Bethgons, Autoflood, RDL Coal Hoppers

I've been fooling with the Powder River 97 route and started digging into coal hoppers on the route.

I found that there are several different types of large coal hoppers on the DLS and was wondering if consists likely to be found on the route would be made up of single car types or a mix of them?

Also I have seen some pictures of consists on the route that were made up of single owner cars. Are mixes of car owners common or are single owner common?

Thanks for more info in advance.

I've seen home roads plus company specific mixed on the same train while out in the west.



I have other pictures, but I can't find them!

This was taken during the July 2013 "Great Northern Tornado" Hunt storm-chasing tour with Roger Hill. We saw no tornadoes that year, but did see other stuff including Devil's Tower and Glacier National Park. Here we were heading from Devil's Tower towards Billings MT. We were somewhere on the Montana - Wyoming border when I caught this coal train passing on the bridge over the highway. It was moving at quite a clip so I got the middle and not the engines.

If you notice here, there are some BNSF hoppers here, but I've seen others such as those belonging to utility companies, but always blocked together by the same road name or company, and unlike other freights never different road names or different utility companies mixed together. In other words if the freight is a BNSF freight, it'll be BNSF plus GPU (Georgia Public Utility), but never BNSF, UPRR, GPU, Boston Edison, etc.

From other trains I've seen clipping along at 70 mph next to us on the interstates, the hoppers are blocked and seem to end up in sequence i.e. Nos. 101, 102, 103, 114, 115, 116, etc. and so on with upwards of 50 or more full coal hoppers.

The trains have a number of big GEVOs on the front with a couple of DPUs sometimes in the middle followed by pusher-units on the rear.

Norm sum interesting reading here on Coal Stuff a lot of it pertains to the PRB http://matts-place.com/trains/coal/jointline.htm
Cheers Mick.

Norm,
Search youtube for Powder River Basin Coal Trains if you haven't already. You can see hoppers along with locomotives used. Mick's link gives allot info. This website also has allot of info as far as photos. http://www.railpictures.net/album/807/
Dean

Thanks for the responses!

I found a couple of 2014 YouTube videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bxn3hy9mDk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo7mcjhzlI0&t=403s that were interesting but the most relevant one was Powder River Basin
1996 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Hoqk6IXg0M. There was a distinct difference in the engine placement. In 1996 engines were used in groups of three or, occasionally, four at the head end with or, mostly, without a trailing engine while in 2014 the engines were most commonly used in pairs at the front and rear.

Coal cars were apparently mixed owner although in 1996 there seemed to be more common owner consists or common owner groups within consists. I only saw a couple of non-common coal car types in consists. Almost all consists were one type. In the 1996 vid I did see one 100 ton hopper consist but mostly either Bethgon or AutoFlood consists. This should allow for an interesting mix of consists.

If someone could take a look at that 1996 video and identify the locomotives I'd appreciate it. I'm terrible at that stuff I've never been a train spotter. I'm going to delve into your recommendations now.

Thanks again.

Cars are used in sets as one coupler can rotate the other is fixed so the car can be rotary dumped.

whitepass said:

Cars are used in sets as one coupler can rotate the other is fixed so the car can be rotary dumped.

Click to expand...

So I am coming to understand, thanks for the response. So far as I understand from Mick's very informative website there are both rotary and non-rotary consists running and, as near as I can tell, in 1997 there were fewer aluminum cars on the tracks. I am not clear on whether the Trinity RDLs were available this early. I think I have some steel Bethgons.

On another topic most of the videos and pictures frequently show BNSF locomotives in the Executive livery. I've only found one from JR payware EMD SD70MAC so far and got that. I have not dug through all the locomotives to see if there are any more but I don't remember seeing any. Suggestions welcome. Edit: Found some btvfd's GE ES44ACs Exec. Edit: found a dash 9 by logman.

They also have BN SD70 in the same paint scheme. From what I can tell BNSF Locos up through H2 paint job would fit in the time line? C&NW was absorbed by UP, along with SP just before this period also.
Dean
P.S. I found this about hoppers. And if you scroll up or down it explains some stuff about locos.
https://books.google.com/books?id=o...#v=onepage&q=aluminum bethgon history&f=false

I hope whoever made that 1996 video has since invested in a freaking TRIPOD! All that shaking--- Sheesh!

davesnow said:

I hope whoever made that 1996 video has since invested in a freaking TRIPOD! All that shaking--- Sheesh!

Click to expand...

Yes or at least a software stabilized camera, it is an interesting location though, the sign says it is West Antelope which doesn't exist on Dean's route.

Norm,
Look just South of Mile post 30.00 on either the Complete v3 or North v2 routes or whatever version of these. If you're using a newer version of TANE finding this sign under search(Find Object) option is no longer available? By 97 this was double tracked. Looks like the end of the video it's down below Bill at the Rail car service area.
Dean

Yup, there it is. Odd, I looked for it and did a Find Object and didn't find. But there it is. Huh. I couldn't find the SD70 in Exec. either.

