Western Coal Part 4, coal trains in Arizona and New Mexico
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In comparison to the Powder River Basin, the number of coal trains loaded
in New Mexico is low. Most of this coal goes to power plants in Arizona. The
oldest mining area is around the York Canyon mine west of Raton. The Dawson
Railway constructed a line from the coal mine at Dawson to Tucumcari in 1903.
This line later became a branch line of the El Paso
Southwestern. This coal was used to power the steam engines of both the Rock
Island and EPSW and later steam engines on the Southern Pacific. Most of this
branch line was abandoned in 1956 and the Santa Fe extended the line to York
Canyon in 1965. Until the Union
Pacific took over the SP, you could still see many of the coaling towers along the
Sunset Route between Tucson and El Paso.
The York Canyon mine was originally an underground mine shipping coal to the Kaiser Steel mill in Fontana, CA and the Cholla power plant. Today's Ancho mine is a surface operation in the same area as the York Canyon mine. It produced 1.8 million tons of coal in 1995.
Moving to the west, the next large coal mine is Peabody Coal Company's Lee
Ranch mine. It is located at the end of a branch line 40 miles northeast of
Baca, NM (milepost 114 on the Gallup Sub). The mine produced 3.9 million tons
of coal in 1995 and almost 4.8 million tons in 1999. It is the main source of
coal for the Plains Electric Escalante Plant northwest of Baca, NM. During
1999, that plant consumed 926,000 tons of coal at $24.35 a ton. The train to
the Plains Electric plant is operated by employees of the power plant.
The Santa Fe served some small coal mines near Gallup earlier in the last Century. Today the largest mine in the Gallup area is the Pittsburg & Midway (P&M) Coal Mining Company's McKinley mine. The loadout is called the Defiance North Tipple and is located at the end of the Defiance Branch, 21 miles north of Defiance, NM (milepost 165 on the Gallup Sub).
On May 31, 1989, I had incredible luck, catching several loaded and empty
coal trains west of Gallup. The first was the empty train from Joseph City
returning for another load of coal.
The empty Joe City Coal met a loaded Coronado train at Mentmore siding
just two miles north of the junction at Defiance. This train then stopped at
Defiance and swapped engines.
Later the same day I caught the Joe City Coal again. It had loaded at the
North Tipple and was on its way west to the Arizona Public Service Cholla
power plant at Joseph City (milepost 262 on the Gallup Sub).
Crews for the coal trains on the Coronado Sub were based in Gallup. Trains
that load on the Lee Ranch Branch usually changed crews right in front of the
depot at Gallup. Crews for the trains that load at North Tipple rode the van
out to Defiance or to the mine. The crews for the Joseph City Coal train come
off the east extra board in Winslow and usually rode the van out to Joseph
City or brought the power to Winslow for servicing.
Just two miles west of Navajo is Coronado Junction (milepost 215 on the
Gallup Sub). This is where the Coronado Sub branches off of the Gallup Sub and
heads south to serve the Coronado and Springerville power plants. There are no
set schedules for when these coal trains operate. The Coronado train operates
about 26 times a month. The Springerville train operates 24 times a month and
the Joseph City train operates about 35 times a month. In addition to these
three regular trains, there is another coal train that operates for the
Southwest Forest Products paper mill about seven times a month. It usually
operates at night, picking up 60 blue SWFX hoppers at Holbrook, loading at the
P&M North Tipple and returning to Holbrook by morning.
The oldest slide in this series was taken much further west. This was the
York Canyon to Kaiser Steel coal train at Goffs, CA (milepost 609 on the
Needles Sub) in 1974. And finally is the newest slide in the series. Export
coal from the Skyline mine in Utah is just east of Yermo, CA in 2000. Despite
the span of 25 years there are similarities. Both trains have company owned
rotary gondolas and radio controlled helpers. The York Canyon coal train has
five more SD26s cut in 60 cars deep while the Skyline coal train has a single
DPU on the rear.
If you have photographed coal trains coming out of the Powder River Basin
and need more information to spice up a slide show or video presentation you should
get my latest book on Western Coal. The 76 page book has all of the BNSF and Union Pacific
train symbols used last year. The book also has information about each mine, power plant,
and transfer facility. Information from the book was used in this report.
Instead of saying, "Here is another empty coal train." You can say, "A BN empty coal train from the Lower Colorado River Authority Fayette Power Project Sam Seymore power plant at Halstead, TX rolls north to the Powder River Basin. During 2000, the power plant consumed almost 6.2 million tons of Wyoming coal. The transportation contract went to the Union Pacific in 1987, but BNSF began hauling trains again in 1997. In 2001 BNSF loaded eight trains a month at the Buckskin mine and beginning in April eight trains a month at the Eagle Butte mine." See Western Coal on my book page for more information about the coal book.
Western Coal Part 3