The article in April’s Trains magazine on coal was very informative but it did not discuss the wide range of coal prices that were briefly mentioned. Allow me to give a little more background in coal. Many people think coal is coal and all is the same. This is not true.
Allow me to present my credentials. I have worked in the extractive industry since the mid ‘60s having received both a BS & MS in engineer of mines, oil and gas option, from West Virginia University (coal country). During the summer while in college I worked in the coal mines. Along with my extensive geology background I know coal. Being in the mines I quickly decided that I did not want to be a coal mole and went the petroleum route.
There are several types of coal: Anthracite, Bituminous, Sub Bituminous, Lignite, Peat, and graphite.
Anthracite, also called smokeless coal, is mined in the Scranton PA area. It’s energy content is 12,990 BTU (British Thermal Units) per pound. Not too much anthracite is mined today.
Indeed. All the coal trains out of the Powder River Basin are handling sub-bituminous coal. Also, the original poster’s comment that sub-bituminous “is commonly referred to as brown coal” is incorrect. It is lignite that’s called “brown coal.”
Lignite isn’t shipped too far by rail. The lignite produced in North Dakota and Texas - the two leading lignite states - is mostly used locally. Texas has some utility-owned railroads to move lignite from the mines to the power plant, but that’s about it. The one exception is lignite shipped from a mine near Underwood, ND to a power plant at Spiritwood, ND (via DMV&W-BNSF), about 170 miles one way. But even this coal is a dried and refined version of lignite called (not coincidentally) “DryFine.” (The plant is supposed to change to natural gas in the near future.) Most of the lignite power plants in Texas and the Leland Olds plant near Stanton, ND supplement their lignite with sub-bituminous Powder River Basin coal. Possibly the longest lignite coal train run in the country (corrections welcome) was from a mine at Gascoyne, ND to the power plant at Big Stone City, SD (about 355 miles one way) on Milwaukee Road (1975-1982) then Burlington Northern (1982-1995) track. In the 1995, the plant changed to sub-bituminous coal from the Powder River Basin, which it uses to this day.
One thing I found strange in the article about coal in TRAINS was the statement, “Baltimore led the nation in thermal coal exports at 7.6 million tons, with New Orleans second at 5.8 million tons, and Seattle third at 2.7 million tons.” Strange because there are no coal export facilities in Seattle. The Port of Seattle website states,
I realize that there are some discrepancies in my coal article. This results from the many sources referenced for my article. By selective editing you can get any answer you want,
I realize that there are some discrepancies in my coal article. This results from the many sources referenced for my article. By selective editing you can get any answer you want.
A few short stories about coal. Spent the summer surveying with a transit at coal mines. We did not have canaries for gas detection. We were more modern and had Drager gas detectors to measure methane and carbon monoxide gas concentration. CO was heavier than air and would settle to the bottom. If you breathed a small amount you would become tired. Do NOT sit down to rest as the CO would kill you. We had the 5-15 rule. Methane gas is explosive between 5.13 and 14.97% hence the 5-15 rule. Above and below these limits methane would burn and not explode. One person on our crew carried a historical mine safety lantern. If the flame changed color to yellow the methane was too high. Time to get out,
We would take the lift down about 200 feet then take a trolley car to where we would be surveying. We would be about 100 yards from the mining face for our work. When I got home at night I would blow my nose. It would be black from the coal dust you inhaled. Did not want to get black lung disease so I took the oil and gas option in college,
Coal is black but the insides of the mine is white. Turn off your light and white becomes very black. Stand there for a few minutes and you will fall over as there is no point of reference to reference to. Coal dust is
A few short stories about coal. Spent the summer surveying with a transit at coal mines. We did not have canaries for gas detection. We were more modern and had Drager gas detectors to measure methane and carbon monoxide gas concentration. CO was heavier than air and would settle to the bottom. If you breathed a small amount you would become tired. Do NOT sit down to rest as the CO would kill you. We had the 5-15 rule. Methane gas is explosive between 5.13 and 14.97% hence the 5-15 rule. Above and below these limits methane would burn and not explode. One person on our crew carried a historical mine safety lantern. If the flame changed color to yellow the methane was too high. Time to get out,
We would take the lift down about 200 feet then take a trolley car to where we would be surveying. We would be about 100 yards from the mining face for our work. When I got home at night I would blow my nose. It would be black from the coal dust you inhaled. Did not want to get black lung disease so I took the oil and gas option in college,
“Thermal coal” … as opposed to met coal? If so, how’s the ranking for total coal export? Does coal for US destinations still go from rail to coastwise ship? If so, what’s the ranking for total coal thru a port?
Think Roberts Bank only exported 2.7 million tons total coal, in … a year?
