Coulterville, IL: Coal Mines in the area

Satellite view of Gateway Mine
This is the first time I have seen Bing's image more
up to date than Google's image.

The May 31, 2016 Chicago Tribune article discussed in "bankruptcy" had a picture of the Gateway Mine (Peabody) near Coulterville, IL.

The "line" in the upper-left corner is a conveyor that takes the coal to Zeigler Mine. Zeigler Mine #11 has a loop of railroad track so that it can efficiently load unit trains.

The route between Coulterville and Sparta is jointly used by UP and IC, and it is a remnant the Illinois Southern Railway (ILS), which is evidently now owned by UP.

Satellite view of Gateway North Mine

I noticed that there was another conveyor feeding coal to Zeigler. Google has the view to the right, but no name. Bing has the name Gateway North Mine, but the satellite image is just green farm fields. So this is a relatively new underground mine. Coal has been struggling for a while because of emission regulations on power plants. (They got rid of the particulate matter a long time ago, the recent issues have been sulfur and mercury. The future issue is CO2.) And underground mines have rather high production costs. So I was suprised to find a underground mine that has recently been created. I wonder if Gateway North Mine is a "long wall" mine.

I'm also surprised that the aerial view in Bing is too old to have the mine. Normally the aerial views are similar to Google --- a year or so old --- rather than the Birds-Eye View --- about eight years old. In fact, the mine is quite new. I found National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit Responsiveness Summary issued September 2012.

Update: (Facebooked, Andrew Shafer Only UP loads there and as far as I know only for one Indiana Power Plant.)