In this photo the train has just arrived at the mine and is facing toward the end of the track. The conductor is uncoupling the locomotives from the train, and the engineer will run down to the end to check the track and then change ends before returning. Meanwhile the conductor will line the switch for the runaround track and retrieve a SBU from inside the loadout. When the power returns they will line the switch back for the loading track, test the SBU and put it on the train. Then they will run around the train and shove back to spot, going no faster than 5 mph over the scale (the smaller shed the lead unit is inside). Shoving back to spot with no one on the point is legal and safe at this location as the track is under the mine’s control and is considered “known to be clear” after being checked once.

Once the train is spotted the conductor will leave the SBU they came up with in the loadout for the next train, and they will start loading. This mine usually loads at about 0.25 mph, but I’ve seen anywhere from 0.35 on a good day to 0.1 and stop every few cars if they were scraping the bottom of the stockpile.

I always preferred going to Coal Valley when I worked out of Edson, the trips tended to be a bit shorter and and easier than Inland Cement’s rock train or the coal trains to Luscar (Cardinal River mine), which also closed last summer. There have been no coal trains on the Coal Branch since, the longest such period since all the old underground mines closed in the late 1950s until Luscar reopened as an open pit operation in 1969.