undeveloped, so there is the possibility that DM&E might someday extend a second PRB extension into southeast Montana. But that would still be mainly coal traffic.
The way I read DM&E’s statement regarding “other freight hauling opportunities” is bridge traffic over the new PRB extension to a connection with UP. Someone had mentioned that UP is contractually limited on what types of traffic it can send over the joint line, so on that prospect there is some uncertainity.
Is that relevent to the topic? For the record, yes I do make typo’s, and when they are brought to my attention I usually correct them. I don’t take it as a slight when someone points it out to me.
Of course I want to talk PRB, that is why I posted the topic.
However, when the first line of a reply points out a misspelling, I tend to think exploring non-coal activities on the Powder River Basin lines is not your first priority.
Dave-
arbfbe posted several weeks back that Montana’s mines are suffering due to State taxes on the mines. Prospects of DME heading into Montana are zero.
Just curious, Gabe, but have you read Micheal Crichton’s “State of Fear” yet? You kinda remind me of the main character in the novel. That’s not a slight since the character is one of the good guys in the story.
Perhaps as long as those taxes remain unabridged that prospective nillage is true, but Montana officials have to be aware that they are on the short end of the PRB revenue pie compared with Wyoming. Surely they might make some adjustments to encourage PRB delelopment in their state, and if/when they do, DM&E is in as good of pouncing position as BNSF.
Montana will always be on the short end of the revenue pie… I don’t believe that they have as much coal as Wyoming. The BNSF/UP (BN/CNW) have invested their money on a physical plant and the mining companies have built mines in Wyoming because there is a huge amount of coal there (500 years worth??). Montana might encourage some growth/development in thier state, but I don’t think there will every be anything on the scale of the PRB.
If anybody wants to correct any the info listed above, please do. All spelling errors are on account of my hands not hitting the right keys on the keyboard.
BN worked pretty hard to drive out the local business once the coal started to take off. The first to go was the sugar beet traffic. It was said the beet campaign every year paid the tab for the Alliance Divn for the whole year and the rest of the revenue was just gravey. The next traffic to go was the agricultural shippers in the Platte River Valley between Northport and Guernsey. A couple of officials wandered down and marked a lot of switches and crossovers for abandonment. Then the locals started to die on the law since there was no easy way to serve customers on both sides of the main. Congestion in Lincoln kept empty cars from being delivered in a timely manner to shippers that needed them. So the ag traffic moved to the UP or went by truck. Coal is king and everything else just gets in the way.
Wyoming is the #1 state for coal mining according US Gov. statistics 382 million tons in 2004, about 1/3 of all coal mined in the US. Montana ranked #6 just barely ahead of Colorado, with a little over 38 million tons, a few hundred thousand tons more than Colorado #2 was West Virginia #3 was Kentucky #4 was Pennsylvania #5 was Texas #8 was Indiana #9 was Illinois #10 was North Dakota with a bit over 30 million tons
The next big region for coal in the west is the San Juan Basin which has barely been touched. Almost all of the San Juan Basin would require new railroad construction to get near the four corners area. One railroad, Black Mesa & Lake Powell (Navajo RR), hauls coal from mine to power plant and has no connection to the outside world.
Like Montana, Colorado taxed coal right out of business until recently. Now you cannot get coal out of western CO fast enough, which may be the salvation of the Tennessee Pass line as the Moffat line is ner capacity. Unfortunately, southern Colorado coal never survived the original coal tax and died a slow death.
The plural of “typo” should be spelled “typos” with no apostrophe. An apostrophe is used to denote possession.
Having gotten that off my chest , is there an easily found map on the internet that shows the proposed DME Powder River extension in relation to the existing BNSF and UP lines? All I can find are UP maps or BNSF maps or DME maps - all at different scales, etc.
Also, I would like to see how the DME/ICE combination would lead to greater opportunities for their owners to serve the existing power plant customers in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. The TRAINS maps of recent years don’t show the DME/ICE combo because it didn’t exist then.
How about a map of the extension, DM&E now and the IC&E. Sorry, no BNSF or UP though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DME_and_ICE_route_map.JPG
This might be a map you have seen, but basically BNSF has lines across the north and south ends of the PRB, UP comes up from the southeast jogging its way up from North Platte, NE. DM&E would come in to the Orin Sub near Antelope Jct, about half way up the line. Hope this helped some.
Have you seen this map ? http://www.dmerail.com/PRB/C1MapWY.htm
The original plan was to upgrade the grain barge terminal in Winona to handle coal as well and serve the plants by barge.
Thank you for everyone’s responses, especially arfbe and beaulieue–and even futuremodal.
What I gather from arfbe’s response is there really isn’t a lot of local traffic anymore or manifest freights?
I find this interesting. As it demonstrates that, even though the manifest freight would just be gravy, it is more lucrative to not allow the manifest/local traffic to interfere/congest the bread winner: coal.
That is unfortunate. I had always hoped coal and manifest could live side by side, even in the busiest of coal arteries.
Gabe
P.S. I have not read State of Fear–Trains magazine is about the only thing I have read regularly since law school has deprived me of my love of reading.
I wonder, given arfbe’s post regarding BNSF’s rejection of local non-coal traffic, if DM&E’s stated desire to haul non-coal traffic as well as coal over it’s PRB extenstion may very well be that which BNSF has rejected?