Archive for the ‘Mining’ Category
Kinney and Lila
I have created two new pages covering recent developments in Utah coal mining, and the railroads that serve them.
The Kinney No. 2 mine is being developed at the location of the former Union Pacific mine that dates back to the 1880s. The location is just north and east of the town of Scofield, in Pleasant Valley. The site is already served by Union Pacific’s Pleasant Valley Subdivision, and the mine owners have said that they plan on shipping coal by rail from their Kinney mine to West Coast and Gulf Coast ports for export to customers worldwide. Mining is expected to start in late 2013.
The Lila Canyon mine is a new coal mine located on the edge of the Book Cliffs, just south of Horse Canyon where Carbon County Railway served the Geneva Mine from 1942 to 1982. Small-scale mining started at Lila Canyon in 2010, with the coal being trucked to existing loadout facilities near Price, Utah. Large-scale mining is expected to start in 2014 after a longwall mining machine is installed in the Lila Canyon mine.
Railroading at Garfield
Railroading at Garfield, Utah, on the south shore of Great Salt Lake, changed again in 2010 when a company by the name of Stella-Jones took over the in-plant switching contract at the Garfield complex of Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Utah Copper Company. Stella-Jones is a Canadian company, serving customers throughout North America, furnishing treated wood products such as utility poles and wooden railroad ties. Through their acquisition in 2010 of Tangent Rail Corporation, they also operate the rail car maintenance facility and rail switching operation at Garfield.
The Garfield complex includes the Garfield copper smelter, the Garfield copper refinery, and until 2002, the Magna concentrator mill. The adjacent Arthur concentrator mill was also part of the Garfield complex, until it was closed in 1985. After its closure, the site of the Arthur mill was reclaimed, and since its closure in 2002, the site of the Magna mill has also been reclaimed. But much of the railroad trackage remains in place today.
Bingham Canyon After 1981 | Garfield Switching Contract
The copper concentrator mill at Magna was completed by Utah Copper Company (now Kennecott Utah Copper) in 1908. In 1909, the adjacent Arthur concentrating mill was completed by Boston Consolidated Mining Company, a competitor to Utah Copper (Boston Con and Utah Copper merged in 1910). American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) completed its copper smelter at Garfield in mid-1906. To serve the construction and later operation of these new industrial sites in the Garfield area, Rio Grande Western Railway completed its Garfield Branch in late 1905. The branch extended 17 miles from its connection at Welby, in the central Salt Lake valley with the road’s Bingham Branch, and remains in place today, although unused.
Rio Grande Western provided whatever in-plant switching was needed until Utah Copper grew weary of the too-high rates and completed its subsidiary Bingham & Garfield Railway in 1911 to transport its own copper ore. After its completion, B&G performed almost all of Utah Copper’s in-plant switching, under a separate Utah Copper organization known as the Ore Delivery Department. RGW continued as the connection between the Utah Copper mills and ASARCO’s Garfield smelter, five miles to the west. (ASARCO sold its Garfield smelter to Kennecott in 1959.)
Throughout the years, D&RGW provided an interchange connection with Kennecott at Magna on the southeast side of the Garfield complex by way of its Garfield Branch. On the north side, in 1903 Oregon Short Line Railroad completed the Leamington Cut-Off for its California-bound trains. Very soon after, OSL sold its lines south and west of Salt Lake City to the newly organized San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad. In 1905, the San Pedro added a new station and siding tracks on the north side of the Garfield complex to serve the new mills and smelter, and in 1909 when Western Pacific was completed between Salt Lake City and Elko, Nevada, it also added a station and siding at Garfield. The WP station was called Smelter, and was located about one mile west of the San Pedro station of Garfield. In 1967, Union Pacific and Western Pacific made a joint-trackage agreement to operate the 15 miles of parallel mainlines between Salt Lake City and WP’s station at Smelter.
In a side note about corporate succession, Utah Copper Company became the Utah Copper Division of Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1941, and in 1989, Kennecott Copper Corporation became Kennecott Utah Copper, a unit of the Rio Tinto, one of the largest mining companies in the world. San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake simplified its name to become Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad in 1916. In 1936, Union Pacific leased LA&SL for operation, although it had held almost full control since the road’s earliest days. In 1987 Union Pacific formally merged with LA&SL. In 1983, Union Pacific bought Western Pacific, giving UP a direct route between Salt Lake City and Oakland, California. In 1996, Union Pacific bought control of Denver & Rio Grande Western, and merged with the road in 1997.
