Showing posts with label Potash Branch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Potash Branch. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Return of the Incredible Shrinking Moab Burro Crane - 2013

 


Moab Jim and Plush Kokopelli at the closed entry to Arches National Park in October 2013 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)

Return of the Incredible Shrinking Moab Burro Crane

In the spring of 2013, I made one of my many visits to Moab, Utah. The shutdown of the federal government and national parks was still five months away. Arches National Park was open and visitation was climbing. As I approached the main entrance at Arches, hundreds of vehicles waited for entry. Bypassing the turnoff, I drove north on U.S. Highway 191, toward the airport and Crescent Junction, beyond.

With no respect for Moab history, highway crews destroyed this traditional signage near Moab in 2013 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)As I approached the turnoff to Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands National Park, I noticed an interesting piece of equipment, parked on a railroad siding. The siding was part of the Potash Branch, which is the rail line from Brendel to Potash. That rail line also carries radioactive, contaminated soil from the infamous Moab Pile to a disposal site at Brendel, near Crescent Junction, Utah. After turning on to State Highway 313, I stopped at a barren, windblown area adjacent to the Seven Mile siding.

Resting on the siding, along with its tender car, was a Union Pacific Railroad Model 40 Burro Crane (#BC-47). The Burro Crane is a “maintenance of way” (MOW) vehicle that is self-propelled, and able to lift and move railroad
track and materials. With sufficient supplies on its tender car, a small “road gang” can actually build a rail line as the Burro Crane extends the tracks The Union Pacific Railroad BC-47 Moab Burro Crane, as it appeared at Seven Mile in 2013 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)ahead of itself.

With its steel doors and security panels closed, the Burro Crane looked lonely and deserted. That is the thing about Burro Cranes, with their quaint name and anthropomorphic looks. One almost immediately ascribes a personality and other life forces to this mechanical contraption. Although the area was deserted and desolate, I could picture the Moab Burro, as I named it, waiting for nightfall and then scooting up and down the Potash Branch as it pleased.

After taking a few pictures of the Moab Burro, the Seven Mile sign and the La Sal Range to the east, I climbed back in my truck and drove toward Moab. The Moab Burro Crane disappeared from the rail siding at Seven Mile before 2015 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)Upon returning home, I began researching the rich history of the Burro Crane. Built in Chicago by the Cullen Friestadt Company, there were many twentieth century iterations of the Burro Crane. Like a 1950's Chevy, the Model 40 Burro Crane was the classic of all Burro Cranes. It was compact, featured a diesel engine, was easy to maneuver and had tremendous lifting capacity.

Later, I was fortunate to meet Frank J. Cullen, the last family member to run the Cullen Friestadt Company as a private business. I like to call Frank J. Cullen “The Father of the Burro Crane”. After researching the Burro Crane online, I compiled all of that history and published it at www.BurroCrane.com. In addition to the official history of the Burro Crane, I also enlisted Plush Kokopelli and Coney the Traffic Cone to help tell the Moab Burro story.

in 2017, Plush Kokopelli hovers near the Seven Mile sign, searching for the Moab Burro Crane - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)After standing alone on the rail siding at Seven Mile for several years, the Moab Burro had become a fixture of the landscape and a landmark to those who knew it. It even appeared on Google Maps satellite photos of that era. Although the Moab Burro still appeared on Google Maps as of late 2017, the Burro Crane itself went missing by 2015, never to return. Since Plush Kokopelli and Coney the Traffic Cone love a good mystery, I asked them to help find the missing Moab Burro.

Some say that the dynamic duo found the Moab Burro, but that radioactivity from the passing Train of Pain had caused a dimensional shift around it. In October 2017, The Other (a shadowy figure) drove with Plush Kokopelli back to Seven Mile. There, they searched for the Moab Burro and Coney the Traffic Cone, who had both gone missing. Did both the Moab Plush Kokopelli and Coney the Traffic Cone waiting for the Moab Burro Crane Crane in October 2017 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)Burro and Coney shrink so small that they became invisible? That was what Plush Kokopelli and The Other hoped to discover.

Upon arrival at Seven Mile, The Other carried Plush Kokopelli to the railroad tracks. Neither Coney nor the Moab Burro was visible. Soon, Plush Kokopelli floated up like a drone, overlooking the scene. As he landed on the tracks, the Moab Burro reappeared, right next to him. Soon, Coney the Traffic Cone reappeared, as well. Neither of them seemed to notice that the Moab Burro had transmogrified from a large piece of railroad equipment to the size of a toy.

To Coney the Traffic Cone and Plush Kokopelli, the Moab Burro looked as big and powerful as ever. Now, let us see if we can get the Union Pacific Railroad
Plush Kokopelli is reunited with the now diminutive Moab Burro Crane in October 2017 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)to reconstitute the Moab Burro back to its original size. If the full-sized Moab Burro were to reappear at Seven Mile, that would be magic.


