they
started a chan ge
in the way railroads thought about coal transportation. With the Coalporter,
the revolution continued. Now they are working on even more advanced
systems to deliver clean fuel to America's electric plants. With their
innovations, the Twin Tub has become one of the dominant coal conveyances
in modern railroading. Certainly it is distinctive seeing 105 car
unit trains on the rails. The cars on the road today are divided into
 several
types. The railroad trains, like BNSF, and Norfolk Southern, are contract
trains. They transport on routes that they have bid for and service
with a rotating pool of equipment. The power company trains are owned
or leased specifically by a particular power company, and run on a
dedicated route from the coal mine to the power plant and back. From
time to time, the power plant will require more coal than their owned
equipment is capable of carrying, and they will lease or hire additional
cars. These may come from a leasing organization (Transisco, Systems
Fuels, or First Union), a railroad, or another power plant that may
have over capacity. Portland  General
Electric is a good example of leasable trains. The Portland Rose cars
often sit idle when local hydro electric power plants are generating
at full capacity. At these times, the cars get leased out to other
power companies at favorable rates. It is not unusual to see a train
full of Portland Rose cars on it's way to San Antonio or St Louis
when the Pacific Northwest has full rivers! The double rotary cars
ride next to the locomotives or at any position where the train may
need to be pulled in both directions to unload. If the unloader is
placed on a stub track, at the end of the line, or on a wye, the loco
may be tied onto either end, making it impossible to predict which
way to order the cars (rotary first or non-rotary first). In these
instances a double |
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