Greene County, PA: Cumberland Prep Plant, Portal #9, Transload and Harbor

Prep Plant: (Satellite)

Mine Portal: (Satellite)

Alicia Transload: (Satellite) Private rail to barge

La Belle Harbor: (Satellite) Barge to public rail

Chuck Burgess posted four photos with the comment: "Some shots of Cumberland’s Pep plant and hoist/yard area I took over the years there."

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Is Portal #9 the only mine head that is feeding the prep plant?

IronSenergy_facility
"The Cumberland #9 portal is a centralized hub for the operation, which includes the miner’s bathhouse, shaft elevator, training center, and communication within the company. It helps to streamline processes, enhance collaboration, and provide employees with easy access to essential resources."

IronSenergy
"The Prep Plant is a core foundation of our operation, transforming raw coal into a valuable resource. Through our advanced process, the prep plant cleans, sorts, and sizes the coal, ensuring it meets quality standards of our customers. Our Prep Plant facility also contains our raw coal stockpiles, warehouse and clean coal loadout."

IronSenergy_facility
"Once completing the process at the Prep Plant, all of Iron Senergy’s coal is transported 17 miles from the Prep Plant to Alicia Harbor, where it is loaded onto barges along the Monongahela River. This then allows our team to then deliver to customers locally or the ability to offload to our Labelle Facility."

Note that barge traffic between Alicia and LaBelle uses the Maxwell Lock.

IronSenergy_facility
"Also located along the Monongahela River is our LaBelle facility, which provides robust ground storage and the ability to load both Class I railroads. Conveniently located, LaBelle offers access to all east coast export terminals."

IronSenergy_facility
"Iron Senergy also owns and operates our own 17-mile short line railway that transports clean coal from our Preparation Plant in Kirby, PA to Alicia Harbor, located in Alicia, PA.
"As of 2024, the Cumberland Mine Railroad was the longest privately owned railroad in the United States."

1974-2019 2.25gw Navajo Generating Station at Four Corners near Page, AZ

(Satellite, 230 photos)

"Units and In-Service Dates: Unit 1: 803.1 MW (1974), Unit 2: 803.1 MW (1975), Unit 3: 803.1 MW (1976)" [gem]

Page, AZ, was built for the workers that constructed the Glen Canyon Dam.

srpnet
The plant went permanently offline on Nov 18, 2019.

George Clayton McMillan posted, cropped
Navajo Generating Station in Page, AZ. 
2250MW coal fired facility. Worked here for a year during the Decommissioning of the unit.
Andrew Shafer: Pretty sad it’s wiped off the face of the earth now.
Dan McKenna: Any idea who manufactured the boilers? I thought they were either Babcock&Wilcox or Combustion units. Any idea?
David Matesky: They are CE Supercritical boilers.
Scott Patulski: David Matesky you are correct sir. Seltzer design to be specific with split furnaces firing tangentially from 8 corners.
Charles Friedman: When I began working at Combustion Engineering almost 50 years ago, I worked in Field Testing, and Performance Results. I never got to the Four Corners power plant, but others in my department were there, in order to conduct boiler performance and emissions tests on the Unit 1 boiler. In later years, the company, and the successive companies, built even larger steam generators, up to 660,000 Lb/hr SH steam flow, supercritical, lignite fired, with 990 MW generator net output.
Joseph Hallstrom: Charles Friedman, not trying to be picky but 990MW from 660,000 lb/hr of SSH steam? Maybe you missed a zero.
Allen England: Didn't they replace the plant with 250 mw of solar panels?

 

Mining #Shorts posted

The Navajo Generating Station was one of the most recognizable coal plants ever built in the American West. Located near Page, Arizona, the facility operated for more than four decades and became deeply tied to the economy of the Navajo Nation and the wider Southwest power grid.

Construction started in the early 1970s and the plant eventually reached 2,250 megawatts across three generating units. At full operation, it supplied electricity to Arizona, Nevada and California while also powering the pumps of the Central Arizona Project, the massive water system carrying Colorado River water across the Arizona desert.

The station burned coal from the nearby Kayenta Mine, with trains delivering fuel continuously across northern Arizona. For many Navajo and Hopi families, the mine and plant created some of the region’s highest-paying industrial jobs. Tax revenue and lease payments became critical sources of income for local communities.

But the plant also carried enormous controversy. Environmental groups targeted it for decades because of emissions affecting air quality around the Grand Canyon and the broader Southwest. By the 2010s, cheap natural gas and rapidly expanding solar generation made coal power increasingly difficult to justify economically.

In 2017, utility owners voted to shut the station down years earlier than originally expected. The final coal was burned on November 18, 2019, ending operations after roughly 45 years. One year later, the plant’s famous smokestacks were demolished, marking the end of one of America’s most important coal-fired power stations.

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Photo: Myrabella / WikiCommons

Richard Travis: That plant had good sulfur dioxide scrubbers later on in its life. Photo could be early or a time with a low dew point.

