I apologize if this was answered the first time and I missed it.
Saw a westbound MT coal train - BNSF - with 8 tanker cars behind the motors.
The tankers were all BNSF or ATSF stock and one opening tops. (Sorry BC - they were passed me before I got a #)
Why would a coal train be hauling tankers back to the coal fields? No placards on the tankers - very non-descript!
Mookie
mookie
the tankers could be used to haul water for the engines or fuel for the engines in the coal fields.
stay safe
Joe
Mookie,
Most of the tank cars BNSF owns and labels with their logo, both the old ATSF and the New BNSF, are used to haul diesel out to engine terminals.
There are no major fuel suppliers out in the desert or in the coal fields, so they carry their own fuel out to the service terminals.
We load out and ship entire trains of nothing but BNSF tanks for points west where they have the same problem, no one to buy fuel from for the locomotives.
Most fuel distributors will not send a fuel truck that far out, no money in it for them, so BNSF hauls it own.
Ed
Ah - thank you!
Mooks: WB tanks are diesel fuel headed for the fuel racks at Crawford, NE at the base of Crawford Hill. (Alliance sits on top of a major Conoco Phillips pipeline that comes north out of Denver.
My apologies to Mookie for getting slightly off-topic:
Whatever became of the company service tank cars that BN modified to serve as fuel tenders? And, when was the use of fuel tenders discontinued?
Fuel tenders are still used in one single spot, the Crawford Hill helpers in NW Nebraska.
I was wonderng about that myself when I saw a similar arrangement when Lynda and I were in West Texas last week on vacation. Been missing hearing from you Mookie, Good to hear from you again. PL
Thanx PL - just have to dig and find something that I can question to death.
Went home and mulled this over - and now I would like to know - can someone give me a short overview of how railroads get their diesel fuel?
I know - a refinery and pipes. We have fueling stations in our yard. The diesel is piped in from probably a holding tank. I think. But how do railroads “buy” the gas - is it on a lowest bid basis, is it a contract for many years, and is any of it hauled to outlying fuel stations by tanker, rather than pipeline?
Who’s in charge of saying the locomotive needs fuel and if you run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere, besides a gnawing sensation on the person responsibles backside, do they refuel you from a truck?
Sorry if I sound simple, but a gas pump is my closest contact with fuel.
Mook
Mook - It wasn’t the locomotive, but the generator in the cafe car, but… When I rode the Adirondack this fall there was a local fuel truck waiting one time when the train pulled into Saranac Lake. He had to refuel the generator on the cafe car. He was a tad confused - he’d apparently never had that assignment before. Inasmuch as that link of the Adirondack is operationally isolated (it’s a long run back to any other RR facility), I’d imagine they fill the locomotives the same way.
Well,
Yes, yes, sometimes.
We buy our fuel from Trans Eastern, and Costal Fuel.
Once a month, TE sends a gasoline tanker to fill the holding tank for our scooters, trucks and company cars.
Costal fills our diesel tank about once a week.
Most of the time, you have a fuel purchase contract, good for a few years at a time.
Both BNSF and UP have their own contracts and fueling platforms in their respective yards here, but every once in a while, one of their locomotives needs to be gassed up over here at the PTRA.
The contract for that is let to a local fuel distributor, who has a small fuel truck, and runs out to our tie up track, or where ever the locomotive is, and fills it up.
Works pretty much the same way out in the sticks…if a locomotive needs fuel, that railroads power desk contacts a local fuel distributor to go and fill it.
It is fairly easy to do, almost as easy as filling your car with gas from a pump.
Of course, some places there are no local distributors, so you have BNSF’s solution, haul you own.
But it is rare they run out on the road, depending on the railroad, the conductor or engineer is responsible for checking the fuel readings and calling them in at the end of shift, so the power desk knows which locomotives needs to be fueled next stop.
They keep track of the hours the locomotive has run, average fuel consumption, and, with the numbers called in by the crew, decide which locomotive needs fueling and when.
Of course, the engineer or crew look at the gauges anyway, before they take the locomotive out, just to be sure, but the responsibility for service on the locomotive is the power desks.
Again, most yards have a contract with a local fuel distributor to fuel locomotives…imagine if a locomotive is at the east end of a yard, and it will takes several hours to get hostlers to move it through the yard and to the tie up or service track…or, you can
I once witnessed a refueling of a westbound freight taking place at a grade crossing on the UP main here on the southwest side of town… truck driver had to pull into a commercial property’s parking lot to get close enough to the engine. Someone obviously screwed up on that one!
Sometimes these moves are planned…it is easier to gas up out there than in the yard…for the same reason, time.
If it will take half a shift to ready the locomotive fuel wise…or you can put it in a consist and gas it up on the way, most opt for the fill up out in the country.
Ed