Hi everyone I got to take a group up to the new Oak Creek Power Plant today and it was really cool. Because I learned that they have added 15miles of new rail track between 5mile road and the plant The tracks are long enough to hold two 135 cars coal trains two on the inbound tracks and two on the outbound tracks. Also they a building where the trains can pull into and the coal can be dumped. And it takes only 3 minutes per car from the time it goes in to the time it’s dumped. Also I saw UP engine 705 sitting by the plant. Question though what does (UPY) stand for. But anywho I think it was really cool to see that up close today.
A UP locomotive with UPY reporting marks is a yard engine. Using the added reporting mark helps UP keep its 8000 or more locomotives in recognizable groups while staying within four digits for their numbers.
UPY 705 is a GP15-1.
If Oak Creek becomes as busy as Pleasant Prairie, we’ll be getting a few extra coal trains through here. And if commuter trains are added to the mix on the line past there, it will really become exciting!
(I understand that KRL 163200 has been relieved of its load, but is still in Oak Creek.)
I toured the Oak Creek plant years ago during a Chicago & North Western Historical Society convention in Milwaukee. We were in the building when the rotary dumper turned a coal gon upside down and dumped the contents into the pit. What a sound and sight!
Dave Nelson
Does anyone have pictures or a video of a rotary car dumper in action?
This is a model train version, and it is ore not coal. but this captures the general idea (and great modeling!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urzr5x2498U
And astoundingly enough, Thomas Edison made this wonderful piece of film in 1897!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3ktsY6TFc
Dave Nelson
[tup]