Never thought of this before [:P]
My area of interest is Chicago - which I guess is greatly influenced by Lake traffic - but it has suddenly occured to me to wonder about coal traffic accross the Canadian border… in either direction?
Any information anyone please?
Thanks
[:P]
Dave, there’s some discussion HERE on the subject.
My homeroad, the TH&B in Hamilton, Ontario brought coal in from Ashtabula, Ohio to Port Maitland, Ontario, but I’m not sure if it was on their carfloat Maitland 1 or via regular lake boats. I don’t have my reference books at hand, but it was most likely coking coal for the steel plants at Hamilton.
I recall seeing northeastern U.S. hoppers regularly, though, and the coal dealers advertised most of the popular brands - Reading Anthracite, Blue Coal, etc.
Wayne
I see CN freights daily going through the Port Huron/Sarnia Tunnel, and have never seen a coal hopper on any of the trains. I see mostly intermodal going to Chicago, and most of the commodities into the US are petrochemicals, newprint, lumber and metal. I also see a lot of empty grain cars, and a few empty reefers.
Don;t know much about the past, but today most coal on the lakes is by ship.
One thing to remember is the direction coal travelled has changed over time. In the steam era, coal generally came from the east (West Virginia, Pennsylvania etc.). Since the 1980’s coal has largely come from the west, mainly the Powder River basin along the Wyoming / South Dakota border. So for example 75 years ago the port of Duluth/Superior was a major port for receiving coal by boat from the east. From there the coal would be shipped by rail to the Twin Cities and other areas. Today, Duluth/Superior is a major loading port for western coal being shipped out by boat. Coal trains arrive from Wyoming and the coal is transloaded to ships to be taken east. Even some power plants in eastern coal country use Powder River coal because it burns cleaner and so makes it easier for them to meet pollution control standards.
Anyway, I’m sure as has been noted that eastern US coal going into Canada would have been common in the steam era. Today I imagine western US coal goes to Canada too, but I’m not sure how it would get there. Certainly it could travel by rail from Wyoming to the large Canadian cities like Toronto and Montreal, but it could go much of the way by lake boat too I suppose.
I don’t know of any situation where US coal is brought into Canada for power generation. Coal power also does not make up as much of a percentage of our generating capacity either. 60% of all electricity generated in Canada is hydro-electric; in some provinces it’s over 95% of electricity produced in that province.
A lot of coal is mined in western Canada in the Rocky Mountains. Some is exported to the US by rail, some is shipped to lakehead at Thunder Bay and the majority goes to the coal port at Roberts Bank (Vancouver) for shipment abroad.
The province of Ontario has only four coal generating plants in the entire province. Two near Thunder Bay which would be provided with western Canadian coal, and two in southern Ontario which are both located on the Great Lakes waterway and not rail served. Steel mills at Sault Ste Marie and Hamilton also get coal for coke production by ship, not rail.
Coal power plants in New Brunswick are served by locally mined coal.
In the days of steam, locomotive fuel and residential heating coal were imported from the US in large quantities, either reloaded into hopper cars at port facilities all along the Great Lakes or in cars from the US via car ferry or border crossings at Sarnia, Windsor, Niagara Falls or Fort Erie. But no power generation coal is imported from the US today (or at least not by rail).
Nope. BTW, there is nothing at all in Toronto that uses coal, any coal plants that did exist have been abandoned or demolished.
Existing coal plants (only 2) and steel mills in southern Ontario are all on the waterway and served by ship. That coal could be coming from western Canada or the western states, but it is never by rail.
I know the conversation is about the Great Lakes region, but we get these huge coal trains coming north from the U.S. crossing the border at Peace Arch. They go to the Roberts Bank Superport for export overseas. I always wondered from where in the U.S. they came from. Anyone know?
Brent
Powder River Basin would be my guess.
Wayne
Thanks Wayne. After reading up on it, you’re probably right.[tup]
Brent
Bessemer & Lake Erie used to ship West Virginia north in 100 ton batches. Barges came down the Mon River full of WV coal, shipped it to Conneaut OH, and was bound for points in Ontario I believe. Then those hoppers were loaded with ore from Minnesota to run back to the Mon Valley. Recently ended because of air quality standards improvements, so the Canadian power plants aren’t buying any more.