Norm,
As far as locos sometimes you can find the JR locos on sale at the Trainz store. At JR look at payware loco types, and click on EMD, and then on one of SD70's. Or under Fallen Flags.
Dean
P.S. It looks like you found the BN SD70's, never mind?

danddhud said:

Norm,
As far as locos sometimes you can find the JR locos on sale at the Trainz store. At JR look at payware loco types, and click on EMD, and then on one of SD70's. Or under Fallen Flags.
Dean
P.S. It looks like you found the BN SD70's, never mind?

Click to expand...

Ah, miscommunication, you said BN SD70 and what JR has is a BN SD70MAC. Somewhat different so far as I can tell. BTW according to what I've read SD70MACs were the first to get the Executive livery other than their Executive Passenger.

danddhud said:

Norm,
Search youtube for Powder River Basin Coal Trains if you haven't already. You can see hoppers along with locomotives used. Mick's link gives allot info. This website also has allot of info as far as photos. http://www.railpictures.net/album/807/
Dean

Click to expand...

Um, I studied all consists in photos dated 1992-2002 and the hoppers are mixed owners on some consists and not mixed (unit) on others. The same with hopper types, mixed on some consists but not mixed on most.

As for locomotives
EMD SD9043MAC (2000) UP/SP/UP-rev/end?
EMD SD70MAC (1999) BNSFp/BNSFe-rev/BNSFe-rev/end?
EMD SD70MAC (2002) BNSFe/BNSFe/end unk
EMD SD70MAC (1999) BNSFp/BNSFp-rev/end?
GE C40-8 (1995) C&NWyb/UP-rev/C&NWyb/end unk
GE C40-8 (1995) C&NWyb/UP-rev/UP-rev/end?
EMD SD70MAC (1998) BSNFe/BNSFe/BNSFe/end?
EMD SD70MAC (1998) BSNFe/BNSFe/BNSFp-rev/end?
EMD SD60M (1993) BNSFg/BNSFg-rev/SFby/BNSFg-rev/end?
GE C30-7 (1994) BNSFg/BNSFg/BNSFg/BNSFg-rev/end?
EMD SD70MAC (1998) BNSFp/BNSFe/end?
EMD SD60 (1997) GMem/BNSFg-rev/GMem-rev/GMem-rev/end?
GE AC4400CW (2000) UP/UP-rev/end?
EMD SD70MAC (1997) BNSFe/BNSFe-rev/BNSFe-rev/end?
GE C30-7 (1998) BNSFg/BNSFg/GMem-rev/GMem-rev/end?

Edit: Bold are locomotive consists that I have in trainz

All UP locomotives were striped but not lightening and without flags or other logos.

Livery abbreviations e=executive, g=green&white, p=pumpkin, em=Electro-Motive blue&white, yb=yellow&black, by=black&yellow

Other abbreviations rev=locomotive reversed, /end?=unable to determine if an end helper was present, /end unk=end helper(s) present but unidentifiable.

It seems that the conclusion I drew from the 1996 video that at some time between 1997 and 2000 the standard practice changed from three locomotives at the headend to two locomotives is borne out by these pictures.

Out of the nine pages/129 pictures only two were non-coal trains and are not included.

Ah, I found that JR has two versions of the BNSF Executive SD70MAC one is labled as phase 1 they also have a Pumpkin version.

I'd post a screenie but apparently the Gallery is down.

I have managed to recreate four of the locomotive consists from the list above but it took quite a bit of money.

Norm,
It looks like you've done your homework!
Dean

danddhud said:

Norm,
It looks like you've done your homework!
Dean

Click to expand...

Working on it. I'm up to 6 BNSF locomotive consists but, surprisingly, considering how many UP locomotives I have, I'm having problems matching UP consists. The main problem is I can't afford any more locomotives at this time and UP had SD70MACs too.

Hoppers remain an issue. I suspect I'll have to go with Mick's lists although they are a bit modern for the era.

Norm
Do you have SRS's GE ATSF-BNSF freeware locos? I had a problem with the numbers on the cab not showing up correctly. Narrowed it down to skin #4, So I changed the config file to number of skins 3.
Dean

danddhud said:

Norm
Do you have SRS's GE ATSF-BNSF freeware locos? I had a problem with the numbers on the cab not showing up correctly. Narrowed it down to skin #4, So I changed the config file to number of skins 3.
Dean

Click to expand...

Awesome, I hadn't looked for a cause as yet. Thanks!

EDIT: Ah, fixed. These 6 locomotive consists appear to match the Bolded ones on my list. Should be enough variation to make things interesting.



I also noted that in the footnotes of the pictures that mention was made of 120 car consists. I've been working with 100 car so that might be interesting too.