No, the lignite mine is closed. Coal trains for Big Stone City ceased in 1995 (replaced with Powder River Basin sub-bituminous), and the mine closed for good in 1997.
Just north of the balloon track and a bit to the west is a feed lot. Just north of the balloon track and a bit to the east is the site of the former mine. The long white rows of stuff in the middle of the balloon track and just to the east and south of the balloon track are pile after pile of pipe that was going to be used on the Keystone XL Pipeline. I can vouch for the fact that it was still there in early October 2021.
BNSF officially calls this “Knife River” now, though all of the track north of the main line is private. There’s obviously some kind of agriculture activity here with the large grain bins and loading facility on the tangent tracks to the west of the balloon track. But shuttle grain trains aren’t loaded here as two such facilities are nearby at Bucyrus and Scranton. The American Colloid plant is located just south of the main line and is BNSF track. The main thing that happens on the private trackage at Knife River/Gascoyne today is rail car cleaning by Gascoyne Materials Handling and Recycling. BNSF will send,
Well, all the USA-origin coal shipped to Roberts Bank is thermal coal, mostly originating in Montana. But there is (or has been) lots of metallugical coal from Southeastern BC going to Roberts Bank. I think a lot of this is going to the Neptune Terminal in North Vancouver now, but I’ll let the Articulate Malcontent weigh in on that.
But indeed 2.7 million tons of just USA thermal coal is not right. Many years, BNSF has delivered over 400 trains in one year to Roberts Bank. At about 15,270 tons each (which excludes the weight of the car), that’s just over 6.1 million tons.
And for clarification: NO coal is shipped through Seattle or anywhere else in the Pacific Northwest.
While some of Teck’s trains still go to Roberts Bank you are correct that most of their coal now goes to Neptune Terminals, which is jointly owned by Teck and Canpotex (itself jointly owned by Saskatchewan potash miners Mosaic and Nutrien). Some also go to Prince Rupert.
CP now interchanges most if not all of Teck’s trains to CN in Kamloops. On CN they become C731 (Neptune), C733 (Roberts Bank), or C741 (Prince Rupert). They often keep the CP power for the whole trip, which has led to CN owing CP a lot of horsepower hours over the last year or two.
Teck shut down the only Sparwood area mine that produced mostly thermal coal (Coal Mountain/Byron Creek) in 2018, and their remaining four mines produce mainly metallurgical coal. Their only Alberta mine (Luscar/Cardinal River) closed in summer 2020.
Two Alberta mines (Bighorn and Grande Cache) currently ship 100% of their production to Roberts Bank. The third (Coal Valley) has only used Prince Rupert for the past few years, except for a couple short stints when that port was down for maintenance or expansion projects. Bighorn is a relatively new mine just east of Hinton (it has also been named Coalspur and Vista at different points, and is owned by Cline), and both Coal Valley and Grande Cache recently reopened after being shut down for some time. Coal Valley and Bighorn both produce 100% thermal coal, Grande Cache is mostly metallurgical.
I think most if not all BNSF coal trains go to Roberts Bank, I’m not sure if any currently go to Neptune. When coal prices were at their highest in the early 2010s we also had some Wyoming or Montana coal being shipped through Prince Rupert, initially those trains went via Vancouver but quickly switched to running through Alberta, with CP handling them between Coutts/Sweetgrass and Edmonton.
All three currently operating northeastern B.C. mines (all owned by Conuma) produce metallurgi
Thanks a lot for the update on where the coal is moving in Alberta and British Columbia. I continue to be amazed by the interchange of the coal trains at Kamloops, especially with directional running via both CP and CN west of there.
I know there is no love lost between CP and Teck, but did the switch have to do with CN having the access to North Vancouver via the Second Narrows Bridge? CP’s system map shows trackage rights to North Vancouver (and to the ex-BCOL beyond there), but I am skeptical.
I would imagine indeed that CN is racking up the Horsepower Hours owed to CP. Given the track layout in Kamloops, the yard would be an awkward location to swap power on Vancouver trains - and even more so with distributed power in three locations on the train. The Prince Rupert trains would go through the Kamloops yard, so I wonder if power might be more likely to be modified on those trains. And, Prince Rupert is a lot longer trip from Kamloops than is Vancouver. That’s a long time for the CP power to be offline. But the bigger problem with CP is - depending on the number of trains in that lane - that CP is a small railroad and just doesn’t have the fleet to have too many of its locomotives offline for long periods of time. I know that was the case for CP grain trains delivered to BNSF at Coutts or New Westminster going to California; they just couldn’t spare them for the week or better until the train returned empty.
Is the added coal traffic over the Fraser River Bridge at New Westminster for Neptune noticeably adding to congestion in the Vancouver terminal?