Back to Garfield: After Union Pacific’s 1983 purchase of Western Pacific, the former joint facility at Garfield was combined under Union Pacific ownership. Union Pacific’s purchase of D&RGW in 1996 included D&RGW’s Garfield Branch. The Union Pacific interchange at Garfield was on the north side and closer to Kennecott’s own Garfield operations. The former D&RGW Garfield Branch was a longer distance for trains to travel, and passed through rapidly expanding suburbia along the western edge of the Salt Lake valley, leading to UP’s decision to curtail operations over the former D&RGW tracks, although the branch remains in place today.
In 1985, due to the low price of copper, Kennecott suspended all mining and milling operation. As the price of copper recovered, mining resumed in September 1986, and milling and smelting operations resumed three months later. Overall operations were much reduced; because it was the most modern, the Bonneville crushing and grinding mill was restarted, feeding the Magna concentrator. The Arthur mill was closed permanently, as was the Magna crushing and grinding mill. Kennecott’s private railroad, formerly known as the Ore Haulage Division, was used to move ore solely to the Bonneville mill, at a rate of just 35,000 tons per day (compared to a peak of 110,000 tons per day in 1979). During the shutdown, in February 1986 Kennecott had started a $400 million modernization program meant to lower its production costs. Included was a new in-mine primary crusher that fed a five-mile conveyor system, which for three miles of its length passed through the 5490 railroad tunnel. The conveyor system passed the ore to the new Copperton crushing and grinding mill, which then passed the ore to the Copperton concentrator. The copper concentrate was then transported to the smelter by way of a new 17-mile slurry pipeline. With the Copperton mill coming on-line, the combined Bonneville and Magna mills were designated as the North Concentrator Complex, and the Copperton mill became the Copperton Concentrator Complex. In 1992-1995, the Copperton mill was expanded by 50 percent, from 77,000 tons per day to 112,000 tons per day. The added cost to operate the North complex, with its older equipment, and the cost of rail transport, reduced its status to being used only to process excess output from the mine. The North complex was closed in late 2001, and rail operations between the Bingham mine and the mills came to an end.
With the closure of the Magna concentrator in late 2001, Kennecott Utah Copper ended the operation of its 16-mile private mainline railroad between the Bingham Canyon mine and the concentrator mills at Magna, Arthur and Bonneville. After the shutdown of the mainline operations, Kennecott no longer needed to maintain its railroad locomotive and car maintenance facilities at the Magna location, which were closed in favor of the company’s Dry Fork shops in Bingham Canyon. Kennecott had been using outside contractors to maintain its fleet of hundreds of white KCCX sulfur tank cars, and saw the Magna shops as a suitable location to maintain the fleet. As a result, Kennecott contracted with RailWorks Corporation to provide maintenance for Kennecott’s large fleet of white KCCX sulfur tank cars, using the former Magna car shop and locomotive shop. RailWorks Corporation had been formed in 1998, and soon became a leader in railroad construction and maintenance services for transit authorities, and commercial and industrial companies with rail infrastructure. At the same time, in 2002, Railworks purchased three Kennecott high-cab GP39-2s (KCC 707, 792, 799) to perform the switching.
Railworks contracted in late 2002 with Rail Link (RLIX) to operate the locomotives and provide operating crews. Rail Link was a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming Industries (GWI) which had just purchased the Utah Railway in August 2002. Utah Railway was under contract with Union Pacific and BNSF to provide local railroad service over UP’s former D&RGW Garfield Branch, connecting with Kennecott Utah Copper’s Magna concentrator.
Between 2002 and October 2005, the three GP39-2s, 707, 792, and 799, had large Railworks and Rail Link labels to the sides of the locomotives, covering the Kennecott lettering.
In October 2005, RailWorks sold portions of its rail services business to the newly created Tangent Rail Corporation, including its rail car and locomotive maintenance operation at Magna, Utah. Tangent Rail took over both the rail car maintenance contract, and the switching contract. Large new labels were applied to the locomotives, covering the RailWorks logo on the hood sides, and the Rail Link logo on the cab sides.
In April 2010, Tangent Rail Corporation was sold to Stella-Jones, Inc., a large international company that furnishes treated wood products to all industries, including treated wood ties to the railroad industry worldwide. In the years following its creation in October 2005, Tangent Rail Corporation had become the major U.S. supplier of treated wood products, and its sale to Stella-Jones was said to be a good fit, allowing them to enter the U.S. market with a well-established sales and service organization.
One result of the sale of Tangent Rail to Stella-Jones, was that the locomotives assigned at Magna, Utah for the Kennecott switching contract had their logos changed to reflect the new owner. Two of the three locomotive were seen on October 3, 2011, and are plainly labeled as Stella-Jones locomotives.
