Yes, coal is sprayed with a coating to prevent it's blowing off. Enviro's claim that every coal train loses one and a half car loads of coal due to blow off, roughly 160 tons per train. (This figure has been repeatedly published in various newspapers across the nation.)
And they somehow believe that railroad customers tolerate that much loss of product. Of course it doesn't happen, but makes a fine story. They also claim to be finding coal beneath railroad bridges, but they never publish any chemical examination of the coal they claim to find to determine it's source, soooo, one doesn't know if the coal really is falling off todays trains, or it is coal from the steam trains from decades ago. We also do not know if the people digging under bridges have the proper environmental permits to be doing such work, and if they are taking required erosion precautions required by law. Several months ago, an environmental group purchased ads in several northwest newspapers with photos claiming to show coal dust blowing off a loaded coal train, however, research of the photograph revealed that it was steam coming off of a freshly loaded coal train leaving the mine and was not dust at all. No correction of this ad has been published to date.