By James McGillis at 04:57 PM | | Comments (0) | Link

Monday, October 11, 2021

The "Train of Pain" Travels Thirty Miles from Moab to Crescent Junction - 2011

 


Union Pacific Railroad locomotives pull the uranium mill tailings train to the disposal site - Click for larger image (https://jamesmcgillis.com) 

The "Train of Pain" Travels Thirty Miles from Moab to Crescent Junction  

In April 2009, I was in Moab, Utah when the first mill tailings train departed the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) site. The train departed from a track running high along a ridge that overlooks the Moab Pile. Five days each week, a trainload of radioactive soil headed north on the Cane Creek Subdivision, better known as the Potash Branch. The destination is a disposal site, northeast of Brendel and Crescent Junction, Utah. In those early days of rail transport, there was no published train schedule. Before I could locate a schedule, it was time for me to leave Moab.
A plume of diesel train exhaust follows the uranium mill tailings special as it gains speed in the desert, near Canyonlands Field, Moab, Utah. - Click for larger image (https://jamesmcgillis.com) 
In October 2010, I returned to Moab, traveling south along U.S. Highway 191. As the road descended towards the entrance at Arches National Park, I looked ahead towards the ridge. There I saw two Union Pacific Railroad locomotives pulling a trainload of containers to the north. After noting the time, I made plans to return and photograph the train as it traveled toward the UMTRA disposal site in the desert.
 
Two afternoons later, I waited near Milepost 134 on Highway 191. From there, I could see the lead engine, a 2004 GE C44AC-CTE approaching from over a mile away. As it pulled the hill, the entire train disappeared behind the Redrock. Reappearing a minute later, the lead engine entered an “S” curve. If this were the old days, I would say that the engines appeared to be “building steam”. As I stood and shot photos, the engines rapidly approached.
 
 
While standing near the edge of the railroad right of way, an unexpected plume of sound, heat and pollution blew me back from my position. After receiving that 8800-horsepower blast of old energy from the twin GE Evolution Series diesel locomotives, almost a minute passed before I could catch my breath. Still, as the parade of nuclear waste bins passed my position, I reflexively snapped more photos.
Lead locomotive crosses a steel trestle bridge near Canyonlands Field, Moab, Utah - Click for larger image (https://jamesmcgillis.com) 
Each of the thirty-six flatcars carried four steel-lidded bins. The two bins at the center of each car held up to thirty-five cubic yards and two outboard bins were larger still. Bringing up the rear were two ancient, exhaust encrusted locomotives. After fifteen years of service in the Rockies, the old diesel-electric engines could still share the load with the newer, equally powerful engines at head-end. Because of the extreme weight of the mill tailing trains, pushers are needed to help climb the initial grade. If an average container held forty cubic yards, the entire train carried almost 5000 cubic yards of contaminated soil. When dumped at the disposal site, a single trainload of contaminated soil would fill an American football field to a depth of about one meter.
Another 5000 cubic yards of nuclear contaminated material heads for the UMTRA Disposal Cell. It is not widely known that U.S. railroads transport radioactive material. 
To put the cleanup process into perspective, consider that it will take ten to fifteen years to complete the removal project. That timeline assumes two trainloads per day, at least five days per week. What might happen if a Colorado River flood were to hit the UMTRA site before the Moab Pile is gone? Only time will tell.
 
After the train passed my position, I jumped into my truck and headed towards the grade crossing at Utah Highway 313. When I reached that spot, the lead locomotives had already passed. I fastened my seatbelt and took off for a spot where the tracks come close to the highway. While taking pictures from a small hill adjacent to the tracks, the big diesel engines soon provided me with another blast of hot diesel exhaust.
The "Train of Pain" approaches the Rock Corral Road grade crossing - Click for larger image (https://jamesmcgillis.com) 
Traveling farther north, I stopped at an arroyo and shot pictures of the engines as they passed over a low bridge. My final stop was north of Canyonlands Field, where the unmarked Rock Corral Road crosses the tracks. This time I arrived well before of the train. After passing under the highway near Canyonlands Field, the train made wide left turn across my field of view. As it did, I could see each car in the thirty-nine car train. As the big diesel electric engines approached, I moved back form the tracks the tracks and continued shooting pictures. The train passed my position; it was heading down a slight grade, gaining speed on the straightaway.
Radioactive mill tailings pass by Rock Corral Road, in Grand County, Utah - Cl;ick for larger image (https://jamesmcgillis.com) 
Thinking that I was smarter than the train this time, I had positioned myself upwind from the exhaust blast. Sounding like an earthquake on wheels, I watched as the mighty engines roared toward me. What I had forgotten was the several horn-blasts required at a rail crossing, even in the middle of nowhere. This time, rather than an exhaust blast I endured several deafening blasts from the horns.
 
Covered with diesel soot and near deaf from the horn blasts, I stopped chasing the "Train of Pain". Instead, I stood between the tracks and watched as the two 1996 GE C44AC pusher engines disappeared down the tracks.
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By James McGillis at 05:45 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link