(The following appeared on the Progressive Railroading website on July 11.)
Flooding issues negatively affected BNSF Railway Co.’s coal traffic in the Powder River Basin (PRB) last month. Daily train loadings averaged 46.2 trains vs. 50.5 trains in June 2007.
Flood-related detours and re-routes, and cycle time increases resulted in BNSF losing an average of 10.3 train loading opportunities per day, the railroad said.
During the first half, BNSF loaded a daily average of 50.2 trains in the PRB, up about 2 percent compared with the same 2007 period. PRB coal volume reached 133.1 million tons, also up about 2 percent year over year.