Troy Mitchell: They have to wait for the coldest day of the year to take the photos.

Troy Mitchell commented on the above post

I Took this photo myself in Utah on a 96° day when everybody in Utah’s air conditioning was running full blast.

To me It looks like the picture above is Both AI and or taken on a cold day when the warm air turns into steam. Isn’t it funny how we let people that don’t know their head from a hole in the ground run this country.

Mike Painter posted, cropped
Navajo Generation Station in the good ole days.

vox, Adrian Herder/Tó Nizhóní Ání, courtesy of Wahleah Johns/National Renewables
"The three 775-foot smokestacks of the 2,250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station (NGS) — the West’s largest coal plant — were demolished December 18, [2020]."

Even more jobs were lost at the nearby mine that supplies the lignite coal.

coconino
"The mine to mouth’s backbone is the 80 mile long electric railroad supplying Kayenta’s only customer – the Navajo Generating Station (NGS). NGS consumes 240 rail cars of the Kayenta Mine’s coal every day."

This satellite image is old enough that the buildings are still standing and the coal pile is rather full.

Satellite

Facebook Reel

Same Reel

Chicago, IL: 1881-1960s Rock Island/Pullman Depot and Pullman Roundhouse

Depot: (Satellite, the land is now used by a filling station.)

Roundhouse: (Satellite)

Daniel Bovino posted
Rock Island Railroad depot once located at 111th and Langley Avenue. The building was designed by Solon Beman. It was demolished in the early 1960's. George Pullman had this station built in 1881. Mr. Pullman was in a pique when the ICRR wouldn't play ball with him. George wanted the IC to give his workers extended free passes to and from Chicago. The IC said no, so Mr. Pullman ran a spur line from the Rock Island tracks at 95th Street south to Pullman. It served for a while as an alternate depot. Whether it did much passenger "through" service is unknown. Most out of state rail traffic (from the east) came via the Michigan Central to Kensington whose station was, in the mid '80's at ground level near the present day Kensington Avenue viaduct. For years Kensington station did duty as a Western Union shipping stop as well as occasionally serving as classroom space (while the Pullman School was being built). It also served as a worship space while Solon Beman (George's architect) designed Holy Rosary (Irish) Catholic church and Elim Swedish Lutheran church. Both of these places were west of the tracks. The Pullman Civic organization (then less than a year old) OK'd the demolition of the Rock Island depot...folks weren't elightened yet, and the PCO wanted the world to see that Pullman wasn't only home to deserted old buildings and was concerned about its future. The gas station quickly went up, went through several owners and was given a new faux Pullman look when the latest tenants moved into the spot some years back. Jimmy Fiedler shared Michael Bose: In the 1960s, there seemed to be a concerted effort to demolish any Solon S. Beman designed structures. Not just his, but also Adler & Sullivan's buildings, too. It went too far beyond Daley's "Urban Renewal" to just be that the buildings were old. Most of them were only 60 to 70 years old, about the same age as any buildings are now that replaced the Art Nouveau inspired designs that were wrecked. Beman is my favorite Chicago area architect, and was the architect of choice by both Pullman and the Illinois Central near the turn of the last century. Richard Fiedler shared

This shows the Pullman Railroad and its connection with the Rock Island at 95th Street.

1929/30 Calumet Lake Quad @ 24,000

I noticed the roundhouse just south of 111th Street on this arial. Taking another look at the topo map, we can see it there as well.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

Toledo, OH: Midwest Terminals: International, Ironville Rail & Transfer and South End (Kuhlman)

Facility 1: (Satellite)

Ironville: (Satellite)

South End: (Satellite)

International Terminal

Grant Helmkamp posted two photos with the comment: "Tell me more....to continue from my earlier post, shortly after the opening of the saint Lawrence seaway Toledo started construction of the Toledo overseas terminal to facilitate loading and unloading of salties carrying general cargo. The first photo is from 1961 while the facility wasn't entirely complete you can see rows of crates lined up on the dock waiting to be moved, the larger of the 3 ships is from Iino lines, a shipping company out of Japan. The 2nd photo is from 1969 and shows the facility during a time when it was being used to load and unload car carriers. They would come in loaded with cars from Europe and leave loaded with jeeps and other North American built cars going to Europe."

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[The CSX/Toledo Termina Lower River Bridge is in the right background.]

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[Grant's earlier post had photos of the bulk material docks in the background of this photo: CSX/C&O/HV and B&O+NYC.]

SSKUNKRACING, Jul 2022

MidwestTerminal_International

Ironville Rail and Transfer

Craig Hensley Photography posted

Scenes from the Railroad

The Ironville Rail and Transfer loop sits on a 70 acre lot along the Maumee River in Toledo, OH. With over 28,000 feet of rail which is serviced by in-house locomotives. Onsite there are liquid bulk transloading racks and pumps to move material directly from rail to truck and vice-versa. There is also a self-unloader receiving hopper and conveyor system that can receive bulk products directly from vessels at 2,000 NT per hour. 

