Coal Train Aglow
by Bill Kesler
Title
Coal Train Aglow
Artist
Bill Kesler
Medium
Photograph
Description
There are so many interesting things in this photograph, some cool things, and one odd thing. I hope I can fully describe them.
The sun was setting in the west-southwest horizon, with only seconds left of the golden hour and only seconds before the blue hour. The scene takes place west of North Platte, Nebraska at the west entry to Union Pacific's Bailey Yard, the world's largest railroad classification yard, at the famous Birdwood Crossing. At the time of this photograph, Birdwood Crossing gave you many problems for getting across since there is actually eight (8) railroad tracks to cross. With the busy traffic both eastbound and westbound, you could almost bet that Birdwood was going to be blocked. At the time of this upload, a viaduct has been constructed a little to the west of the original Birdwood Crossing.
This incoming eastbound loaded coal train had just crossed Birdwood Crossing. If you look along the left side of the image you can see a familiar crossbuck where the crossing is. With the low light and the train moving about 20 mph resulted in a slow shutter speed giving a natural blur. Look closely at the side of the coal hopper car above my signature and you can faintly see the other side of the train - pretty cool.
Coal hopper cars come in many designs, and this particular coal train had hopper cars with a flat shiny aluminum siding. This shiny flat surface aided in capturing the last warm glow of the setting sun. The pink hues of the sky are also evident in the reflection on the side of the train. Again, pretty cool.
The galvanized steel structure seen above the train has signal lights mounted that tell the engineer if he/she can proceed, or to slow down, or to stop. This signal light structure is over five (5) of the eight (8) tracks. The remaining three (3) tracks are off to the right out of the camera's frame. The overall distance to cross all eight (8) tracks is about a block-and-a-half. Not all eight (8) tracks are considered main line tracks. There are four (4) main line tracks west of North Platte for about 15 miles, where two (2) tracks route to the northwest to the Wyoming coal mines while the other two mainline tracks head west toward Cheyenne, WY. Several hundred feet to the west of Birdwood Crossing, the four (4) mainline tracks start to split resulting in the actual eight (8) tracks at Birdwood Crossing.
The loaded coal train has come out of the coal mines in eastern Wyoming and now arriving at North Platte where it will get fuel, a daily inspection, and a fresh crew. About an hour-and-a-half it will be on its way to a power plant east of North Platte. Most of the coal trains, and there are a lot of them each day, will average around 135 hopper cars, making the overall length of the train around 7,650 feet. Most of these coal trains will have two (2) locomotives on the head end and one (1) at the rear, known as a distributive power unit (DPU). The DPU is controlled by the lead locomotive via radio signals. Again, pretty cool.
Another interesting item in this photograph is the sign near the base of the galvanized steel structure. It reads "Mountain Time Zone Begins". North Platte is located in the Central Time Zone and it is fairly close to the border of the Mountain Time Zone, probably around thirty (30) miles to the west of this location. So why would Union Pacific install a sign such a long distance from the actual time zone border. Well, that's a good question. But knowing that the conductor is responsible for noting the time the train crosses each mile post, and knowing that all train traffic through North Platte will be a departure, that it would greatly simplify his task that all recorded times from departure-to-arrival are in the same time zone.
So to recap, I hope you found the photograph to have several cool features, I hope you found the one odd feature as well. And for good measure, you probably know a little more about railroading and coal trains in general and how a slow shutter speed can see right through them. Even when they are loaded with black powder river coal.
This photograph has had an artistic filter applied to give it qualities unique to the art of painting.
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Uploaded
November 15th, 2018
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