I know that railroads haul a lot of coal out of the Powder River Basin. Is there any other area that produces a large amount of coal or just a few locations spread out across the country?
Russell Kentucky region has a tremendous amount of coal mines. There are also large amounts of coal mines in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia. There are coal mines in Illinois and Alabama that are worth mentioning also.
…South western Pennsylvania has shipped thousands and thousands of tons of soft coal out of that area by rail and still does but not the tonnage it did during WWII and thereafter. Much of the coal mined after WWII and beyond was strip mined coal and typically hauled by rail. Of course most of that coal was truck hauled from the strip site to the rail head.
…PS: Some of the Drag Line equipment used to uncover the strip mine coal were so mammoth in size they had to be hauled by rail and truck in pieces and assembled on site. Some took months to assemble. Some so large they did not have crawler tracks to move, they had large movable platforms…[like feet], that moved the machine.
If you’re interested in anthracite, check out the Reading and Northern. See http://www.readingnorthern.com/coal.shtml
I always like it when I see some of their loaded cars heading westbound up the hill at Altoona on NS trains.
try this link instead
http://www.readingnorthern.com/coal.shtml
Mark, Rock Springs Wyoming has 3 mines within 40 miles 2 are open now with another to open soon(no open date set yet) Black Butte Coal ships by rail and Bridger Coal deos not ship ny rail but it uses a conveyer system to supply the Jim Bridger Power Plant (this is the power plant that caused that big power outage that effected western states in 1996) and the mine not yet open is going to be the first underground mine in Wyoming for a number of years, called the little patriot mine to comemerate the people lost in the past turmoil in the US. It is operated by the Stansbury Coal Company and will have to ship by rail as there is no way to transport the coal otherwise. The only downfall to this is that it will have to travel the rail spur all the way through town. The stansbury mine supplied coal to the UP back in the steam era becasue it is a coal the creates low ash and high heat when burned.
From what i hear, the mine is opening for full production, there was even a big story in the newspaper about it . The spur still serves the car shop and Halliburton, for now They are in the process of building a new shop west of town right along the mainline across from the coke a cola plant. I am glad that you mentioned the car shop, i have always had a question about that, is it a private contractor or is it owned by UP?? What ever they are they added a whole bunch of sidings to keep their cars on. I am not quite sure but where does this spur end? I have never traced it that far out.
I don’t know if you heard, but they(some rail contractor) were going to try to build a line from Green River to Riverton and it would have been operated by the BNSF.
…And on these mammoth “walking drag line” machines, the power is electricity…
Sidebar comment: Some years ago in Somerset County, Pennsylvania it became necessary to move one of these extreme machine drag lines a distance to another location to continue a strip mine operation and the Pennsylvania Turnpike was “in the way”…! The solution was to create a route “detour” around the Pike {using other State roads, etc…}, while a gigantic earthen fill was created to “walk” the mammoth drag line across it to get to the coal field beyond the other side of the Turnpike…Unfortunately at the time I was still in the work force and could not be back in the area to witness the action but I believe it was accomplished just about as planned. Certainly must have been good planning. In trying to remember some details, I believe the machine was “walked” something near 10 miles.
We’ve watched some of these large machines on the job near I-70 in mid-state Ohio over the years some years ago as we traveled back and forth from Indiana to Pennsylvania. Most of those jobs near I-70 are all smoothed over in land contour now and one can not tell such excavating ever took place.
Mark,
Thanks for the links. I’m going to go through all of them to see if there are any pictures of the of the Old Ben Indiana Division operations.
I was able to get on the drag-line at Old Ben One and watch the operation from the cab. Leaving after the on board tour, we got to see the machine repositioned with the “feet”. Our guide was a multi-year employee at the division and he was also fascinated by the move, as it was the first time he had seen that part of the operation.
These machines are so large that perspective goes out of wack. Approaching, the operators cab looks like a comfortable space for a seated operator and a standing visitor. Wrong! Add to that room for a couch, dinette table and still have room for a small cocktail party gathering.
Forget nine to five, these are 7/24’s. For safety, there is a pause when visitors board and depart, but you better be fast on the stairs or you won’t be invited back.
Jay
There are several coal mines along the Wabash River Valley that the CSX mainline between Danville, IL and Evansville, IN services in Eastern Illinois/ Western Indiana. There is one about 20 miles south of Danville in Vermillion Grove called the Black Beauty Mine. We bring about 4 trains a week into the mine, could be more if the trains were properly accounted for!!! There is also a mine just south of Terre Haute by Piemento and then yet another one at Hazelton.
One scary thing I noticed is that customer service didn’t even know we had brought a train into the mine and had returned it to the owner PSI in Cayuga, IN. The customer service rep said CSX had not billed them in a month because the trains hadn’t been properly tied up in the system, he thanked me for calling. It’s scary to think that trains can just be in limbo like that; I wonder how much CSX loses every year on trains like this???
