Around Northern Wisconsin In A Town Called Wausau There Would Be A Coal Plant Which The Track Around Northern Wisconsin Would Be Owned From The Canadian National Railroad Which Around Northern Wisconsin And Some Other Location As Well I See BNSF And/Or Union Pacific Which Would Work And Provide Road Train Movement From A Whole Lot Of Coal Plants On Another Railroads Track. What Is The Point Of This? Does UP Or BNSF Have The One Connection That The Coal Would Need To Go To? How Come CN Can Not Have The Coal On The CN To A BNSF Connection Around Milwaukee Or Some Where Around Southern Wisconsin?
NS and CSX keep the power from bnsf or up to run the trains to the power plants with their crews.They just repay the hours used for the locomotives.The latest practice for NS is to run a powder river coal train in a siding near my work.They return the power to bnsf or up.Then use their power to take the train onto Detroit edison.Unless there is a trackage rights issue I think the trains would keep the power on the train and just use CN crews.I hope this helps.
It depends on whom the power company has contracted to haul the coal from Wyoming–BNSF or CN. These railroads will keep the coal on their own rails for the longest amount of time to derive the most revenue, and give CN a smaller piece of the pie. BNSF, unfortunately for them, doesn’t come close to Milwaukee, or any other part of eastern Wisconsin.
The power plant at Weston, WI is the one (I think) you’re referencing. BNSF lost the contract to serve that plant and Green Bay, WI as of 1/1/11, and now UP has it. The routing the trains take to get there are UP from the mine to Milwaukee, then up the Adams Subdivision to Necedah, where the train is “looped” and handed off to the CN. See this LINK HERE for a visual reference of the hand off. The line running E/W is the UP Adams Sub. The loop connects to the CN Valley Sub where the train goes up to Weston. The Green Bay, WI plant gets service using the routing of UP from the mine to Chicago where it’s handed off to CN (not sure exactly the name of the yard/place) and then goes north via the Waukesha Sub, then Neenah Sub, then the Fox River Sub to Green Bay.
Would it not be the case that all the railroads are basicly using the same (or very similar locomotivs and power to train ratios are very similar). That it is much more expedicious to take a run through train from one line on to another rail road without the time needed to swap out engines, and do the requisite air and mechanical tests?
The only change in power would be in areas that require interfacing equipment installed on the home roads power with the traffic controls; such as ATS or PTS. Where there were differences in the systems used and their was a requirement to have a specifically equipped leading unit in that area? Around this area it seems the only trains that run through here that do not chane power or run BNSF as leading engines are the NS locomotives on the Road Railers . Practically all the time leading locomotives are BNSF with foreign power units placed behind BNSF leaders.