Colorado may get more unit oil trains.
http://www.joc.com/class-i-railroads/‘pipeline-rail’-planned-colorado
Hmmmm, more oil trains eh? Canada is now started talks about a pipeline to the west Coast @ Kitimat, a start of 2 years of land negotiations and there is even talk mentioned of hauling oil to the port in oil unit trains.
This all coming about as many obstructions raised on the pipeline to the Southern U.S. although I believe this scenario has been talked about for years up here.
Gardendale RR in Texas has been shipping 106 loads to St. James, LA for a while now. Crude from the Eagle Ford formation. UP gets the long haul.
My mother’s hometown newspaper, The Brooks (Alberta) Bulletin, kind of jumped the gun and reported there is a new crude oil transloading facility being built at Tilley, AB east of Brooks, on the CP transcontinental line. When it is operational they expect to load 20 tank cars a day. That should generate one unit train a week.
The oil is coming down from Patricia, 20 miles north. If this had been announced 25 years ago that probably would have been enough to have kept the old Bassano Sub. through Patricia, open.
Technically, this is not official despite the picture in the paper showing Tonka Toys surfacing a loading area.
Bruce
CP has announced a new transloading project for undiluted heavy crude oil:
http://www.cpr.ca/en/news-and-media/news/Pages/oil-by-rail.aspx
The article answers several of the technical questions that came up in the now locked Pipeline vs. Truck thread.
I had wanted to post to that thread but my schedule didn’t permit it. One thing I did want to address was the distances involved. The line discussed in the article extends beyond the reach of CPR radio’s, and crews use public cell phone networks to contact dispatchers. As one poster on a Canadian RR forum noted; not only is it dark territory, it is quiet too!
Bruce
Bruce: Not sure if this is the same location you indicated? The names don’t seem to match, but it was on TRAINS Newswire on Groundhod Day ( Feb.2th).
‘‘Canadian Pacific opens crude oil trainload facility in Saskatchewan’’
FTA__:“…CALGARY, Alta. – Canadian Pacific announced today the company is now shipping crude oil from a new terminal near Lloydminster, Sask. NuStar Energy is using the site to ship undiluted heavy Canadian crude oil by rail…”__
FTA_:"…CP plans to expand it later this year as volumes increase. The Lloydminster terminal, operated by Torq Transloading, enables CP to transport oil to NuStar’s terminals in the Northeast U.S. and Gulf Coast. The transloading process involves the use of a specialized pump and closed loop hose system, which transfers the oil from trucks to railroad cars_…"
Sam, the story you quoted, and the story I posted in the link earlier today, are about the same project. Any differences would just be due to the rewrite by the TRAINS staff.
The project I mentioned on Jan 14 at Tilley, AB has been put on hold until contracts are signed. It turns out CP built the transloading facility at Tilley on spec, without an actual customer in hand. It’s not like there isn’t a terrific amount of conventional crude oil and Natural Gas in the area, so I doubt there will be much of a wait before there is another announcement.
Good for CP to see all this new activity.
Bruce