Hello All,
A friend and I are planning a trip out to Colorado’s Western Slope to photograph Uncle Pete and the coal mining operations out that way. I was wondering if there’s a good source of information about the area (good places to shoot and such) and/or about the operations out that way.
Any and all help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Hi, Chris -
At the risk of telling you something you probably already know - [:I]
Check out - thoroughly - Kevin Morgan’s “ColoradoRailFan” website, esp. the “Data” section, at:
http://www.coloradorailfan.com/data/data.asp
Most of the site is devoted to Denver and the Front Range/ East Slope side, but if you look at the “Maps” section - esp. the page for the J"anuary 2006 Map of the Month" of the Glenwood Springs area - he has a list of links to about a dozen detailed maps of other places, such as Granby, Bond, etc. Also the Siding Gallery page has data on many of the same places.
Good luck - look forward to seeing your photos !
Chris:
If this can wait until next week, call me then. (Hint: BlackBridge Road east of Paonia where the R/W gets really narrow and also the west side of Hotchkiss coming into town…the issue will be if they are moving fleets of coal trains in TWC dark territory in there/ feast or famine in terms of train movements over time)
Otherwise - Take CO-133 west out of Carbondale south of Glenwood and head for Delta/Hotchkiss/Paonia…when you get to the bottom of McClure Pass on the west side at Sommerset, you just hit the North Fork Branch and its 3 of 4 working coal mines…The country goes from narrow canyon vinyards and orchards to wide open empty desert by the time you get to Delta.
(By the time you get through Glenwood Canyon and along the Carbondale-Marble route of the Crystal River RR [CF&I’s Chas. Osgood’s railroad, Redstone Castle, coking ovens, etc.]you may never get to Delta[swg]) - Check and see thru CDOT if McClure is open with all that white moisture over there.
Mud at Tacoma
Paul - I do have Kevin’s site bookmarked, but thanks for the link!
MC - The trip isn’t going to be until May, so I’ll give you a call when you’re back in town. Thanks for the info you’ve posted!
Rail-served mines in western Colorado, loading station, and approximate frequency of trains (assuming everything goes into a 105-car unit train, holding 12,810 tons, and using 2006 mine output numbers):
North Fork Branch Mines:
Craig Branch Mines:
Some of the Colowyo production and possibly some of the Foidel Creek production moves to the Craig Station in shuttle trains, and some will by next year move to the Hayden Station in shuttle trains (but not this year). So the Colowyo numbers are more like 350-360 outbound 105-car trains per year.
If you’re the kind of person who likes to take a lot of photos, it’s possible on the North Fork and Montrose Branches to get a photo of an inbound train at Bridgeport or Roubideaux, and catch up to it somewhere around Rogers Mesa, then hop and skip with the train all the way up to the mine – assuming you don’t want to have the time to figure out what you’re doing at each location. Reverse, same thing. On the Craig Branch, if you want to beat the train into Rock Creek Canyon, you’d best leave it behind at Phippsburg and run for the loops. If you shoot all the way up from Phippsburg to Toponas, you’ll be able to beat the train to Crater, but just barely. I havent’ been up there in a while, but generally the North Fork and Craig mines like to load in daylight, meaning the trains are inbound in the early morning, outbound in the late afternoon. Which is fairly ideal when the days are long, but not so good in the short days.
RWM
RWM,
Thanks for the great information!
By the way, I’m curious: How does the loading operation work?
All of these mines load a train in one continuous process, no switching or breaking up the train. Axial and Foidel Creek both have loops and the train pulls in, takes a couple hours to go through the loadout, and leaves. No muss no fuss unless there’s overloads, in which case a wheel loader trims the cars.
I have never seen how Bowie does it, but I expect it’s identical to West Elk and Elk Mountain. There’s not enough room in the canyon for a loop, so the operation consists of a long siding opening to the main on each end. Either before or after the train loads, the power runs around the train to the other end. The power pulls the train through, it doesn’t push it.
RWM
Thanks, RWM. How fast do they travel while loading?
The best possible rate at most of these mines is about 5,000 tons per hour, which equates to 45 feet per minute (or 2.5 hours for a 105 car train). But total loading time can be much slower than ideal rate because the recharge rate (coal into the silo from the live storage) can be much less. Coal mines don’t usually have more than a day or two worth of live storage capacity, and often run short and must wait for more to emerge from the mine. Also, problems with gates, scales, conveyors, etc., are not unusual.
I believe all of these mines use either flood loading with belt scales or batch loading with batch weighing.
Some of the PRB mines can load 12,000 tons per hour.
RWM