August 2016 contest

[JCagle]

We have been in a bit of a slump lately with the contest. I am making an effort to revamp the contest and breathe some new life in to it.

With the decline in the number of  active coal fired power plants and the state of the coal industry the unit coal train is becoming a rarer and rarer sight these days.

Like many I remember not that long ago when coal trains were common place, and unless they had rare power they were a good excuse to take a break from the track side action if things had been busy and you were hungry.

Lets throw out some memories of all those good ole days with this month's contest titled "King Coal".

The contest will follow all of our normal rules, and will be open for entries until August 27th. The limit is 2 entries per person.

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[TheVARailFan]

Coal Drag at Collier

[TheVARailFan]

Coal Drag at Yadkin

[NSSpike]

NS 708 to Georgia Power Plant Wansley on the Central Of Georgia "C-Line" past the old Carrollton Depot.

[NSSpike]

From days gone by, NS 706 rotary dumping at Plant Yates back in June 2003 with a solid trio of Conrail units.

[Matt L]

A little over a month ago, NS 525 headed west with empties after dropping off a load of coal for the Milliken power station. The photo was taken by me Friday 7/15/2016 at Bayview Road in Hamburg, NY. In this age of widecabs, it was nice to see a standard cab SD70 leading the way.

[E.M. Bell]

Southbound coal train 890 climbs the big hill at Kings Mountain, KY with 120 loads of black diamonds shimmering in the morning light.  This train loads on the PAL in Western Kentucky and operates via the NS to the TVA plant at Kingston, TN.  12/16/15 

Southbound coal and ugly new signals at Kings Mountain by E.M. Bell, on Flickr

Looks like the mine did a fine job of uniformly loading the cars on Eastbound NS 76J, seen here at Harrodsburg, KY.  This train loads at a mine in Southern Indiana, and goes to the KU plant at Brown, KY.  03/28/16

NS 76J (The KU Brown coal train ) stretches out through East Harrodsburg on a cold March morning by E.M. Bell, on Flickr

[JCagle]

The poll is up and active for 7 days since we have a holiday weekend coming up. Look for the September contest theme in the comping days. I can't promise it will be out on the 1st but it should be some time this week.

[JCagle]

Congrats to TheVaRailfan. The shot has been posted on facebook for the world to see.