Recently I observed a BNSF coal train – the cars are owned by NRG - that appeared to be in route from Wyoming to Houston. The coal in each of the hopper cars looked like someone had smoothed it over with a shovel. I am guessing it was the work of the wind created by the forward movement of the train.
What percentage of coal would be blown away on a typical trip from Wyoming to south Texas? Would the loss be even over the length of the train?
Someone else will go into this in depth - but short answer - they spray the coal (think hair and hairspray) for the trip from the mine to the destination.
Don’t know about the answer to your question.
However, over several years (I don’t know how many) the Powder River joint line had serious ballast fouling from the fines coming from the loaded coal trains using the trackage. The fouling was so bad that the carriers formulated a requirment that the loading sites had to apply a solution to keep the fines from blowing off the loads.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/03/coal-train-dust-contained/3423667/
Don’t know where it was coming from, or where it was going to, but I saw a coal train passing EB through Utica, NY a couple years ago that was surrounded by a black cloud. Either it wasn’t sprayed, or the spray had worn off…
Perhaps the coal was beginning to decompose and spall off more fines. If I remember correctly a number of grades of PRB subbituminous are prone to this.
Even to an untrained eye, when coal trains are sprayed it really shows. My driver (yes it is my husband who won’t let me drive if he can help it) watched a small chunk of coal go by riding on the frame of the gon with no jiggle, no movement, just glued to the frame.
In addition to heaps of coal trains, there are also a lot of gravel and sand trains running running through Texas. The gravel at least is in open hopper cars. Would it too be sprayed?
You know that we are both novices at this, but we will visit until the big guys come in and take over. We have both sand and gravel thru here - sand is usually in a small covered hopper, for obvious reasons. Gravel, I can’t see into those gons like I can the coal, which is piled up in “loaves”. I don’t know of a time that coal would ever travel in a closed gon like sand.
A couple of things come to mind - coal trains are some of the longest trains that pass thru here besides mixed freight. You don’t want that much coal flapping in the breeze. Gravel is heavy enough to not be bothered by wind and they don’t fill it above the gon side like coal. Because of weight, they use a lower profile gon.
Sand - covered in a short, squatty hopper car.
There are really good reasons - like the risk of fire and explosion.
If you mean the top of the coal was flattened smooth and level, the oad out does that when loading the car, keeps wind resistance down along with mookies hair spray!
I have seen products designed as covers for coal hoppers that can be opened for loading and closed for the haul. They were alternatives to spraying the coal for dust suppression.
Most of the Coal trains that do come throug here are open gons, and do not seem to be blowing off any dust. The only trains that come thru here that are covered is apparently. the cattle feed, supplement train of which each car is tarped. [The one jeff h. mentioned in a post,recently.]
Cars used to haul bulk commodities are sized to fit the ‘specific gravity’ of the commodity and its need for protection from the elements.
Iron Ore - real heavy and shipped in the short wheel base ore jennys in iron or country (shipped in coal hoppers elsewhere and comes nowhere near filling the cube of the car - visually the car is empty, except for the compressed springs and all the creaking done when it is moved).
River run gravel is realtively heavy, but not as heavy as iron ore and thus gons have adequate cube and capacity to handle it.
Sand (now mostly frac sand) is relatively heavy and needs protection from the elements and gets shipped in small cube covered hoppers.
Coal hoppers are sized to handle coal.
Weight and size of commodity are the reason in the container world you have 20 foot, 40
In Australia the coal hoppers seem to have higher sides and they load them to a point with little or no amount above the sides…
Then there were “old school” cars…
I’d think that most gravel is pretty hard and not prone to fragmenting under constant jostling like coal would. To me, coal would be similar to a gondola full of powdered sugar doughnut balls. I think that would be pretty dusty, in a sense.
Send one of those down here, eh?
I certainly hope the signal closest to the lights is for the track that is closest to the lights - otherwise we have a big problem with the train that is right next to the signal - unless Green means Stop.
Could it mean “stop” to an Orangeman? [:)]
Balt, I saw that too
And risk losing you in a powdered sugar haze? Oh the humanities! [:O]