Photo ID: 114276 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder West Mine Campbell County, WY 16 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF A BNSF crew brings an empty coal train into one of five tracks that lead to the Black Thunder West Mine load out. The triple track main is to the right of the road, just out of view. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114277 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder West Mine Campbell County, WY 15 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF BNSF 9204 is moving along at about 10 MPH on the second of five Black Thunder West leads to the coal load out. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114278 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder West Mine Campbell County, WY 15 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF A pair of BNSF SD70ACes lead a coal empty into one of the tracks at Black Thunder West Mine. SD70ACes and ES44ACs are the power on virtually on BNSF coal trains these days. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114279 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder West Mine Campbell County, WY 13 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF The Black Thunder West Mine is the newest load out in the Powder River Basin. It was completed in 2008 and its balloon track is 8.1 miles around. Trains load in a clockwise circuit around the load out. This load out is right along the triple track mainline, as you can see on the right. The empty coal hoppers are in storage in the only siding along the entire subdivision. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114280 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 15 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF At Reno Junction, BNSF 6067 is leaving the triple track and is headed toward the Black Thunder Mine. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114281 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 12 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF Black Thunder Mine is one of the largest load outs in the Powder River Basin, and there are five tracks for staging just off the triple track at Reno Junction. Two empties are waiting to be taken to the mind, and two loads came out and are waiting to be recrewed and depart. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114282 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 13 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF BNSF 6067 has come to a stop on one of the two leads off the triple track mains to Black Thunder Mine. The crew is waiting for a route to pull all the way in. In the background is the Black Thunder West load out, and the conveyor belt that supplies it with coal. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114283 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 19 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF I like this shot as you can clearly see the multiple tracks that lead from the triple track main to the Black Thunder Mine load out. The single track to the right leads to the Black Thunder East Mine load out. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114284 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 17 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF You can see three different coal trains here at the Black Thunder Mind load out. You can see the massive mine to the right. The load out can completely load a 125 car train in about two hours. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114285 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 20 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF One BNSF train is making its way around the Black Thunder Mine load out, in the process of loading. A second train is already staged behind, ready to follow the first in and start its own loading process. Trains load in a counter-clockwise movement around the balloon track here. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114286 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 16 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF A Union Pacific coal empty is waiting for its turn to start loading as a BNSF train (with an MRL SD70ACe in the consist) is in the process of loading. Black Thunder can load a 125-car train in about two hours. With a 30 minute break (give or take) between, the mine could probably load around 10 trains in a 24 hour period. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114287 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 14 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF An overview of the main Black Thunder Mine facility here in the Powder River Basin. You can see the incredible mining effort, and the valleys that have been created, to get to the low sulfur "black diamonds". Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114288 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Black Thunder Mine Campbell County, WY 15 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) Union Pacific An ET44AC and an SD70ACe bring up the the rear of a Union Pacific coal train that is waiting for its turn to load at the Black Thunder Mine. Union Pacific has 170 ET44ACs on the roster, so it is cool to see one show up every so often. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114289 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed Antelope Mine Converse County, WY 16 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) BNSF From around 1996 until 2005 or so, BNSF's SD70MACs reigned on coal train. Over the next decade, as ES44ACs and SD70ACes started to come on the scene, the SD70MAC presence started decreasing. Today, SD70MACs have almost completely disappeared. Most are in long term storage, and many have met the torch and been scrapped. Over the course of the two days I spent in the Powder River Basin, BNSF 8908 here was the only SD70MAC that I saw. Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture. Photo ID: 114290 Date Shot Photo By Sunday, August 16, 2026 Kevin Morgan Location Times Viewed West Bill to Crossover 74.0 Converse County, WY 16 (Add a Comment) Subdivision Railroad Orin (BNSF) Union Pacific As an eastbound UP coal load approaches on Main 1, descending from Logan Hill, let's talk a bit about coal production in the Powder River Basin. UP and BNSF invested $100 million between 2006 and 2008 to add a fourth main track over Logan Hill. 2008 holds the record for high point of coal production, with roughly 496 million short tons of coal taken out of the basin. That translated to somewhere around 100 trains per 24 hours. With the reduction in demand for coal, output has steadily been decreasing. In 2024, roughly 191 million short tons were taken out. That comes out to about 36 trains per 24 hours. It is no wonder that Main 4 is now being used for storage of cars! Email Questions or Comments to the Webmaster or add a comment to the picture.

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