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Re: Oil train on UP's "Washy", southbound
Author: SP5103
Date: 08-15-2013 - 07:07
UP has had a "friendly" connection with CP for decades, the reason Eastport/SI has been a regular gateway.
Oil could be coming out of the Bakken/Williston basin of the CP or CP/SOO out of Saskatchewan or North Dakota. Both CP/SOO and GN/BN/BNSF serve the basin on the US side in North Dakota and Montana. Remember too there is Dakota, Missouri Valley and Western (DMVW) based out of Bismarck which is a contract operator for several former Soo branches. There is a line north out of Bismarck that interchanges at Max that might be loading some oil. There is another line from Flaxton, ND to Whitetail, MT that is loading oil. The DMVW Whitetail line had only been originating grain but historically had moved oil as evidenced by several sets of footings of long gone oil loading racks. The east end of the line is fairly flat with a long closed lignite strip mine and active nuke silos. West of the crew base of Crosby there are increasing hills and scattered oil wells. Even after the previous oil boom faded, the oil companies continued to do geological surveys. They knew the oil was there; the higher price and new technology made it now feasible to recover.
Between Lignite Jct. and Crosby, DMVW uses Soo's trackage and agency rights over GN/BN/BNSF's Crosby branch. DMVW used to average more cars a week through Crosby than BN did in a year, so the BN branch was in horrible shape. Ironically the Soo had built this branch in the 1900s and 1910s using salvaged 60/72/80 pound rail with the intent of reaching Spokane, but they stopped laying rail at Whitetail when it became clear that a fourth transcontinental across Montana wasn't a good idea. I talked to an engineer a couple years ago that confirmed there had been substantial track improvements, and that DMVW was moving oil off the line (loading at Stampede and maybe new trackage rights to Lignite if I recall).
CP/Soo has aggressively marketed this line at least for grain while DMVW has been the operator. Even with parallel GN/BN branches and their mainline just 10-50 miles south, Soo has made an effort to increase their car supply through leases and provided very competitive rates for grain. Shippers often found this better than BN's COTS program and trucked grain to DMVW. The DMVW/Soo rates from Westby-Whitetail, Montana to western destinations were actually lower despite the longer distance compared to North Dakota origins.
Oil could be coming out of the Bakken/Williston basin of the CP or CP/SOO out of Saskatchewan or North Dakota. Both CP/SOO and GN/BN/BNSF serve the basin on the US side in North Dakota and Montana. Remember too there is Dakota, Missouri Valley and Western (DMVW) based out of Bismarck which is a contract operator for several former Soo branches. There is a line north out of Bismarck that interchanges at Max that might be loading some oil. There is another line from Flaxton, ND to Whitetail, MT that is loading oil. The DMVW Whitetail line had only been originating grain but historically had moved oil as evidenced by several sets of footings of long gone oil loading racks. The east end of the line is fairly flat with a long closed lignite strip mine and active nuke silos. West of the crew base of Crosby there are increasing hills and scattered oil wells. Even after the previous oil boom faded, the oil companies continued to do geological surveys. They knew the oil was there; the higher price and new technology made it now feasible to recover.
Between Lignite Jct. and Crosby, DMVW uses Soo's trackage and agency rights over GN/BN/BNSF's Crosby branch. DMVW used to average more cars a week through Crosby than BN did in a year, so the BN branch was in horrible shape. Ironically the Soo had built this branch in the 1900s and 1910s using salvaged 60/72/80 pound rail with the intent of reaching Spokane, but they stopped laying rail at Whitetail when it became clear that a fourth transcontinental across Montana wasn't a good idea. I talked to an engineer a couple years ago that confirmed there had been substantial track improvements, and that DMVW was moving oil off the line (loading at Stampede and maybe new trackage rights to Lignite if I recall).
CP/Soo has aggressively marketed this line at least for grain while DMVW has been the operator. Even with parallel GN/BN branches and their mainline just 10-50 miles south, Soo has made an effort to increase their car supply through leases and provided very competitive rates for grain. Shippers often found this better than BN's COTS program and trucked grain to DMVW. The DMVW/Soo rates from Westby-Whitetail, Montana to western destinations were actually lower despite the longer distance compared to North Dakota origins.
