Reading & Northern To Run Export Coal Train

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

According to an article in Railroad And Railfan Magazine The Reading & Northern will be purchasing 100 second hand aluminum hoppers for an export anthricite coal train. The cars will run as a unit train to the Port Of Baltimore. Cars will be in the RBNM 7600 series. No mention of where the cars are being purchased from or where the caal min is.

My assumption is that it is coming from northern Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, which is where the anthricite coal mines are. and is served by the Reading And Northern. Any furthur news will be posted as I get it.

2

Traditionally, a lot of those R&N anthracite coal moves then went by ship to Quebec Iron & Titanium plants NE of Quebec city in Quebec Province. This might be for more of same - or perhaps that metallurgical grade coal will be going overseas instead to fuel the primary metals operations of one of the’emerging markets’ countries such as China, India, etc. - which would make a lot more sense.

  • Paul North.
3

According to the article, these shipments will be going to the Port of Baltimre for export, which to me means it will be going to a foreign country, such as China.

4

Canada isn’t a foreign country?

5

Right - some Canadians might not like that implication,either - and even if that’s true of most of the Great White North, Quebec surely qualifies as one, ne c’est pas ?

  • Paul North.
6

If this coal was going to Canada, it would move north by train, NOT to the Port Of Baltimore!!!.

7

RBMN already ships coal to the port of Baltimore. And they use QIT hoppers to do it. I heard it was going to the ports to be loaded on a ship to go to Quebec…

8

Actually, yes it would, screwy as that seems - hence my first post above. For a while it was loaded out at Philly, I believe, but that ended some years ago. I’ll see if I can find a link or something with more info . . .

  • Paul North.
9

The reason that the coal is going by ship is that the QI&T is not connected to the Canadian rail network. All railcars and locomotives are brought in by railferry.

10

I wonder why QIT then doesn’t either:

  • Bring the hopper cars in by that rail ferry, unload them, and ship them out the same way; or,

  • More practically, load the coal at the Pennsylvania mine/ breaker - “New St. Nick”, I believe it is - in either dump trailers or assigned-service containers, and load those as intermodal railcars. At the plant, then transfer them to either the road or a container chassis that can also dump, and unload them that way. If I recall correctly, that plant gets between 25,000 and 40,000 tons of coal a year, which is 500 to 800 tons a week or so = 75 to 115 tons per day on average, which is from 4 to 5 or 6 truckloads per day - certainly do-able at any intermodal yard, or with a single straddle crane or PiggyPacker and a single truck tractor and driver assigned to that service.

  • Paul North.

11

The railferry is on a monthly schedule, the ship has a regular daily route across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but makes a trip to each of the isolated rail operations once a month. (QI&T, QCM, and QNS&L). IIRC its regular route is Trois Riveres to Matane, PQ. So the plant gets a shipload of coal a few times per year, and the output also leaves by bulk freighter.

12

For example:

  • Reading & Northern has a direct interchange with CP at Taylor yard, a couple miles southwest of Scranton, PA - see:

http://www.readingnorthern.com/map.shtml

  • CP could then run the intermodal cars w/ containers directly north over its D&H subsidiary via Binghamton, Albany, and Rouses Point to the Montreal area. There, the cars could be transferred to CP rails and thence to its existing Lachine Intermodal Terminal - see:

http://www8.cpr.ca/cms/English/Customers/Existing+Customers/Facilities/Intermodal/Lachine+Intermodal+Terminal+.htm?Pro=Intermodal

  • From there, it’s about 65 miles and 1 hr. 15 mins. each way to the QIT plant at Sorel-Tracy, Quebec - see:

http://www.qit.com/eng/profil/sorel_tracy.html

  • The containers of anthracite coal - up to 40 ft. long to maximize volume per vehicle - could be end-dumped, using a 40 ft. Dump Container Chassis such as this one:

http://www.tradekorea.com/e-catalogue/hantrl/product-detail/P00011009/40ft%20Dump%20Container%20Chassis.html

I wonder if anyone ever seriously considered this method, and / or why it wasn’t selected. I believe it would be cost competitive with the long ship haul, and would not require a lot of specialized capital investment.

  • Paul North.
13

Paul,

If I am reading the other posts correctly the boat service is also in place. That means the dock and capital equipment needed to unload the ship are in place and paid for. Intermodal drays are frightfully expensive as a matter of course. I suspect intermodal can not undercut the low cost of in place maritime terminal facilities.

Mac

14

If as stated above the total coal recieved is between 25000 and 40000 tons per year. Why is Reading and Northern buying 100 100 ton cars. thats 10000 ton capacity. The article stated that these cars were going to be used in unit trains service… It is a waste of money for the railroad to buy so many cars for such a small customer. I still think the coal is being shipped overseas NOT to Canada.

