Tumbler Ridge Line

Tumbler Ridge Line
above: Tumbler Ridge Line with the serviced coal mines below: Route from Tumbler Ridge to the port in Prince Rupert
Route length:	129 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	15.0  ‰
Top speed:	90 km / h
Legend by Prince Rupert 534.9 Tacheeda ↓ 50 kV 60 Hz ~ ↑ diesel operation 537.2 Wakely to Chetwynd Tumbler Ridge Subdivision Parsnip River Table River Table tunnel (9.6 km) Wolverine Tunnels (5.6 km) Wolverine Mine ▼ Bullmoose Loop Bullmoose Creek Wolverine River Murray River Tumbler Ridge ▼ Trend mine ▼ Quintet Loop

GMD GF6C locomotive

The Tumbler Ridge Line is a 129 km long formerly electrified branch of the British Columbia Railway (BC Rail), now Canadian National (CN).

history

In 1975 a preliminary project for the mining of the coal deposits in northern British Columbia was created, in which a railway line was already mentioned, which led from the mines to the north in the direction of Chetwynd . A contract to supply coal to the Japanese steel industry for 16 years was signed in February 1981. The expansion of the pits and the construction of the railway began immediately afterwards. The line was no longer connected  to the existing BC Rail line in Chetwynd, but in Tacheeda . The first coal train left Tumbler Ridge just 995 days after the contract was signed on November 1, 1983.

The closure of the Quintette opencast mines in 2000 and Bullmoose in 2003 led to a significant loss of importance of the route. Before the sale to the Canadian National, the overhead lines were dismantled again.

In September 2016, coal mining was resumed in the Brule Mine, and at the end of 2016 also in the Wolverine Mine. The removal was provisionally carried out by truck, as the route was no longer passable at that time. In the course of 2017, the line was repaired and the rail transport of coal was resumed in September 2017.

Route description

The Tumbler Ridge Line begins in Tacheeda on the north-south mainline of the BC Rail and runs in an easterly direction. First it follows the remote Table Valley and climbs up to 1163 m above sea level. The Rocky Mountains are crossed under the Table Tunnel and the Wolverine Tunnel - the second and fourth longest rail tunnels in Canada. Shortly before Tumbler Ridge is the turning loop of the Bullmoose opencast mine. Then the route leads south. It leads past Tumbler Ridge - the settlement for the employees of the opencast mining operations -, crosses the Sukinka River and after about 15 km reaches the turning loop of the Quintette opencast mine.

In total there are four tunnels and eleven bridges on the route. The empty trains traveling eastwards have to overcome a gradient of 15 ‰, the full trains traveling westwards a gradient of 12 ‰. Since a large amount of coal was forecast at the beginning and for operational flexibility, the line was built with four three-track passing points. Two of the passing points west of the Table Tunnel and two east of the Wolverine Tunnel.

The catenary used is based on the construction of the Swedish State Railways (SJ), including the similar climatic conditions of Sweden and the north of British Columbia . The contact wire height is 6.5 m above the upper edge of the rail and to save costs, the lattice masts were either placed on prefabricated concrete bases or stand on double-T girders that were driven into the ground. 20 to 50 masts could be erected per day. The trains, which generally run with two locomotives, were pushed to the Wolverine Tunnel with two additional locomotives due to the gradient of the loaded, westbound trains to be overcome. For this reason, among other things, despite the high contact line voltage of 50 kV, a parallel reinforcement line was installed in order to increase the line cross-section to 305 mm².

business

Because of two long tunnels and the easy availability of hydropower from the W. A. ​​C. Bennett Dam , the decision was made to run the route electrically. The traction current system with a contact line voltage of 50 kilovolts and a frequency of 60 Hertz made it possible to get by with just one substation . The Black Mesa and Lake Powell Railroad , which was later also operated with 50 kV and 60 Hz, ceased operations on August 26, 2019. The Sishen – Saldanha railway line in South Africa is also operated with 50 kV, but with a frequency of 50 Hz.

For operation, the Canadian EMD subsidiary built seven locomotives of the GF6C series with the help of the Swedish ASEA , which were used together with 98 car trains; At the beginning there were six trains available.

The trains were loaded from a silo with the electric locomotives in crawl gear , whereby the loader himself controlled the speed of the train via radio remote control . Loading was carried out on the exit from the 5.6 km long turning loops of the facility onto the straight track. This was to prevent the wagons from derailing and tipping inwards when there were high tensile forces in the tight curve of the loop. As a rule, the train drove through the load at around 1 km / h.

The electric locomotive brought the loaded trains to Tacheeda, where they were taken over by diesel locomotives for the rest of the journey to the coal port. The port was on Ridley Island, about 15 m south of Prince Rupert. There, the cars were not disengage with a centrifugal Tipper discharged and sent back empty on the return journey towards Tacheeda where the electric locomotives took over again. A complete cycle took four days.

Open wagons without bottom flaps ( gondolas in American parlance ) were used, these are equipped with rotatable couplings on one side and marked in color on the corresponding side of the wagon. Since the trains ran with special end wagons (caboose), a wagon with two rotatable couplings had to be used per train (each wagon transition of a coal wagon must be rotatable on one side). The cars were used in a vehicle pool together with Canadian National cars.

Wagons delivered later were also equipped with bogies whose axles could be adjusted radially - a specialty in North America at the time.

Organizationally, the route was a separate subdivision, the Tumbler Ridge subdivision .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Land Survey Projects - BC Rail Tumbler Ridge Branch Line, 1980-1983. In: www.underhill.ca. Retrieved October 27, 2016 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Tacheeda, Bullmoose, Quintette Part 1. In: www.oil-electric.com. Retrieved October 29, 2016 . 
3. ^ Peter Kennedy: Teck to close BC mine . In: The Globe and Mail . March 2, 2000 ( theglobeandmail.com ).
4. ^ BCR's electrified Tumbler Ridge branch, 1994 . In: Trainorders.com Discussion . ( trainorders.com [accessed October 27, 2016]).
5. ↑ Energy Mines and Petroleum Resources: Restart of Brule Mine means up to 170 new jobs for region | BC Gov News. Retrieved November 13, 2017 . 
6. ↑ Second coal mine to reopen in northeastern BC In: Vancouver Sun . December 29, 2016 ( vancouversun.com [accessed November 13, 2017]).
7. ↑ Stuart Chirls, Senior Editor: CN reopens BC coal line . ( railwayage.com [accessed November 13, 2017]).
8. ↑ ERIK OLSON: Electrification of the Tumbler Ridge Branch Line in British Columbia, Canada. Retrieved February 28, 2020 . 
9. ↑ 995 Days - Construction of the Tumbler Ridge Line on YouTube
10. ↑ Andreas Steimel: Electric traction vehicles and their energy supply: Basics and practice . Oldenbourg Industrieverlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-8356-3090-1 , p. 250.
11. ↑ www.nakina.net: List of freight cars of the former Tumbler Ridge line
12. ↑ Tacheeda, Bull Moose, Quintets Part 2. In: www.oil-electric.com. Retrieved October 29, 2016 .