Black Mesa and Lake Powell Railroad
| Page - Kayenta | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Route length: | 78 mls, 126 km |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Power system : | 50000 ~ |
The Black Mesa & Lake Powell Railroad , or BM&LP for short, is a 125.5-kilometer-long, disused electrified main line that is completely isolated from the rest of the track network and connects a coal mine near Kayenta with the Navajo Generating Station near Page in northeastern Arizona . The company owns the Salt River Project and the remaining owners of the power plant. After talks on the sale of the power plant to the Navajo Nation finally failed at the end of March 2019 , the railway was decommissioned in August 2019.
history
The line opened in October 1973 and was the first railway line in the world to be electrified with 50 kilovolt , 60 Hertz single-phase alternating current. Electrical operation was chosen primarily for economic reasons. Initially, fully automatic operation was planned, but due to the existence of several level crossings, this idea was discarded for safety reasons. The higher voltage was chosen so that the line could be operated with a single transformer station. Electrification with 25 kV would have required three or four. Due to their isolated location, all vehicles had to be transferred by road from Williams, which is just under 200 kilometers away .
In 2017, the owner announced his intention to close the power plant in Page and thus also the open-cast mine and the railway at the end of 2019. After several bidders had expressed interest in a takeover, but then withdrew, the only candidate left for continued operation was the Navajo Transitional Energy Company. At the end of March 2019, NTEC also abandoned the takeover plan. The last coal train was therefore transported on August 26, 2019. The power plant then burned coal stocks that were still in storage before it was shut down on November 18, 2019. In autumn 2019, the dismantling of the railway line's contact line systems began while the track system is being handed over to the Navajo Nation.
vehicles
 BM&LP E60CF parked in Page
 4 E60C-2 leave Page in the direction of Kayenta
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From the beginning, six electric locomotives of the E60CF series from General Electric were available for operation. These correspond to the later for technically Amtrak built E60CP , but have only one Endführerstand. As of 2010, four of these six locomotives were parked as spare parts dispensers and one was in use and was used until it was shut down. Another was given to the Arizona State Railroad Museum in Williams in August 2010 . In the late 1990s, eight new electric locomotives of the successor type E60C-2 were acquired from Mexico . Six of these were in use and two served as spare parts donors. In addition, a TE53-4E series diesel locomotive converted from a U25B by Morrison-Knudsen was available. The bulk wagons were all manufactured by Ortner and FMC in the 1970s and were supplemented by 39 newly built by Johnstown America .
business
After two trains with two locomotives each were on the line at the same time in the early years, in recent years only one train with up to 90 cars and four or five locomotives has been on the road. Normally he made three round trips a day, with one round lasting an average of eight hours. The midday train was canceled on Tuesdays to have time for maintenance work on the route and the overhead contact line systems.
Web links
- Michael Kreiser: Black Mesa & Lake Powell. Retrieved January 18, 2020 .
- Wes Carr: Black Mesa & Lake Powell. trainweb.org, accessed January 18, 2020 .
literature
- William D. Middleton : When the steam railroads electrified . 2nd revised edition. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN 2001, ISBN 978-0-253-33979-9 (English).
- Mike Walker: Steam Powered Video's Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America: Arizona & New Mexico . Steam Powered Publishing, Faversham, Kent, United Kingdom 1995, ISBN 1-874745-04-8 , pp. 6 (English).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c David Lassen: Last run for the 'finest railroad' . In: Trains Magazine . No. 11/2019 , 2019, p. 7 (English): “… ran its final train in the early morning hours of Aug. 26, 2019 […] the power plant is projected to close in October when its current stockpile is exhausted”
- ↑ Naabik'íyáti'Committee ends final effort to keep NGS open Navajo Hopi Observer March 26, 2019
- ↑ Krista Allen: NGS breathes its last; decommissioning starts. In: navajotimes.com. November 21, 2019, accessed on January 18, 2020 (English): "The Navajo Generating Station permanently shut down [...] after it burned the last of its coal on Monday [...]" ... the railroad's going to remain for the Navajo Nation , but the catenary, which is the wires and the poles - basically the electrical components, that's going to be removed. "National's work has begun, and it will continue through fall 2020."