Coal-train DVD

Train 538, a coal-extra, passes under the signal-bridge at Summerhill, PA. (This train is mostly aluminum coal-cars, perhaps from the DVD mine — and is climbing the western slope of the Alleghenies.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Coal-extra 538 (same train as above) approaches the summit at Five-Tracks. (The three tracks at right are usually eastbound. The one at left is westbound, and the track next to it can be either way. —The stopped train on that track is eastbound doing a brake-test before entering the tunnel at the top [not visible] and descending.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


A week or two ago I received a free and unsolicited DVD from Trains magazine, first of a series on current railroading.
If I wanna continue the series, they want money.
I don’t.
I decided to play the DVD before returning it (free).
I’ve subscribed to Trains magazine since the middle ‘60s. I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67).
The DVD treats what coal-trains have become, conduits to quickly sate our nation’s appetite for vast quantities of coal.
The video is a bit overproduced — it’s hard to take, especially the booming music.
It also blasts the trains by at unattainable speeds. (Speeded-up motion.)
The coal is burned in power-plants to produce steam to generate electricity.
Coal comes in various grades; this is steam-coal.
The coal in this DVD is mined in an open-pit mine southwest of Pittsburgh, PA, then transported by rail 300+ miles to a power-plant near Washingtonville, PA.
The power-plant has an incredible appetite, a train a day of 100+ cars carrying 120 tons of coal each.
I remember when 100-ton cars were considered extreme; before that was 80 tons and 70 tons.
The coal-cars are aluminum and steel, aluminum sides and ends.
They also are not hopper-cars; they’re deep gondola-cars.
I thought I had never seen an aluminum car, but according to my friend Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) I had.
It’s just that these aluminum cars look so much like all-steel “Top-Gons,” which I’ve seen so many times.
Phil is the railfan I chase trains with in the Altoona, PA area (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”).
I’ve blogged Phil so many times it would be boring.
If you need clarification, click this link, and go toward the end of the post.
It explains Phil.
To get from the mine to the power-plant, the train has to cross the Allegheny mountain-front, once a barrier to west-east commerce.
But the Pennsylvania Railroad flattened it back in 1854, a major engineering achievement.
Pennsy is long-gone; the railroad is now operated by Norfolk Southern.
Pennsy did not flatten it entirely; it’s The Hill, up an over.
The engineering achievement is to make the leap without steep grades or switchbacks.
(That’s back in the 1800s, when grading wasn’t what it is now.)
Switchbacks are ponderously slow to operate. A train goes to the first stub-end, stops, and then reverses up to the next stub-end, after which it continues forward.
Pennsy built a continuous railroad, fairly steep, but not impossible.
And no switchbacks.
A heavy coal-train would need helper-units, additional locomotives to make the climb, and hold back the descent.
The coal-cars are quickly flood-loaded at the mine.
Each car passes under a massive chute, perhaps 10 by 18 feet, from which coal is quickly dumped into the car.
Filling the entire car takes less than a minute — that’s 120 tons!
And the machine forms the load into a so-called “bread-loaf;” it’s open on top, and bread-loaves don’t blow.
Meanwhile the train is being moved slowly the whole time, but only 3-4 mph.
So it takes about 3-4 hours to fill the entire train.
Once loaded, off it goes over the branch that serves the loadout, then onto the old Pennsy main.


Off it goes (the train looks like Top-Gons). (Photo by Willie Brown.)

Even through Pittsburgh, and then up the Alleghenies. Helpers get added at Johnstown, PA.
Getting a heavy train over The Hill is the hardest challenge, mainly descending, to keep it from running away.
At the crest of The Hill the front-end is already descending, while the back end is still being shoved uphill.
This has to be done without breaking couplers.
The locomotive-engineers are operating by the seat of their pants.
Once at the power-plant, the coal-cars are flipped to dump their contents.
The cars can be rotated without uncoupling. Rotating couplers.
Obviously the announcer was buffaloed by this. The entire operation is impressive.
The coal-car is tied down, and then rotated to dump its contents.
That’s a coal-car of 120 tons contents.
The equipment is massive.
The locomotives are no longer pulling the train. The coal-cars are being moved by the machine.
Rotating is also a lot faster than emptying a single hopper-car; where the hopper-doors may be frozen shut, and the coal may be frozen.
Phil apparently got the same DVD, and says it’s a program that appeared on History Channel.
Which perhaps explains the overproduction, that it’s aimed at generations younger than me.
Facebookers and iPhoners. Youngsters accustomed to and expecting sensory overload.
It may be marketed and promoted by Trains, but it doesn’t come off as the Trains productions I know, and I have many early Trains videos, on VHS video-tape.
It’s also overkill compared to my many Pentrex train DVDs. The announcer is imitating Ty Pennington of Extreme Home Makeover.
I wonder if we can sustain such profligacy, burn that much coal and fill the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.
All to maintain our incredible demand for electricity.
I’ve been to the Los Angeles basin at night, and seen the future from Mulholland Drive Overlook in the Hollywood hills.
It’s frightening. A never-ending carpet of strident orange glow. Parking-lots and highways lit by sodium-vapor lights, and skyscrapers glittering like tiny jewels in the faraway distance.
No wonder the Colorado River is a mere trickle when it meets the Pacific Ocean. It’s been sucked dry by irrigation and power-generation.
Here in the east we burn vast quantities of coal to generate the power needed.
No way could trucking deliver that much coal.
A single truck couldn’t carry 120 tons.
And I doubt our highways would support such a load.
And it would take a lot more fuel just to deliver it.
Railroads are perfect for the job.
(Nearby is a salt-mine with rail service, a short railroad branch just to serve that mine.
But there it’s covered hoppers; the salt can’t get wet.)