Every morning on at least five days each week, a Southern Railway train of 100 or more "Silversides" gondola cars ends its run at the Ernest C. Gaston Steam Plant of Southern Electric Generating Company (SEGCO), located where Yellowleaf Creek flows into the Coosa River near Wilsonville, Ala.
Each of the cars in the train carries some 110 tons of coal taken from SEGCO mines near Parrish, Ala., 121 rail-miles from the generating plant, and Maylene, Ala., 33 rail-miles from the plant on a Southern Railway route to Parrish.
The Southern Electric Generating Company's Ernest C. Gaston Steam Plant on the Coosa River near Wilsonville. Ala. It has been the receiving point for some 13 million tons of coal since Southern Railway initiated the unit-train concept in American railroading with the first shipment to this plant six years ago. Coal moves in solid trainloads in Southern's lightweight "Silversides" cars. |
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This service was inaugurated six years ago this month --on January 21, 1960.
Since then, Southern Railway trains have carried some 13 million tons of coal from mine-mouth to power-generating plant in the continuing movement that is described as "the first truly unitized train service to go into operation in America."
The description comes from James F. Crist, speaking as executive vice-president of The Southern Company- parent organization for four operating companies: Gulf Power Company, Mississippi Power Company, Ala- bama Power Company and Georgia Power Company. The last two of these own in equal amounts all of the common stock of Southern Electric Generating Company. The similarity in names could be confusing, but there is no corporate relationship between The Southern Company and Southern Railway Company.
American railroading's first application of the unit-train concept to the transportation of coal, Southern Railway's six-year-old SEGCO movement has shown what can be done to eliminate waste and achieve maxi- mum efficiency-with the end goal of lowering total transportation costs for railroad customers.
Fuel transportation cost was an important consideration for SEGCO planners long before construction was even begun on the Gaston Plant (named after Ernest C. Gaston, president of Southern Services, Inc. and formerly president of Southern Electric Generating Company).
It was apparent from the start that in nearly every physical respect, the 1,1 00-acre Gaston Plant site is ideally suited for a major power-producing facility.
Its geographic location makes for economical power-line transmission of electricity to load centers of the Alabama and Georgia companies-which transmit its power output to their 11/2 million customers. Abundant cooling water is available for the plant's giant condensers and relatively low-cost fuel is not too far distant.
Large enough to accommodate a facility that helps meet the power needs of these customers, the site also offers ample room for future expansion as electric power requirements of this area continue to increase.
The Southern Electric Generating Company's Ernest C. Gaston Steam Plant completed. |
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Planners also had to carefully study the supply problem of getting coal to the plant site. The Gaston Plant is 121 miles from the Warrior coal field near Parrish. It is on an 8,595-acre tract there that SEGCO operates one of two mines that supply coal for the Gaston Plant. The second of its two mines is in a 30,000-acre tract in the Cahaba coal field near Maylene, 33 miles from the Gaston Plant.
Neither 121 miles nor 33 miles is a great stretch of distance; not, that is, until you multiply the miles by the 10,000-plus tons of coal that must be delivered over these distances on each of at least five days every week, and very often six.
The Gaston Plant is the largest of 50 generating plants operated by The Southern Company's four affiliates. One way of measuring the size of power-generating facilities is in terms of how much energy they produce. The electric energy output of the Gaston Steam Plant could supply all the electrical needs of more than 2 million average homes annually.
Obviously, this represents a tremendous appetite for coal. The question in the beginning was how to satisfy this appetite in the most economical way that still met the compelling need for dependability of service.
The Southern Electric Generating Company's Ernest C. Gaston Steam Plant under construction. |
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The search for an answer to that question was in every sense a cooperative effort between SEGCO and Southern Railway. Men from both companies worked together to develop the then-new transportation concept that has since become widely known as the unit train. They actually engineered it into SEGCO's new facility.
On SEGCO's part, this called for a number of dramatic departures from "traditional" power plant fuel- supply concepts. SEGCO had to plan its coal delivery schedules to meet its needs in a way that the railway could handle with the efficiency that would eliminate waste and lead to lower total transportation costs.
Loading facilities at the mines and unloading arrangements at Gaston Plant had to be worked. out by SEGCO engineers to perform these operations quickly in order to secure maximum utilization of railroad equipment.
This, indeed, is the crux of the unit-train concept as the two organizations developed it-maximum utilization of ideally-suited equipment.
As loaded cars are en route to or being dumped at Gaston plant, tipples at the mines in the Warrior and Cahaba coal fields are at work, loading more "Silversides" for the next trip. |
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"Silversides" was on Southern's drawing boards in the' late 1950's. It clearly was the equipment for jobs like this one. The aluminum to be used in the construction of these 100-tons-plus capacity cars would trade maintenance down-time for productive time on the rail- road, moving freight for customers like SEGCO. Its light deadweight would mean higher payloads per car. Higher payloads per car resulting from an improved lightweight-to-loaded-weight ratio would mean more freight moving in a train of any given tonnage, at lower total operating cost for the actual freight moved-which translates directly into lower total transportation costs for the shipper .
