I’m doing research for a Trains article on Class I railroads’ operation of crushed rock trains between quarries and distribution facilities. The railroads themselves have been quite helpful in providing a general overview of the business. But they are understandably tight-lipped about specific movements, and that’s where I hope to get some help from members of this forum.
Here’s my question: can you help me by identifying specific movements of crushed rock in your part of the U.S. or Canada by the major rail carriers (BNSF, CN, CP, CSX, KCS, NS, and UP)?
The kind of information I’m looking for is pretty basic: railroad, origin, destination, and car type (e.g, open-top hopper, gondola, specialized aggregate car, etc.). Of course, any other operational info you can provide such as frequency, train length, etc., will be very helpful, too! And even if you have only partial information (like origin, but not destination), please send it along.
As I go forward with this project, I’ll be contacting some of the major shippers in this market such as Vulcan, Martin Marietta Materials, Hansen, Graniterock, etc. But it’s always good to have a some specific information in hand before making those kinds of calls.
I believe CN is continuing the aggregate trains started by the Wisconsin Central from quarries in Cedar Lake (Slinger) and Sussex, WI, to two Vulcan yards in Lake Villa and Grayslake, IL, and to a concrete yard in Mundelein, IL, using ex-CN Great Slave Lake ore cars.
About three weeks ago I was stopped by a BNSF Ballast train at Mulvane (Ks.) on BNSF(Ark City Sub and El Dorado subs run together at this point). The the train was NB on the Ark City Sub.
As I came back I noticed it was sitting stopped just north of the old ATSF Station (now muse About um) at Mulvane. I was composed of blocks of Ballast Hoppers with GREX markings. There were blocks of self unloading bottom dumper cars(10 to 15 cars in block), and between each pair of Blocks was car equipped with an unloading conveyor apparatus on the car.
[Here are link showing the types of conveyor cars and what the ballast hoppers looked like coupled to it.]
The next day the train was gone but the train had deposited a pile of ballast that was huge. in an area adjacent to the tracks used for railroad maintenance activity. [ At a guess the piles are about 100yds long and close to 20 to 21 ft tall and 25 to 30 ft at the base(?)] It was an awful lot of ballast, but there are also a number of signal masts as well, to b
The Dakota and Iowa Railroad moves rock trains daily between the loading point of Dell Rapids, SD and the interchange point of Sioux City, IA. This is former Milwaukee Road trackage. The D&I is owned by LG Everist.
UP runs the Vulcan Materials ‘rock’ train that hauls material to their Sun Valley, CA facility from (I believe) Littlerock, CA.
The Robertson’s Ready Mix facility in Gardena, CA regularly receives UP run trains from their quarry in Cabazon, CA. Very impressive to see this heavy train on a old ex-Pacific Electric branch line.
The UP runs Vulcan rock trains between Racine WI and Upton Il. Crew goes on duty at Bain, WI about 2pm, takes empty train thru Kenosha to the UP’s Kenosha sub then heads north to Racine where they exchange thier empties for loads and return to Kenosha and head west to the UP’s Milwaukee sub, where they head south to Upton. There is a loading/sorting facility at bain, but it does not seem to be used much lately except for storing extra cars.
This is a photo of the Rock train heading north to Bain just after they got new hoppers. Photo taken at hwy 165 in Pleasant Prairie.
In many places carrier use of the aggregates produced at a quarry exceed any commercial use that is moved by rail. Many on line quarry’s main commercial sales are transported in trucks.
It sounds like you are wanting dedicated “rock trains”. Not sure if these are running or not, but here are a few “movements” in the area:
CSX has run rock trains from the quarry at Thornton, Il. in the past. Not sure about current operations.
NS has run rock trains from the Wabash line near Lafayette to near Goshen, In area in the past.
There is a quarry near Hercsher, Il (west of Kankakee on the CN).
EJE used to run rock from near Joliet to Waukegan area…not sure about origin/destination and the current operations. This is CN now.
An interesting side bar would be the quarries near Monon, In. While those do not have rock trains, the owner years ago sold his quarries and used to proceeds to open the Monon Connection rail museum north of Monon. This is an outstanding private collection of railroad “stuff” ranging from cars and cranes to timetables, calendars, china, locks, lanterns, etc.
CP and Herzog run rock trains to the Trap Rock Quarry in Dresser, Wisconsin. Trains run from March through December from the junction with CP in Withrow, MN along the CN Dresser Subdivision (Ex WC and Soo Subdivision). The trains usually are 40 to 50 cars with many of these trains being the solar powered remote control dump cars. Power is usually 3 CP SD-40’s with a CP caboose at the end for backing moves. The schedule varies with the empties showing up early morning at Dresser and loaded by 11 AM. They then head back to Withrow, MN.
