I got a chance to spend some time here, looking at maps http://trn.trains.com/Railroad%20Reference/Railroad%20Maps.aspx
Something that caught my eye was a map and text saying that 95% of Wyoming’s originating tonnage in 2005 was coal from the Powder River Basin. No mystery there. But, what makes up the other 5%? Coal from other parts of the state? Other minerals? Maybe some petroleum products from refineries like the one at Newcastle?
Short answer could certainly be anything that is shipped on rails.
Soda ash from the Green River area. That is good for several UP trains moving between the producers and Green River daily. Not a small volume, so that gives an idea of how overwhelming Powder River has become.
Becasue the coal volume is so enormous, it means the 5% is really quite large. Might I elaborate from Carl on that 5%:
Soda Ash – 11 million tons/year (that’s approximately 300 carloads per day) loaded at mine-refinery complexes in the Green River-Granger area) operated by FMC, General Chemical, OCI Wyoming and Solvay. A substantial amount goes to export via Portland, Oregon. Some soda ash is trucked to BNSF transloads at Riverton, Wyoming, and Ogden, Utah.
Coal, other mines. The Hanna Basin mines at Hanna ship went idle except as a mine-mouth producer after the PRB came on line in the 1970s. Significant volumes are shipped by rail from P&M’s Kemmerer Mine outside of Kemmerer and the Black Butte mine near Rock Springs.
Bentonite. Most of the U.S. supply of this clay (used in drilling mud, to coat paper, and construction) comes from mines in the far northwest corner of South Dakota and the northeast corner of Wyoming, near Colony. Wyoming produces nearly 5 million tons per year, or more than 150 carloads per day.
Phos
RWM,
Thanks for the info!
A comment on Helium: While the tonnage may not be all that much compared to the other commodities mentioned (e.g. 11 million tons/year for soda ash is significant traffic), but the world is using more Helium than what’s being produced.
Is helium shipped as a liquid, or under high pressure? Otherwise a full tankcar would weigh less than an empty car (full of air), wouldn’t it?
Assume that WY’s crude oil is refined in-state?
According to the EIA, Wyoming’s crude oil production was an average of 140,638 BPD and the total refining capacity is 166,100 BPD (3,600 BPD of which is idle).
RWM, thanks much for that very detailed and informative little dissertation. It’s a little surprising to see (summarized so well) how much serious and necessary fundamantal industrial economic activity is going on there comparatively unnoticed - “off the radar screen”. Nevertheless, it’s probably a good thing to have it - keeps people employed and businesses going, because other sectors of the economy are not doing well at all.
Others already mentioned the possible weight anomaly of cars loaded with helium, so I’ll let that pass . . . . [swg]
Wyoming’s refineries are legacy constructions for fields many of which are long ago depleted, and the production locations are no longer co-located with the refineries as neatly as was the case when the refineries were constructed. And as is common in the Rocky Mountain states there is not a complete pipeline network lacing together all the refineries and production districts, but rather a few purpose-built pipelines designed to carry oil from certain fields to certain refineries. Most of the oil produced in Wyoming at present occurs in the Overthrust Belt in southwestern Wyoming. Most of that crude is transported by pipeline to the several refineries in the North Salt Lake City-Woods Cross area. And similarly, much of the oil being refined in the eastern Wyoming refineries is produced in the Denver Basin or North Dakota. Wyoming has always been a net crude exporter because its demand for refined petroleum is much less than its production capabilities. The pipeline from southwestern Wyoming to Salt Lake City dates to the 1920s (I think that’s right, but I’d have to go look up that date to be sure – it might be the 1930s.)
RWM
My understanding is that the helium is shipped under pressure on a car loaded with pressure vessels. This probably has the worst cargo to tare ratio of any freight car, but it is cheaper than trying to liquify the stuff. This is one commodity where carloads is a much better indicator of potential revenue than tonnage.
I noticed in those EIA statistics that in 1981 Wyoming’s crude oil production was about 2.54 times that of last year’s production.
The decline is mostly due to exhaustion of primary recovery oil in the Salt Creek and Monel fields at Midwest (north of Casper), the field associated with the Teapot Dome scandal that sullied the Harding Administration. CO2 flooding has enabled continued production. More than 700 million barrels of light sweet crude have been extracted from the field, with an estimated 1 billion barrels still in the ground.
In 1970 Wyoming was producing about 160 million barrels a year. Now it’s about 60 mmb/year,
RWM
I had forgoten about bentonite shipping out of Colony. In fact, I had forgotten it was even in Wyoming, seeing how it’s just a little west of Belle Fourche, S.D. and all that traffic goes on the CP line to Chadron, Nebraska.
Is there any ag related traffic shipping out of Wyoming? If you’re not familiar with Wyoming, it’s dry, dry, dry. There is a lot of cattle grazinf, but I don’t know if I’ve seen any crops there.
A rule of thumb about Wyoming: ranching is generally west of I-25 while farming is east of the interstate.
Along the North Platte River are many irrigated farms that produce sugar beets. There’s a sugar beet refinery in South Torrington (near the Nebraska border) that may still accept inbound shipments of coal and also load covered hoppers with outbound product. U.P. serves this facility.
I should think that the BNSF’s mainline connecting Wendover, Wyo.; Scottsbluff, Nebr.; and points east would have some grain elevators along the way.
Egbert, Wyo. has a Pillsbury elevator that buys hard red winter wheat grown in Wyoming. It’s along The Overland Route mainline near the Nebraska border.
At one time Big Horn Lumber in Laramie was a pretty steady shipper of wood chips, a raw product used by the paper-making industry. Recently, though, that source of traffic has pretty well dried up.
On occasion BNSF has run a unit molten sulphur train from somewhere around Shoshoni, in central Wyoming, to Beaumont, Tex.
Kind of surprised RJ/ miniwyo hasn’t posted anything to this thread. I’ll drop him a line to see how he’s doing, and if he’s seen this one … .
Murphy,
Wyoming ranked 6th nationwide in Barley production, and most of it is centered in Northern Wyoming in the vicinity of Powell and Ralston. Starting at the end of July every year there is a short “rush” of barley loading on BNSF’s Cody branch. Wyoming raises more barley than it does wheat (but just barely) and is the No. 1 agricultural activity behind livestock. So, I would think this would be Wyoming’s primary agricultural commodity transported by rail.
I don’t know the breakdown of the bentonite shipments out of Colony, WY on the DM&E/CP, but I don’t believe most of it goes toward Chadron (actually to Crawford to interchange with BNSF; Chadron is now the Nebraska Northwestern Railroad), but rather east from Rapid City on the ex-C&NW ex-DM&E CP line.
In addition, there are bentonite shipments on BNSF from locations around Greybull and Newcastle.
The sulfur trains not uncommon, but usually only about once a week at best. They originate just outside Shoshoni at Bonneville and go to Galveston, TX.
I live 100 yards from the DM&E and bentonite cars are few and far between. I can’t even guess the last time I saw one.
I live in Eastern South Dakota.
I would guess they head south toward Chadron Nebraska, rather than east on the DM&E (CP).