I was in Oakland Ca. today watching trains street run by Jack London Square. A Union Pacific trains comes by pulled by three AC4400s. Now to my question, there is about 60 full gondolas of coal being pulled South bound. Where did this coal come from and where is it going?
From a mine in Utah, to the Cement plant near Cupertino.
Wouldn’t some of the coal also go to the cement plant in Davenport, on the Pacific coast? Can anyone think of anywhere else the coal goes?
The cement plant near Cupertino is the Kaiser Permente cement plant.
OK. What do they do with the coal in a cement plant. Oh yea, they were not gondolas, they were open top hoppers.
Use it as fuel for the kilns.
Do they use coal solely or do they use natural gas in conjunction with coal?
The cement kiln that I visited could burn either natural gas or coal but not both at the same time. Chnaged from one fuel to the other is not simple, as the fly ash from the burning coal is used as part of the formula. When natural gas is burned, the cement requires a different recipe of raw materials to offset the lack of coal fly ash.
dd
It seems that it would be hard for anyone to burn coal in CA due to air standards. I was told that was the reason for the lack of coal burning power plants in CA.
Yes, the coal train passes through Santa Cruz on the way to the cement plant in Davenport about two to three times per week. Usually about 20 to 30 carloads. Sometimes there’s a centerbeam flat of lumber dropped off in Santa Cruz that the Santa Cruz, Big Trees & Pacific (local tourist line) takes up to Felton, CA.
Thanks guys that clears things up for me. I am starting a layout that will model the intermodal yard in Oakland, the UP yard, up to the BNSF vehicle unloading facility in Richmond, up to Truckee and through the Reno trench into Sparks. I guess I can add a coal train into the mix.