California Coal Trains

[Kris94]

Do coal trains operate through the Central California Valley anymore? I know the Southern Pacific ran them to Long Beach from Utah. The UTLBC or Utah to Long Beach Coal Train went over the line from 1988 until 1996 when SP was taken over by UP. Did the UP send the train over the line that runs through Las Vegas?

Typical Consists from 1998-1995:
SD40T-2
SD45T-2
SD40R
SD45R
80-100 coal cars

As many a up eight locomotives were used.Also leasers were used a vast majority of the time.

Typical Consists from 1995-1996 merger:
Three AC4400CWs
80-100 coal cars

NOTE: C44-9Ws(Dash9s) were used when delivered in 1994 for motive power relief but were reassigned to the Sunset Limited Route and ex-Cotton Belt lines following the introduction of the AC4400CW.

Does anybody know?

 

[pdkoester]

They are here! http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine...lifornia-bound-coal-train&p=372351#post372351

I think Sherman hill is another area.

 

[Kris94]

That was in 2007. Plus the person who posted it is in Henderson, NV which isn't too far from Las Vegas. So I'm assuming it uses the UP Las Vegas route instead.

 

[rgcx]

Yes, the preferred route of coal trains is to use the LASL thru Las Vegas. That was the one of the first goals of the 1996 merger and it has changed most traffic patterns on former SP lines: I-5 Corridor, Coast, Tehachapi and Donner. Most of these routes are much "quieter" because UP routes traffic towards its central corridor Omaha-North Platte. A lot of traffic that used to go from the Pacific Northwest thru Calif for the Sunset route now goes over thru the Blues of Oregon/Idaho.

See my video of a wb coal train leaving the siding at Truckee on Donner from 1994.
http://youtu.be/yPy3WP58CUc

 

[JohnnyC1]

I see BNSF Coal trains at LA/LB harbors, I don't know where they originate and the equipment that I have seen is older BN mixed steel quad bottom dump hoppers.

John

 

[Kris94]

The Donner Pass was quiet when the SP was running the show. After WWII traffic patterns began shifting to the Sunset Route which caused a lot of the traffic congestion on the route in the 1990s although SP couldn't fix it because they were broke as a joke at the time, but wasn't funny. And when UP took over the route got worse and had a full scale meltdown gridlock. But according to a website in 1988, the time where SP was at its weakest point, only 19 trains traveled across the Fresno Subdivision per day.