Which railroad ships the most coal presently?
FYI Modelcar;
The largest coal producing area in PA is Washington & Green counties, located in the southwestern corner of the state. Very little stip mining is done there due to the mountainous topography. The active mines are all deep - 600 to 1000 feet below the surface- and they mine the MASSIVE reserves of the Pittsburgh Vein Coal, which is anywhere from 8 to 14 feet thick. The Pittsburgh Vein covers millions of acres, and has an estimated 500 year life, even at the current volume of 10’s of millions of tons mined per year. The Pittsburgh Vein is called the single richest mineral deposit in the world–worth more money than even all the middle eastern oil reserves.
Some of the mining is done by the traditional room and pillar method, but most of the mines have converted to the long wall method where a large machine (as long as a football field) continiously shears off the coal face. The coal is transported to the surface, where it travels by rail or river barge to the various markets. The long wall machines are so large, they are just left underground when mining starts in a new area.
Thankyou for the response Mark.
Is anybody familiar with Stelco Steel? Recently the company has closed down their coal mine in Kentucky; does anybody know where Stelco has gone to for coal?
…“The Pittsburgh vein coal”…That reminds me of a situation of many years ago…In the area of Ligonier, Pa. a family member had a small house coal mine and I can remember a conversation of someone mentioning of standing on a chair to dig in the upper part of the vein of coal as they were doing the mining in the small mine…So that area must be in at least the outcroppings of the above mentioned vein.
The coal veins around Somerset County areas were in the range of 4 ft. or less…much of the time less. My father surveyed in a mine that I heard him describe of crawing on his stomach to get through some passages.
Most of the veins the strip mining removed were of the heigher depth. In this area of Penna. several veins of coal were mined. Of course the ones deeper in the earth were deep mined…And I know Shaft mines were another method…[and also much deeper down in the earth}. They required a vertical shaft to gain access to the coal veins.
Is a barrel of crude oil roughly equivalent to a ton of Pittsburgh seam coal in terms of thermal energy?
Also, if the value of the coal is $20/ton and it costs $20-$30/ton just to dig it up, I wouldn’t see much point in mining it. Maybe I misunderstand something here.
Mark, don’t forget the Pittsburgh Seam is just not in PA. Most of the coal in W.V., eastern OH, western MD, along with western PA is part of the Pittsburgh Seam. That’s a lot of coal. In fact, most of the Pittsburgh Seam lies outside of PA.
ajmiller
As you might expect the cost of getting coal out of the ground and and in condition for potential buyers is all over the place. More accurate info would be on the Bureau of Mines site, but maybe ranging from less than $10 a ton in the Powder River Basin to maybe more than $30 at other mines.
Depending on quality and other factors, prices can be fairly volatile. When a mine can’t get at least an operating profit, it will usually slow production, close for a temporary period or completely shut down and liquidate the assets. It all depends on prospects for business in the future.
It is a pretty risky business. Maybe even more so than railroading.
Jay
Pittsburgh Seam coal is currently selling for $63/short ton and has 15,000 btu/pound. Nothing else, short of nuclear, can match its energy content per volume. The Pittsburgh seam covers 6 million acres, and produces on average 18,000 tons of coal per acre.
I’ll let Mark do the math on 6,000,000 X 18,000 X $63.00. Hint: It’s a hell of a lot more than that Saudi Oil.
The Pittsburgh Seam has been in continious production since 1760 and according to the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering, 75% of its reserves are still underground. How long has Saudi Oil been under production, and more importantly, how long are they going to last compared to Pittsburgh seam Coal?
Mark:
Your reserve figures are know as “estimated currently recoverable” based on current economics/mining technology, my figures are based on the geologic size of the coal bed. They are not the same, and the gonvernment readily says that if you read more data. As the price of energy goes up, more of the “marginal” coal become more econimically viable to mine. In PA alone, there have been numeous coal field “remined” recently, that the government considered “mined out”. New technology allows the mines to recover considerable quantities of coal that were left behind from old mining technology.
The $63/ton on the spot market is nothing. In a few years you will see high quality coal sell under contract in the $85 to $100 per ton level.
BTU source: West Virginia University, but I will admit that the BTU content of any type of coal is not consistent. Pittsburgh Seam coal ranges from 13,000 to 15,000 BTU/lb.
Source of extraction tonnage: Consolidated Coal Company mines using longwall technique.
So, the U.S. gonvernment technique underestimates the quanity of domestic coal, while it has been know and reported that OPEC, for political reasons, overestimates the reserves they have. Some geologists estimate by upwards of 50%!
Let me ask you this: If the Saudi Fields have so much reserve left, then why are the Saudis having to pump seawater into the wells to keep production at the current levels?
If you want to be really accurate in estimating the cost of oil vs. coal, then you should add in the TRILLIONS our military spends just to protect “our” foreign oil.
See what that does to you BTU per dollar calculation.