POLI 100K, Railroads and American Politics: Topic 1, Why are Railroads Important?

Railroads move about 65 percent of the nation's coal which is used to generate about 60 percent of the electricty in the U.S.

The Powder River Basin is the largest single source of Coal in the United States. Production in 2005 was 390,200,000 tons.

A typical train leaving the basin is 3/4 of a mile long and can weigh up to 23,000 tons.



The coal beds in the Basin are up to 100 feet thick compared to a typical seam in Pennsylvania that is less than 10 feet thick. The coal is attractive to power plants because it is up to five times lower in sulfur than Appalachian coal. Each year 1,300 trainloads of Wyoming coal are required to power just one Georgia electrical generating plant.

The coal pits are several hundred feet deep and two or three miles long. The drag lines that clear off the overburden are supported by 8-story high towers and weight 400 tons. The Dump Trucks weight 300 tons and the bulldozers weight 100 tons.

Each gondola coal car carries 115 tons and is loaded in one second.




About 23,000 coal trains leave the Basin every year or 34,000 miles of trains.



Powder River Basin coal is primarily used to generate electricity. All of this coal is transported by rail. The Scherer plant in Georgia burns the equivalent of one entire coal train in less than 8 hours. This amounts to 1,300 coal trains a year or 12,000,000 tons of coal.