15

Good point. I was already thinking about that anyway - note that I’m still relying on my memory, too, so . . . [:-^] - but I’m now recalling that those 25,000 - 40,000 ton shipments are called ‘campaigns’ by the R&N - and that seems to me to be about the right size or amount for a small to medium-size self-unloading ship that woUld be used for this kind of service. So it may be that whenever QIT chartered a ship to replenish its coal stockpile, that’s when R&N would schedule a ‘campaign’ of 3 to 5 trains or so. Also, that quantity seems too small for a plant of QIT’s size, per the link above. So I’m now thinking that there may be several ‘campaigns’ a year - i’mguessing at somewhere in the 4 to 10 range - but not often enough for the R&N to make it a regularly scheduled move, or to keep an inventory stockpile at Baltimore. I also recall that from time to time in the past QIT was buying cheaper coal elsewhere, and that it was good news in the coal regions when they came back to R&N, so it’s not an assured deal or constant flow, either.

Mac - you’re right, there’s nothing as cheap as tools that are already bought and paid for. And you’re also right about the dray costs - it seems as soon as a container is involved, the rates skyrocket . . . I looked - there’s presently not an established intermodal terminal closer than CP’s at Montreal, not even on CN. So a more economical alternative would have to involve yet another interchange - from CP to CN - and then on to Quebec. There, a transload for the coal would have to be established, at either one of the several existing warehouses/ distributino centers/ yards, or a new one set up, to keep the dray down to handful of miles. It would have to be fairly low-tech - no rotary dumpers can be afforded - so a straddle crane or PiggyPacker would be OK. With the haul down to a couple of miles, a ‘captive’ truck and driver from the plant could be used - might be capable of

16

[quote user=“Paul_D_North_Jr”]

Good point. I was already thinking about that anyway - note that I’m still relying on my memory, too, so . . . - but I’m now recalling that those 25,000 - 40,000 ton shipments are called ‘campaigns’ by the R&N - and that seems to me to be about the right size or amount for a small to medium-size self-unloading ship that woUld be used for this kind of service. So it may be that whenever QIT chartered a ship to replenish its coal stockpile, that’s when R&N would schedule a ‘campaign’ of 3 to 5 trains or so. Also, that quantity seems too small for a plant of QIT’s size, per the link above. So I’m now thinking that there may be several ‘campaigns’ a year - i’mguessing at somewhere in the 4 to 10 range - but not often enough for the R&N to make it a regularly scheduled move, or to keep an inventory stockpile at Baltimore. I also recall that from time to time in the past QIT was buying cheaper coal elsewhere, and that it was good news in the coal regions when they came back to R&N, so it’s not an assured deal or constant flow, either.

Mac - you’re right, there’s nothing as cheap as tools that are already bought and paid for. And you’re also right about the dray costs - it seems as soon as a container is involved, the rates skyrocket . . . I looked - there’s presently not an established intermodal terminal closer than CP’s at Montreal, not even on CN. So a more economical alternative would have to involve yet another interchange - from CP to CN - and then on to Quebec. There, a transload for the coal would have to be established, at either one of the several existing warehouses/ distributino centers/ yards, or a new one set up, to keep the dray down to handful of miles. It would have to be fairly low-tech - no rotary dumpers can be afforded - so a straddle crane or PiggyPacker would be OK. With the haul down t

17

It’s only one train of 2nd hand cars. Can’t exactly ship a lot of coal using one train - esp when it has to go the whole way to Baltimore and back.

18

Do you suppose John Kneilling is spinning in his grave?

19

Zug:

That train of 100 one hundred ton cars is ten thousand tons of coal. That is a lot of coal for the short haul from Reading , Pennsylvania to Baltimore. it is almost a straight run down the Susquhanna river over the old Pennsylvania line from Harrisburg which is a multi track line.

20

Where do I start ?

rrboomer - Yes, I’m sure he is, though I’m trying to slow down his rate of rotation . . .

igoldberg - The Coumbia & Port Deposit/ “Port Road” branch from Harrisburg south to Perryville is mostly single track with passing sidings, and has been that way for many years (though it may have been double-tracked once, such as when it was electrified).

Everyone - I went to “the horse’s mouth” and learned quite a bit from the R&N’s employee magazine - “R&N News” - for Summer 2010, Vol. 12, Issue 3 (16 pgs., approx. 2.3 MB in size), at this link:

http://www.readingnorthern.com/news/rbmn_summer10.pdf

In brief, it seems that like the parable of the 3 blind guys grabbing different parts of a camel and coming away with different impressions, most of us are right about some things, and ‘off-base’ on others. I especially recommend reading the several articles by different officials on pgs. 3 and 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11, and the photos on 8 - 9. beaulieu, I was surprised to see that large quantities of anthracite are being shipped back up to your neck of the woods - to a Mesabi Nugget plant in Michigan, apparently.

Note that the page layout is odd, like it would be if you unbound the magazine and organized the pages from top to bottom, something like this:

Back Cover [16] - Front Cover [1]

2 - 15

14 - 3

4 - 13

12 - 5

6 - 11

10 - 7

8 - 9

See also the Summer 2007 “R&N News”, Vol. 9, Issue 3 (16 pgs., approx. 2.9 MB in size), i.e., the 2 articles on pages 3 - 4 and 7 - 11 (same odd page layout as note