One of the challenges is that the speed limit on the subdivsion was reduced to 10 MPH from 25 MPH last year. This means the trip from MP 27 at Withrow, MN to MP 47 at Dresser, WI is two hours and often now requires re-crewing the train in the middle of the day before the loaded trip heads back west.
Also I believe the Winchester & Western has (had ?) a rock train operation of some kind, though it may have been to feed a cement plant. Or maybe a clay or kaolinite shuttle to a brick or some other kind of factory ???
"New Hampshire has five locally-based shortline operators (tourist rails excluded). The New Hampshire Central (NHCR) is the northernmost, handling chiefly aggregates and – shortly – Dirigo’s paper, connecting with the SLR in Groveton. New Hampshire Northcoast (NHN) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boston Sand & Gravel, operates in the southwest quadrant of NH, and links up with GRS north of Portland. New England Southern (NEGS) handles a mixed bag of commodities from anhydrous ammonia fertilizer to lumber, connecting with Guilford in Manchester.
Finally, the Claremont-Concord (CCRR) operates a cement transload on state rail property in West Lebanon, connecting with the NEC at Concord Jct. And the Milford- Bennington (MBRX) runs several stone trains a day to the B&M connection at Milford. Kit Morgan, head of the NH DOT Rail Division, notes that the quarry MBRX serves would not be allowed to operate without rail access, due to local restrictions on heavy trucking."
Thanks very much for all the information you’ve provided. In response to your first post, I located a copy of Kneiling’s article, “How to Make Money Hauling Gravel.” It will be very helpful!
In response to your question about whether I’m interested in moves like W&W’s, I should clarify what I’m focused on for the upcoming Trains article. I’m trying to limit the article to Class I railroad operators only (BNSF, CN, CP, CSX, KCS, NS, UP). The reason is that the Class I roads face challenges that the smaller roads don’t necessarily have to deal with, including line capacity; competition from other high-return projects for scarce capital dollars; and labor agreements.
And as for commodities, I am interested in crushed rock, the type of thing used for road projects and other construction purposes. So clay or kaolin would be outside the scope of this project.
As several of the responses on this thread have indicated, there are quite a few regional and short line railroad rock train operations, and in fact this kind of business is almost ideal for those smaller railroads depending on whether they have on-line sources as well as the geographic reach to get the material to a user facility such as a distribution yard or cement plant.
Again thanks to you (and all the other responders thus far) for being so generous with information on this topic. Please keep those notes and letters coming!
In my travels, I’ve seen a large amount of rock moved out of the Martin Marietta quarry in San Antonio by rail.
The old GN quarry in Waite Park MN (near St Cloud) ships by rail and also supplies ballast to BNSF over a major part of the eastern half of their system.
CN regularly ships ballast made from crushed taconite poor rock from the Virginia MN area all over the central part of their system. I’ve heard of moves as far away as lower Michigan and Winnepeg.
CN also ships blast furnace trim (crushed taconite) from Minntac and other mines in Minnesota to Two Harbors for distribution on the Great Lakes.
In the Michigan UP, CN ships crushed limestone and dolomite from near Gulliver MI to the Empire Mine near Palmer MI.
Although far from where I live in New England, I found an interesting video online explaining a major aggregates-by-rail operation involving Canadian National and a large Paving Contractor and Construction Materials Producer located in Alberta, Canada.
The video explains the operation, the Construction firm owns the trainsets of purpose constructed Bottom Dump Hoppers which CN hauls between a major quarry in the North and an unloading site the Edmonton area.
OK, Tom, I believe I now understand better what you’re after. And you’re quite welcome !
The Reading & Northern move involves/ involved NS as well as W&W. Here’s an excerpt from the “Reading & Northern Railroad History” webpage - http://www.readingnorthern.com/history.html :
"Evidence of our customer focus became clear to all when, in 2002, rail industry publication Railway Age chose the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad as Regional Railroad of the Year. We won the award by creating an innovative sand/stone backhaul move that involved three railroads. With Norfolk Southern in the middle we worked with another shortline, the Winchester & Western, to put together a truck competitive move that took thousands of trucks off the highway."
Maybe more later.
Paul North.
P.S. (about 1 hour later): Probably the Sept. 2002 issue. Here are links to an article about it, and an excerpt:
Railway Age magazine has named Bridgeton, N.J.-based Winchester & Western Railroad, as Short Line Railroad of the YearThe Short Line Railroad of the Year is an annual award presented to No
