Powder River Basin trip

As a rail fan, the prototype is always as fascinating as the model. Such was the case a week ago, when twelve of us (from Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri and even one from Canada) met in Chicago where we boarded Amtrak's California Zephyr for Denver and then took rented cars to the Powder River Coal Basin in Wyoming. We visited the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, CO (highly recommended), the Cheyenne WY Depot (also highly recommended), and the Powder River Basin.

The Black Thunder Mine, owned by St. Louis company Arch Coal, is the largest (based on production) coal mine in the world. It's all surface mining here.

Until the coal mining depression (thanks to cheaper natural gas, low cost crude oil, and depressed foreign markets)  hit a couple of years ago, more than 100 trains of 125-plus cars left this area daily. That number is now often fewer than 30 trains a day. Train loading never halts, as the empty trains enter the balloon track queue, proceed through the loaders, and depart, all without stopping.

The Cheyenne Depot, built in 1886, continues its renovations started in 2011. It includes the restored waiting room, an extensive museum, a large model railroad depicting Wyoming railroading of yesteryear, and an enclosed second floor observation area overlooking the UP yards. Passenger service has not come through Cheyenne since the 1970s, but this is a large yard, serving the UP, and a crew change point on the railroad.



It wasn't all museums and coal mines; we also found time to get trackside. Here a UP stack train races west towards its crew change at Cheyenne, only a couple of miles away.

Even in late April, weather impacted our trip; we were unable to get to the famous Sherman Hill on the UP as snow and fog closed down I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie the day we were in the area and planning to film long UP freights working up the hill that has drawn rail photographers for more than 100 years.

It was a good trip, and visiting the Powder River Basin is a checkmark on my personal bucket list.