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I learned while I was there the LS&I is going to begin a coal back haul from Presque Isle to the mines and get the trucks off the road. The spur to the powerplant has been reconstructed.

I didn't know the mines used coal. Are they talking about the CCI mines?

blackjack1518 wrote:I didn't know the mines used coal. Are they talking about the CCI mines?

That is how I took it. There is a power plant around Marquette but IIRC they receive directly from the ship and would not require a back haul of coal.

The only product I have observed trucked to the mines was limestone unloaded at the Shiras power plant (City of Marquette owned) . I always thought it would be possible to unload into the hopper at the Presque Isle plant (WE Energy owned) and load the cars for the return trip to the mine. Not sure how CN would be involved, LS&I goes from the docks to the mine.

Presque Isle was built by CCI, sold to UPPCO and then sold to WE Energy. It generates 90% of the power in the UP and 1/2 of the power generated goes to the mines.

I think he meant LS&I not CN.

Raildudes dad wrote:The only product I have observed trucked to the mines was limestone unloaded at the Shiras power plant (City of Marquette owned) . I always thought it would be possible to unload into the hopper at the Presque Isle plant (WE Energy owned) and load the cars for the return trip to the mine. Not sure how CN would be involved, LS&I goes from the docks to the mine.

Presque Isle was built by CCI, sold to UPPCO and then sold to WE Energy. It generates 90% of the power in the UP and 1/2 of the power generated goes to the mines.

That makes sense. I could never figure out why all that coal was trucked. Now with the Mine having total control over the RR I wondering if this switch would happen.

blackjack1518 wrote:I think he meant LS&I not CN.

Raildudes dad wrote:The only product I have observed trucked to the mines was limestone unloaded at the Shiras power plant (City of Marquette owned) . I always thought it would be possible to unload into the hopper at the Presque Isle plant (WE Energy owned) and load the cars for the return trip to the mine. Not sure how CN would be involved, LS&I goes from the docks to the mine.

Presque Isle was built by CCI, sold to UPPCO and then sold to WE Energy. It generates 90% of the power in the UP and 1/2 of the power generated goes to the mines.

The mines do get coal in, there was a fleet of odiverio (I spelled that wrong) trucks that were coming from the lower harbor power plant and going to the mines, I think they were super trains but they may have just been short doubles. Odiverio is the largest contractor in the UP I beleive. I know they own a lot of the property up there and are the owners of the old pellet plant property in Eagle Mills. Should be interesting to see what cars they use for the back haul. I'd imagine prolly in the area of 30 regular 100ton cars could be shipped when compared to how many trucks you would pass on M28 and M35 going to the mines.

[quote="blackjack1518"]I think he meant LS&I not CN.

Wasn't the LS&I purchased by CN?

Raildudes dad wrote:Not sure how CN would be involved, LS&I goes from the docks to the mine.

I meant LS&I

jukeman45 wrote:

blackjack1518 wrote:I think he meant LS&I not CN.

Wasn't the LS&I purchased by CN?

No, LS&I is a separately owned company. CN and LS&I exchange cars at a siding southeast of their wye called Partridge Siding. CN has some trackage rights to access their track from Ispheming to Baraga. They may also have trackage rights to handle some of the unit ore trains they take to Escanaba.

CN has rights over the line from Partidge Jct to the Empire Mine. The LS&I also owns I believe from Eagle Mills Jct into Euclid Yard and down to Winthrop Jct and allows CN rights over that. Its a very confusing area to explain what track is what if you are not familar with the former and current ore operations.

CAT345C wrote:Its a very confusing area to explain what track is what if you are not familar with the former and current ore operations.

OMGosh you are so right! And years ago before abandonments and track removals the tracks in this area were such a maze that it rivaled anything in the big inner city's!

AARR wrote:

CAT345C wrote:Its a very confusing area to explain what track is what if you are not familar with the former and current ore operations.

OMGosh you are so right! And years ago before abandonments and track removals the tracks in this area were such a maze that it rivaled anything in the big inner city's!

Way to troll Don. LS&I is owned by Cleveland Cliffs. The reason the coal is currently trucked is because the trucking company gave the mine a better rate then the railroad did. For that reason all of the track in downtown MQT was torn up. Now with rising gas prices it's cheaper to move the coal by rail again. The infrastructure to do this cost effectively really isn't there, unless they built a loaded in West Yard.

Also you don't want to load coal into an ore car, they still have pellets in them after they are dumped and if those pellets when through a coal pulverizer it probably wouldn't be a good thing. Also I doubt the purchaser of the ore wants to have coal in it. I know I wouldn't want to pay for the coal when I don't make any money off of it.

