How many coal trains 2007

[SurvivorSean]

So I've found plenty of symbols and also discontinued some that don't exist for the year I'm modling in the SE. How many coal trains would run on a typical day.

I ran across a weird stat on one of the mines being renamed that said it can load 2 trains a day and it takes about 4 hours to load. But I'm not sure about the power plants or what was typical. I wish I remember how many I would see at Folkston on my trips in the past but I know they are there.

Remember this is 2007 before the diamond at Waycross, and before the commuter projects of Sanford Sub.

Thanks

Sean

[NorthernWarrior]

I would be interested in that too, Sean.

The default unloading time for coal hoppers at Bostwick is seven hours, albeit that seems a little excessive given in reality these would be passing through the unloader at 2 to 3 MPH. So a typical 90 car coal train would probably be somewhere between 90 mins and 2 hours, in my layman's guess methodology.

So you are not going to send more trains than the terminal can handle. Not sat in front of the Run 8 PC at present, but both Bostwick and Stanton only show as having one actual unloading plant so even if you allow for holding a second train behind the first on the balloon, you're not looking at more than 3 or maybe 4 trains a day, unless you doctor the industry file to reduce the unloading time.

And yes, I was surprised to see when doing a bit of background reading that SunRail has basically booted most of the through freight off the A-Line, leaving just the locals and bulk commodity trains that need to use the route. Plus Amtrak of course. Playing Devil's Advocate though, would be interesting to see an update to the route that put in Sunrail and a loco/coach pack which added the colourful MP32's and bi-level commuter cars. Or maybe that's more in TSW's purview, though possibly licensing issues with Sunrail?

[SCL-A-Line]

https://web.archive.org/web/20031004120627/http://www.bullsheet.com/schedules/CoalTrains.html

[SurvivorSean]

Oh I'm on the wayback machine essentially 2007 1 year before the diamond went in. This is where I'm getting all my data from for the most part.

The issue is all those coal trains run as required. From what I understand there were about 100 trains going through Folkston on average per day give or take. Because they fall in the as required bunch like so many other non Q trains (scheduled) I'm wondering what a typical power station requires how many coal trains in 24 hours. Once I know that then I can weight the bingo ball picker accordingly

Thanks

Sean

[deltapooh]

That is a good question. Based Wikipedia

A large coal train called a "unit train" may be two kilometers[3] (over a mile) long, containing 100 railcars with 90 metric tons in each one, for a total load of 9,000 metric tons. A large plant under full load requires at least one coal delivery this size every day. Plants may get as many as three to five trains a day, especially in "peak season", during the summer months when electrical energy consumption is high. A large coal-fired power plant such as the one in Nanticoke, Canada stores several million metric tons of coal for winter use when delivery via the Great Lakes is not possible.

I recall a discussion about coal traffic many years ago. The highlights were a power plant required at least one delivery per day. Since the plant had a reserve, there was more discretion on priority, leading to days where you might see or less coal trains depending on congestion.

I've been using 2x delivery per day. This gave me four coal trains. I might increase that to 3x or 4x now that I'm putting more thought into it.

I recall KCS ran 4x coal trains (two loaded) every day on the line near my house in southwestern Louisiana. Never see any. Hope this helps.

[SCL-A-Line]

I think in this case some creative licensing may need to be used, you may need to figure out how much coal would be used on a daily basis, maybe create some kind of outside timer to simulate coal use and use that data, actually, that would be helpful to everyone

here is some more information

https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Coal_fired_power_plant

[SurvivorSean]

The link didn't work for me but that is awesome information and exactly what I was looking for!

This gives a good idea of how to balance the number of coal trains out from all those symbols as they too take time to load varoius plants all over the eastern US.

Oddly enough Nanticoke is no longer operational for coal fire and is in the Niagara Peninsual where I live. I believe they are now oil fired but I'd have to ask my son about that one as a bunch of tankers go down there all the time.

Thanks

Sean

[SCL-A-Line]

Seminole Electric at Bostwick is actually now Natural Gas

[SurvivorSean]

Yeah I think Nanticoke is LNG now that you mention that.

Thanks

Sean

[SCL-A-Line]

Correction they are in the process of switching over from the word i am getting, SEMX still receives coal currently

[NorthernWarrior]

Some of the UK power stations switched to gas from coal, somewhat ironic given the now panic over shortage of natural gas supply. In fact I don’t think we have any coal fired power stations left, though some - like Drax in Yorkshire - are using biomass instead. An army of solar panels or wind turbines is not going to fulfill our power needs, especially when we all end up forced into electric cars!

(Apologies for OT ramble).

[ex-railwayman]

Ratcliffe-on-Soar PS, the coal-fired facility in Nottinghamshire, is due to be decommissioned in October 2024 anyway, Vern, the others are bio and gas powered nowadays.

Unsure about this Run8 Sim, whereabouts is the route located that you need to run coal trains on?

I know that American Power Stations have stockpiled reserves, just like we did in Britain, so, I don't know if the coal that is delivered every day goes straight down to the grinders, and then onto the combustion procedure, or, if it gets stockpiled to be used another day, unsure how the American Power Plants operate having never been to one personally.

Cheerz. Steve.

[NorthernWarrior]

Unsure about this Run8 Sim, whereabouts is the route located that you need to run coal trains on?


Cheerz. Steve.

There are two coal fired power stations on the A Line, one south of Jacksonville at Bostwick and the other at Stanton just south of Orlando.

I don't know of any on the SoCal or Mohawk routes.

[ex-railwayman]

Sorry, Vern, I should have read the preceding posts from our friends across the pond, yeah, Seminole at Bostwick and Stanton at Orlando. Jason put that URL up for Seminole from 2013, which stated that one coal train was stuck on the rotary dumper, the 16th car out of 111, and there was another 111 car consist queued up right behind it, so, you can deduce that they accepted at least 2 x 111 car trains a day, which is possibly the facilities limit, and a bit more than the 90 car trains a day from about the year 2007. It is a simulator after all, with a bit of poetic licence you could create whatever you wanted really, it wouldn't be too far wrong from reality for that time period I wouldn't have thought.

Cheerz. Steve.

[SurvivorSean]

There are other coal locations just off line such as Power Park in Jacksonville from the Kingsland Sub just outside of Jacksonville Yard to the north east.

Gay, Indiantown, Busch/Tampa, and Newberry in Florida are a few other locations that receive coal trains from Callahan Sub via the S line.

Thanks

Sean