(The following story appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on March 4, 2011.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Surface Transportation Board ruled that BNSF Railway’s method for limiting a shipper’s coal dust dispersion on its tracks was “not reasonable,” but left the door open for railroads to try other ways to fix this “serious problem.”
The decision shuts down a May 2009 tariff BNSF imposed on Wyoming-mined coal hauled over the railroad’s Black Hills subdivision in Wyoming and along the 102-mile Joint Line shared with Union Pacific Railroad, on its way to utilities across the country. The STB case petition was filed that October by Arkansas Electric Cooperative.
Both BNSF and UP earlier said coal dust had clogged their tracks and rock ballast so much that it distorted the roadbed, required extensive and costly repairs and disrupted traffic. So railroads have been searching for ways to reduce the problem of coal coming out of railcars in transit and building up in the track infrastructure, but requiring shippers to keep their dust represents an historic change in freight handling.
The full story appears at www.joc.com.