Export-coal on-a-roll

SD80-MACs push coal-extra C51 through Lilly. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The July 2011 issue of my Trains Magazine has a news-article about the torrent of coal for export.
This is of interest to me, because so many trains I saw with my friend Phil Faudi (“fow-dee;” as in “wow”) in Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”) were coal for export.
Phil is the railfan extraordinaire from Altoona, PA, who supplied all-day train-chases for $125. —I did my first almost three years ago, alone, and it blew my mind.
He called them “Adventure-Tours.”
I’m a railfan and have been since age-2. —I’m currently 67.
Faudi would bring along his radio rail-scanner, tuned to 160.8, the Norfolk Southern operating channel, and he knew the whereabouts of every train, as the engineers called out the signals, and various lineside defect-detectors fired off.
He knew each train by symbol, and knew all the back-roads, and how long it took to get to various photo locations — and also what made a successful photo — lighting, drama, etc.
I’d let Phil do the monitoring. I have a scanner myself, but I left it behind.
Phil knew every train on the scanner, where it was, and how long it took to beat it to a prime photo location.
My first time was a slow day, yet we got 20 trains. Next Tour we got 30 trains in one nine-hour day.
Phil gave it up; fear of liability suits, and a really nice car he’s afraid he’d mess up.
One of our stops during train-chases was the Sonman Coal-tipple north of Portage.
Sonman is on the original Pennsy mainline, now a spur bypassed.
Sonman gets coal from various mines throughout the area. It’s delivered by trucks.
At the tipple, coal is transloaded into giant hopper-trains. Sonman coal is destined for export to Germany.
The coal is metallurgical coal, used to charge blast-furnaces for making steel.
It’s not burned to generate electricity (“steam-coal;” although export demand is up for it).
We passed Sonman quite often. A giant hopper-train was being flood-loaded.
Each hopper-car came under the flood-loader, and the powdery coal would pour into the car from an above chute.
Usually the hopper-cars were “Top-Gons,” regular steel hopper-cars converted for rotary dumping.
Rotary dumping is to roll the whole car to empty its contents. It requires couplers that rotate.
Top-Gons no longer have bottom dumps.
A worker was in position atop the car to form the top of the loaded coal into a “bread-loaf,” so coal-dust didn’t blow away when a train moved.
Loading finished, a train moved out, headed east up The Hill toward Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin”), summit of the Allegheny mountains.
The hoppers were stored on “Main-eight,” a storage track.
Locomotives would come later to continue the coal east.
A few old railfans were at a location we stop at well east of Sonman (east of Cresson [“kress-in”]) where PA Route 53 crosses the old Pennsy main.
It’s within sight of “Main-eight.”
“I wonder where that coal is headed?” an old railfan asked.
“Germany!” I interjected. “It’s metallurgical, and came from a tipple down the line.”
They weren’t chasing trains with Phil.