CERY wrote:Also you don't want to load coal into an ore car, they still have pellets in them after they are dumped and if those pellets when through a coal pulverizer it probably wouldn't be a good thing. Also I doubt the purchaser of the ore wants to have coal in it. I know I wouldn't want to pay for the coal when I don't make any money off of it.

You are right about that, CERY. I do not know if coal and ore can use the same cars without cleaning the car first.

I did not realize how important it was to customers that their shipments be "pure". To me all the minerals are dirty and can be intermixed without a problem. But in Trains Mag a while back there was an article about all the different minerals shipped from the Rio Grande. In it was a story how a piece of pig iron was left behind in a car that was later filled with coal. When the coal was dumped and going through the conveyor the pig iron was either seen or picked up with a magnet. The railroad received a very stern letter that this was never to happen again.

Many years ago when I worked in a fossel power plant and we received coal in railroad owned cars we would get a train that took pelletts someplace than coal was loaded on top of any pelletts reapining in the car but the magenitic seprators alll along the conveyer system would pull out the pelletts. Pelletts that did get though to the bunkers would be pulled out by the coal mill feeders, what a mess on the feeder deck. Any pellets that did get though to the puliveriser were: CE mills and Raymond mills..kicked out in the pyrite chutes: B&W mills.....ground up with the coal and blown into the steam generator. Never had any problems with the iron going into the steam generator. Had bigger problems with cheap coal with low ash fusen tempature.

If you find old pictures of the LS&I coal dok with their steam operated gantrey you will see ore cars hauling coal however I beleve they did have some hoppercars for this service. Glad this coal will again go by rail, roads are in bad enough shape.

To clear up confusion, the coal is to fire the pellet kilns at the mine, not generate electricity. All electricity comes from the Presque Isle power plant, which gets coal directly from boats. The kilns can run on natural gas, coal, or a third fuel I can't remember and which the official pamphlet does not mention (I think either fuel oil or LPG). They use whatever happens to be cheapest at the time, which for most of the recent past has been natural gas via pipeline. The only thing trucked to the mines is fluxstone from the Lower Harbor Shiras dock to the Tilden. These are all the tandem dumptrucks all over 41 and 35 between Marquette and Tilden. Empire gets fluxstone via CN from Escanaba.

As for equipment, dollars to donuts says the LS&I just pulls the 1000 series hoppers from the Algoma trains and uses those, seeing as that's what they were bought for. Though I would wait for more substantial confirmation that this is even going to happen than an internet rumor (we all know how reliable those are..).

Not sure what the true story is. Blondeau Trucking lost the contract to JB Hunt . No mention of rail. Google earth shows what appears to be a small coal pile at the Tilden, no coal at Empire. I never saw them trucking coal from the Shiras dock the 5 years my daughter attended MI Tech (always limestone) and I made a circuit of the docks just about every trip we made to Houghton http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/new ... ?id=548898. (3rd fuel is fuel oil)

AARR wrote:

CERY wrote:Also you don't want to load coal into an ore car, they still have pellets in them after they are dumped and if those pellets when through a coal pulverizer it probably wouldn't be a good thing. Also I doubt the purchaser of the ore wants to have coal in it. I know I wouldn't want to pay for the coal when I don't make any money off of it.

You are right about that, CERY. I do not know if coal and ore can use the same cars without cleaning the car first.

I did not realize how important it was to customers that their shipments be "pure". To me all the minerals are dirty and can be intermixed without a problem. But in Trains Mag a while back there was an article about all the different minerals shipped from the Rio Grande. In it was a story how a piece of pig iron was left behind in a car that was later filled with coal. When the coal was dumped and going through the conveyor the pig iron was either seen or picked up with a magnet. The railroad received a very stern letter that this was never to happen again.

The way that Cliffs sells their pellets is they weigh them. If you put coal in the cars too them the company buying the pellets is also paying for what ever coal is also left over in the car. I know I wouldn't want to pay for that.

I had heard about this a while back how a different trucking company won the bid. They still don't say anything about the coal part of it, just the flux stone hauling by truck. I guess we will just have to wait to see...

Raildudes dad wrote:Not sure what the true story is. Blondeau Trucking lost the contract to JB Hunt . No mention of rail. Google earth shows what appears to be a small coal pile at the Tilden, no coal at Empire. I never saw them trucking coal from the Shiras dock the 5 years my daughter attended MI Tech (always limestone) and I made a circuit of the docks just about every trip we made to Houghton http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/new ... ?id=548898. (3rd fuel is fuel oil)

I wouldn't think it would be too difficult to inspect the cars. Taconite should just roll out:). If the coal sticks a little, a little vibration will get it to move. Gordy Morris on the MSO used to use a Case excavator with a vibratory compactory on the end of the stick to get the stone dust out of the cars faster. (His operator would put the compactor on the corner of the cars and rattle them good He didn't own the cars either )