Southern Railway also felt the healthy goad of com- petition to stimulate it in development of equipment best suited to do the SEGCO job in a way that produced lowest possible cost. The "slurry" method of coal transportation was still under enthusiastic discussion within the power industry. And SEGCO's Maylene mine site was close enough to the Gaston Plant site to make truck transportation of coal a realistic possibility.
Development by the railway of the "Silversides" equipment for use in a way that would meet the requirements at a price beneficial to both parties. .. these are the elements that came together in the unit- train concept that was successfully applied six years ago and continues to be successfully applied today, 13 million tons of coal later .
Here's how it works : A Southern train of some 75 loaded "Silversides" cars leaves Parrish shortly before midnight, arriving in Birmingham by 2 a.m. No yarding is necessary , so within minutes the train is headed south out of Birmingham for Maylene, where it arrives about 3 a.m.
The coming of daylight finds a Southern Rail- way train in the home stretch of its coal-hauling journey to Gaston plant. This view gives a clear impression of the huge size of the shipment. |
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At Maylene, another 25 or so loaded cars are switched in with those from Parrish. A few hours later the solid trainload has arrived at the Gaston Plant.
Switched off into a multi-track yard, the cars are moved to a rotary dumper where, one by one, they are turned upside-down for unloading into an under-track hopper. It takes about 90 seconds to empty the 110- ton loads. More than 1,400 tons of coal are unloaded every hour.
A greatly-increased loaded weight to lightweight ratio is a money-saving and, therefore, a customer-pleasing feature of Southern's "Silversides" cars, which are used in a service featuring expedited loading and unloading schedules, and lower total operating costs per unit of rail freight moved. |
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At the same time cars are being unloaded, other cars are being loaded back at the Parrish and Maylene mines.
When unloading at the Gaston Plant has been completed, the train starts its return trip. Empty cars are dropped off at the Maylene site on the way through to Parrish, where the remaining empties are put in position for loading.
An hour or so later, the cycle is taken up again as another Southern train heads out of Parrish with cars loaded there while the first train was being unloaded at Gaston Plant.
SEGCO's Gaston Plant is the lowest-cost producer of electric power among all the thermal plants in The Southern Company system.
Southern Railway unit trains began running between SEGCO's mines near Parrish and Maylene and the power plant near Wilsonville on January 21, 1960. Other railroads and other electric power companies have followed the low-cost trail blazed by Southern and SEGCO in developing this service. |
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Southern Railway's successful pioneering of the unit- train concept is one of the things that has made this low-cost operation possible.
It is another proven case of the mutual benefit enjoyed by Southern and its customers from the rail- road's efforts to provide ever-improving transportation services at lower total costs.
One example of this mutual benefit: Southern's total revenues from transportation of coal were nearly 23 per cent greater last year than in 1958; yet, the revenue per ton-mile-which is the cost to the railway's customers-decreased by 6 per cent in the same period. This lower cost to customers attracted more of their business to Southern, which, in the 1958-64 period, increased its coal ton-miles by 30.5 per cent.
Fast loading and unloading schedules for Silversides" lead to economy from maximum equipment use. |
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Such pioneer work in transportation as Southern Railway has done, and continues to do, has other wide-spread good effects that cannot be measured in similarly direct terms.
The United States Bureau of Mines estimates that coal production nationwide will increase 70 to 75 per cent over the next 15 years.
Transportation costs kept low are vital to the continuing, and increasing, competitiveness of coal in the industrial market place. Coal will be used for the important work of meeting America's industrial needs -particularly in the generation of electricity-only if it stays competitive with oil and natural gas and the fuel energy that can be produced from the atom.
The Southern Company's James F. Crist says that, together with improved methods of mining and processing coal, "improved efficiencies in transportation of coal brought about by the use of unit trains, speedy un- loading facilities and quick turnarounds, tend to assure a strong competitive position for the conventional steam plant for many years to come."
It was in consideration of these things that Southern
Railway and SEGCO fashioned the prototype unit-train concept that has since been applied by other railroads and power companies across the country-with immense benefit for the American household budget and for American industry.
Rotary dumpers at the generating plant turn each "Silversides" over, unloading a car in 90 seconds. |
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A recent announcement of the National Coal Policy Conference sums up the present situation this way:
" A recent study by the Associati9n of American Railroads shows that about half of the 250 million tons of coal which utilities are expected to use this year will move by unit trains. Because of the cost savings inherent in this new concept of coal transportation, rates have been reduced by as much as $1.50 per ton. A conservative estimate is that unit trains are saving the utilities around $100 million a year in fuel costs and because of fuel adjustment clauses in utility franchises these savings are shared with consumers."
Southern Railway and such other forward-looking companies as The Southern Company-partners in the widespread effort to meet the increasing needs of a rapidly growing South-will continue to develop better, more economical ways of rail transportation. And just as it happened with the unit train concept that they pioneered in this country, all of America will benefit from such restless searching out of these better, more economical ways of supplying railroad service.
People will save-directly and indirectly-as more low-cost services are developed. Railroads will benefit from more work to do and job&: for railroaders will follow the freight. .