Coal Load Out

When you are operating on a coal line and are sent to the load out, do you drop a empty consist and pick up a loaded on or do you have to spend your crew hours loading and also unloading at the other end.

How long does this usually take?

Can't comment on loadouts, but I have spent time at bottom dump power plants on NS and CSX. From my (albeit limited) exposure, trains were run through the dumpers by a crew called for that purpose, as opposed to a road crew. Once positioned outside the dumper, the conductor hunkers down in the dump house and serves as a communications relay between the dump operator and the engineer. When the dump operator sees that the car has not cleared itself or that a gate hasn't closed, the operator will say "stop" and the conductor will radio the instructions to the engineer. The dump operator resolves the issue, and the process restarts. The train will typically go through a dumper at ~2 mph. Between staging, stops and troubleshooting, the process probably takes 4-6 hours. I'd imagine rotary dumping takes more time. Individual results may vary

By the way, to see the first few cars dump is a pretty cool. Once you've gotten to the the 15th car, the thrill is over! Here's a good video link that shows the process (Australian, but same concept).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTIHKJ3nXLk

Thanks man.

I read where at GA Power Plant Bowen they say they can unload a train in 30 minutes or so.

Looking at a RR job after 12 years in the military and had a few quesitons.


A link to where they say this at second page or third page
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:ulq ... clnk&gl=us

Wow! a 95-car train dumped in 30 minutes??? Well, that corresponds with the 2mph dumping speed... possibly that's the theoretical capacity. Others with more experience than me can chime in, but for me it's always taken a lot longer.

Have both loaded and unloaded coal trains out here in this country.

Up in the Powder River Basin coal fields it varied. For a time crews from a loading pool loaded trains at the mines after the road crew had brought it in. Then for a while inbound road crews loaded the train until relieved by a outbound road crew. Last I knew, all the trains were loaded by contract workers.

Unloaded at two power plants. One involved a crew called for just that activity and it was normally either a twelve-hour job, or the first crew called was relieved by a second crew. The other job had a assigned unloading crew, but this job was yanked and the road crew that brought the train into the plant unloaded until relieved by another road crew. Now the line that serves the plant is part of a regional. Don't know how they handle the job.

Some power plants also have there own locomotive(s) and people to unload the cars comeing into there property.

USMC1775 wrote:When you are operating on a coal line and are sent to the load out, do you drop a empty consist and pick up a loaded on or do you have to spend your crew hours loading and also unloading at the other end.

How long does this usually take?

Check out this book, it's pretty descriptive of coal train operations:

http://www.motorbooks.com/Store/Product ... _42152.ncm

-otto-

Green Frog Productions also puts out a vary well detailed video on Detroit Edisons coal trains and power plants.