Working rail roads and their tracks.

[MossRoad]

Here is a great video showing bulk products, coal in this case being moved in the powder basin in eastern Wyoming. I lived in this area for 4 years. Shows a shovel working in the Antelope mine removing over-burden and loading a 200 or 300 ton truck.

I took my wife and kids out to Montana and back many years ago. While in Wyoming, we drove around a couple of the huge coal mines. The drag line cranes, huge trucks, and train loading facilities were pretty amazing. The mines we drove around were south of Gillette, WY. We sat there and ate lunch while they loaded an almost continuous train with coal. Sights and sounds.

 

[MossRoad]

So when coal is outlawed, I wonder what will happen to all the great railroads that transported it?

I see a lot of jobs lost and a lot of abandoned rails….

Then rail fans will cry, “oh no….where did all the railroads go!!!“

I look at it like this. When one technology wanes, another rises.

You might find this 2021 article interesting. At that time, coal made up about 11% of major railroad revenue. It made up 27% of it's tonnage. There's a nice breakdown pie chart that shows where railroads make their revenue.

I doubt trains will go away in our lifetimes.

https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/AAR-Coal-Fact-Sheet.pdf

 

[kenmbz]

I used to manage projects at an intermodal company. Ship to Truck to Rail or ship to rail was a major portion of their business.

 

[MossRoad]

I used to manage projects at an intermodal company. Ship to Truck to Rail or ship to rail was a major portion of their business.

I used to work for an intermodal company. I loaded army trucks and postal vans onto train cars from the AMGeneral plant in South Bend. Most of the old Army trucks came in by rail, were refurbished, then left by truck or were driven out of the factory to rail spurs around the area, loaded onto trains, and shipped out. That was early-mid 80's.

Interestingly, the current HUMMER plant in Mishawaka, IN (the next town over) does not have rail access. Everything is shipped in and out by trucks.

Our town has over 100 trains a day going through it. There's a major Norfolk Southern line and a major Canadian National (Formerly Grand Trunk and Western) line. They meet on one side of town, share some trackage and cross over in a 2 mile stretch, then separate on the other side of town. It's quite a busy rail corridor, and you see all kinds of stuff.

Interestingly, we see coal trains daily. Many times, full coal trains pass each other in opposite directions. So someone west is shipping coal east while someone east is shipping coal west.

Some it destined for power plants. Others for steel mills.

We also have an electric interurban train the goes to Chicago. The South Shore. It's a good way to commute to Chicago, and costs much less VS driving when you figure $ per mile it takes to operate your car and then add in parking fees. On weekends, and adult can take up to 2 kids for free. Very economical. I don't see that going away anytime in the near future.

 

[JethroB]

I was involved in the research and planning of a new poultry feed mill beginning about 10 years ago. Our old mill and its rail siding could only take 10 hopper cars of corn at a time. We got the “single“ car rate from CSX. About $3600 per car, Midwest to NE Georgia. Basically $1.00 per bushel of corn. We used around 50 cars a week or 160,000 bushels at that time.

The proposed new mill with a 1.5 miles of loop siding could take
90 -120 car unit trains. Freight cost was about $2,300 per car or $0.65 per bushel. The simplest justification for a new mill was that the railroad would pay for the new $30 million mill in 10 years or so.

162,000 x $.35 x 52 = $2,948,400 savings per year.

The new mill opened in 2021. I was retired by then thankfully .

 

[MossRoad]

I was involved in the research and planning of a new poultry feed mill beginning about 10 years ago. Our old mill and its rail siding could only take 10 hopper cars of corn at a time. We got the “single“ car rate from CSX. About $3600 per car, Midwest to NE Georgia. Basically $1.00 per bushel of corn. We used around 50 cars a week or 160,000 bushels at that time.

The proposed new mill with a 1.5 miles of loop siding could take
90 -120 car unit trains. Freight cost was about $2,300 per car or $0.65 per bushel. The simplest justification for a new mill was that the railroad would pay for the new $30 million mill in 10 years or so.

162,000 x $.35 x 52 = $2,948,400 savings per year.

The new mill opened in 2021. I was retired by then thankfully .


View attachment 789688
View attachment 789689

There are three of those along that north/south line I was talking about between Elkhart and Indianapolis earlier. All pretty new. Two have the full loops. 1 is a partial.

 

[MossRoad]

Thought you folks might enjoy this.

It's the Kingsbury industrial park. It was a munitions plant built for WWII, closed, and then reopened during the Korean War, I believe.

Tracks came in from the west then wishbones out on each side. Down each row were small buildings where they stored the munitions. They kept them separated in case of, well, BOOM!

I believe there were 4 large munitions assembly buildings. Maybe 8. The texts of history are confusing.

In the upper right of the photo you can see some of the buildings are still there. All kinds of smaller companies in there now, but most of the original buildings are long gone.

To the left of the photo is a huge recreation area. Hunting and fishing, a rifle range. And there are contaminated areas where munitions are still found to this day. There are bunkers in the woods. Not too many left anymore, but there were a lot when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s.

Remembering LaPorte County's Kingsbury Ordnance Plant

Do not "explore" this former military munitions plant. Local, regional, state and federal authorities tend to frown upon it. With bullets.

orangebeanindiana.com

 

[Hay Dude]

Somewhat related: Cleveland Cliffs Steel bought the 2 steel mills near me. They were both owned by Lukens Steel until about 20 years ago. 20 years ago they were purchased by Arcellor Mittal. Arcellor Mital sold to Cleveland Cliffs.
Both mills now American owned again, producing the widest & thickest steel plate in North America.

Steelmaking

Cleveland-Cliffs is the largest flat-rolled steel provider in North America, vertically integrated from mining to finishing steel.

www.clevelandcliffs.com

Coatesville

Coatesville is a steel plate production facility that refines more than 450 different steel chemistries and produces some of the widest, thickest, and heaviest steel plates in the industry.

www.clevelandcliffs.com

Conshohocken

Conshohocken is a plate finishing facility located on the Schuylkill River adjacent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

www.clevelandcliffs.com

East Penn’s biggest customer is the Cleveland-Cliffs Steel mill. They bring them scrap steel which is melted into new steel. They also ship-out the finished steel to customers and ports.

 

[MossRoad]

They've got a huge facility in Burns Harbor, IN, too.

 

[ArlyA]

My first carmen job was at Igloo SD a retired WWII munition storage facility. They had buildings, overhead cranes and lots of tracks there. Some of the buidings in these photos I worked in. This is located along BNSF double main line abnd when I resided there, had a full train pass there every 20 minutes..

Igloo, South Dakota: The Utopia That War Built

Out among the rolling hills of Fall River County — a lost city.

www.sdpb.org

or

Black Hills Ordnance Depot, Igloo, SD — Cold War Tourist

Located near Edgemont, South Dakota, BHOD (sometimes known as Black Hills Army Depot) is an abandoned facility formerly used to store conventional munitions as well as chemical weapons such as the nerve gas, Sarin, and the blistering agent, Mustard gas. Italian POWs also lived here during World War

www.coldwartourist.com