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Powder River Coal and the BN’s Denver Division by Wesley Fox w/DJ SIGNED
Powder River Coal and the BNs Denver Division by Wesley Fox SIGNED
Hard Cover w/ dust jacket
96 pages
Copyright 1993
CONTENTS
MAP3
INTRODUCTION4
1st SUBDIVISION9
2nd SUBDIVISION22
3rd SUBDIVISION30
4th SUBDIVISION36
5th SUBDIVISION46
6th SUBDIVISION51
7th SUBDIVISION57
8th SUBDIVISION64
10th SUBDIVISION68
11th SUBDIVISION77
12th SUBDIVISION89
A RIDE ON BN TRAIN 091 93
INTRODUCTION
The anxious antelope stand on the hillside, backlit against the soft morning sun. A steady wind blows as the antelope nervously look around to the sound they're hearing. There's the distinct smell of coal burning in the wind. Suddenly, the antelope race off the hill, as the sound gets closer.
From behind the distant hill comes five green diesel locomotives followed obediently by 110 black hopper cars. A black dust cloud swirls above the cars created by the train's movement and the constant zephyrs across the dry rolling hills. What is the train carrying? Coal.
Welcome to Campbell County, Wyoming, heart of the Powder River Basin and the genesis for this book: Powder River Coal and the BN's Denver Division. The rail lines that we will tour in this book evolve around the Basin and its coal trains.
The evolution of Powder River coal
It started so innocently with a request from the large New York based mineral company AMAX to the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1972, to build a fifteen mile spur track from their mainline at Donkey Creek, east of Gillette,WY to a proposed open pit mine site called Belle Ayr. What spurred this request on was the government enacted Clean Air Act of 1970, which by law limited smokestack emissions that created the controversial acid rain caused by the mixing of sulfur and nitrogen dioxide found in fossil fuel combustion in the atmosphere. When it would rain or snow, the mositure had an acid content to it which would for example peel paint off of cars. Another source of coal other than that mined in the Appalachians and southern midwest (which is rich in sulfur) would have to be found.
That new source lay underneath the grasslands of northeastern Wyoming and southern Montana, where antelope have roamed for centuries above an estimated 600 billion tons of cleaner sub bituminous coal.
After the AMAX spur track was under construction, Burlington Northern was besieged with requests to build spurs for other energy and mineral companies, all brought on by the rising oil prices that led to the 1973 energy crisis. As motorists waited hours in long lines for what gasoline was available, BN officials were at the doors of of the Interstate Commerce Commission to file a petition to build a 113 mile line south of the present Belle Ayr spur to connect with their Laurel, MT-Northport, NE mainline. At the same time, the Chicago Northwestern Railroad was getting requests to build spur tracks into the Wyoming coal fields from their branch line at Casper,WY. The ICC told both railroads to submit a joint proposal to build one railroad through the coal fields. Both parties agreed and with ICC approval, grading began in 1976.
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