It was a 15 mile full-scale, all-robotic, electrified railroad (overhead catenary) built in the late 60’s, and owned by a utility in Ohio. It carried coal from mine to a conveyor belt leading to the power plant. There was an article in the March '79 issue of Trains about it. The engines even automatically sounded their horns at grade crossings.
Too bad. 30 years of season by season, year by year know-how that might/could have been leveraged.
Mark,
Did it really cease operations that recently? When I was last down there in the spring of '99 paying my last respects to Big Muskie, there were no signs of life on the rails, although we did find one of the electrics, one hopper and a switcher on the property. If memory serves, the story around here was that they stopped running in the early 90s, but perhaps they had a brief resurgence? I’ll have to dig out that issue. . . .
Scott Lothes
Cleveland, Ohio