Tumbleweed Alert
Although this campground is now behind us it has left indelible memories, which I think are only fair to share with the world.
As you read the rest of this page you may wish to play the video, it will provide a soothing background.
Did you know that Wyoming produces 40% of USA coal? That was 388 million tons last year, just over 1 million tons a day. I think I showed an interesting picture from our tour of the museum in Cheyenne. Look here it is again:
See how much coal there is.
Well, what we found out is that almost all of the million tons of coal a day passes about 25 yards from our trailer! In trains that have 3 to 4 big diesels pulling them at the front and 1 to 2 more diesels at the back pushing. I only counted the number of trucks on one train - 133 while I was washing up, after that I sort of lost the will to live. Each truck carries 121 tons of coal (that is more than 16000 tons of coal), in case you really didn't count the trucks on the train video, there are 166, which more or less rounds out at 20,000 tons of coal.
The exciting thing for the train driver was that the train goes through the middle of Fort Laramie, which is a town which has no stop light, but three rail crossings. I don't know if you know, but when a train approaches a rail crossing in USA it usually sounds its romantic, long ,low moaning whistle and rings a bell, unfortunately these cola trains have very loud air horns, really very loud air horns, and the Chuck Wagon RV is about 100 yards from the first crossing, which is where that video was shot, as we were leaving). Fortunately, so as not to overwhelm us with surprise, the train gives an initial blast about 200 yards from the crossing, and then again at 100 yards, that was the one that really was loud. Put it this way, the third crossing is at the other end of town, about a mile away, and the air horn still sounded loud when it went past that crossing. Interestingly enough these trains can travel quite fast, I reckon about 15 m.p.h., so they are making a lot of train noise as well, especially when they are 25 yards away and full of coal.
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| Train coming through! |
Because the coal is carried in a finite number of trucks and by a finite number of engines, they must return to the coalfield to fill up again, so every train that goes down the line full, comes back again empty, only faster. Again fortunately you know they are coming and can prepare yourself, as they sound their air horns as they approach the first of the crossings at the other end of town, thus giving you a chance to strap yourself down or don ear protection. To be fair during the night we only got trains coming through at 11.20, 12.30, 3.15, 3.25, 5.00 and 5.15 a.m.
So one could get some sleep. While lying awake one can count coal cars instead of sheep and work out that at 20K ton of coal per train, that is 50 trains per day taking it out and 50 trains returning, to be fair there were not 100 trains per day, it just seemed like it. I also know that a lot of the coal is taken West, either for use or to be shipped to the East or abroad. However, we also noticed that many of the trains were oil, which is also found in large quantities in Wyoming.
I think we would say that this was the noisiest campground we have ever stayed in, but we did see some trains.
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We took surprisingly few pics of the trains
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The reference to Mr Peabody - Peabody is the name of the coal company that owns the mines. Same Peabody that 'owns' Memphis and the Peabody Hotel. Same 'Mr Peabody' so lamented in the haunting song about Peabody's and the ghost town of Paradise in Muhlenburg County, Kentucky, which inevitably brings to mind dearly departed Jim Martinson of Marilee and Jim, back at Istachatta, FL, from whom I first heard the song.
Robbie? Coltrane of course
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