Toledo, OH - Octobert 2023

High res: https://www.craighensleyphotography.com/.../Sce.../i-WG77Sd4

[The swing bridge in the background is the (NS+WE)/NKP(W&LE) Bridge.]

MidwestTerminal_Ironville

I presume that Cleveland-Cliffs HBI Plant that is just inland of this terminal is a big customer. In fact, that is probably why it was built here. In fact, there is a conveyor belt that goes directly from the terminal to the stacker/reclaimer facility of the HBI Plant. And the conveyor from the self-unloading hopper can directly dump into the conveyor to the HBI Plant.

Satellite

South End Services

MidwestTerminal_South

Toledo Industrial Railroad (TIR) Services

They have their own shortline railroad based in the Ironville Terminal.

MidwestTerminal_Railroad
[In the left background is the stacker/reclaimer of the HBI Plant.]

Everett, PA: Museum/Huntington & Broad Top Mountain Depot and Freight House

Depot: (Satellite)

Freight House: (Satellite)

This 72 mile railroad was built in the late 1850s to access coal mines. It remained independent until it ceased operations on Mar 31, 1954. [jbritton] Thus I'm going to label it "rrIndustrial."

Street View, Dec 2024

 

Street View, Dec 2024

Dick Whitcomb posted two photos with the comment: "Huntington and Broad Top Mountain Railroad (2010)— in Everett, PA."

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They changed the landscaping and built shelters for their caboose and steam locomotive displays.

Jenn Gray, May 2024

I.e. Xam posted
Everett PA-Huntington & Broad Top

When I saw that the Lincoln Highway went through this town, I checked Google Maps to verify that US-30 goes through this town. In fact, the Pennsylvania Turnpike also passes by this town.

Jean Grey, May 2024

Sheffield, PA: Pennsy and Tionesta Valley Railway Depots and Pennsy State Railroad Maps

Pennsy: (Satellite)

Tionesta Valley: (Satellite)

Street View, Apr 2024

Robert Daly posted four photos with the comment: "Two preserved stations in Sheffield PA. The longer building was completed by the Philadelphia and Erie (PRR) in the early 1860s. The other was the station and offices of the narrow gauge Tionesta Valley Railway, which ceased operations in the 1930s."

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Pennsy went east and north of town. The Tionesta Valley and Sheffield & Tionesta railroads went south of town. Since the primary purpose of the two southern routes was probably to serve coal mines, I labeled them "rrIndustrial" instead of "rrOther."

1941/41 Sheffield Quad @ 62,500

A satellite map shows that the Pennsy route still exists. As of this 2014 map, the route was owned by the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Railroad. (<GWI> means that Genesee & Wyoming is the parent organization.)

PennDOT 2014 Map

This was the first map I found, but I could not figure out how to turn on the Non-Class I Lines.

MapMaker

I also found this map which PennDOT claims it is keeping up to date.

Interactive PennDOT Map

Dixon, IL: 1914 St. Marys Cement Plant

Plant: (Satellite)

Limestone Quarry: (Satellite, note there is a conveyor belt that goes alongside the road to the cement plant.)

Street View, Sep 2022

Street View, Aug 2023

It looks like they have one long kiln and three short kilns.

Satellite

It is good to know of a secondary market for blast furnace slag.

StMaryCement

May 12, 2025:

Ed Pilar posted two photos with the comment: "May 12 2025 Dixon, IL On the Rock River at the Cement plant."

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[It looks like they are removing the kilns. Just the end of one of the short kilns is visible. The most recent Google Earth image is May 2023, and it still has the kilns.
The St Marys website still lists Dixon as a location.]

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I looked for rail service on a satellite map and could not find any. Now I'm surprised that the plant lasted until the 2020s. Buzzi Unicem was closed by 2013, and it did have rail service. A topo map shows that the plant used to have an industrial spur that connected with both railroads in town, but the spur did street running through Dixon on River Street. I'll bet the town was glad to see that spur disappear.

1950/64 Dixon Quad @ 62,500

The plant stopped production in 2018 because "the plant’s location was poor compared to other sites." [GlobalCement]

"The decision arrived after the plant was noted to be at a transportation disadvantage. The company’s five other cement plants are ideally located to take advantage of its customer base in the Great Lakes region." [cemnet]

St Mary's has plants on the Great Lakes and ships cement in freighters.

Ed Pilar posted two photos with the comment: "August 4 2025 Views of the Cement plant without the Smoke Stack on the Rock River near Dixon, IL."

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Dave Kuntz posted
It would appear that the Alco at St Marys Cement in Dixon is gone at this point or at least very well hidden.

Austin Seaton: Scrapped you can see where it was beside the building. Cut up in March [2026].

rich Whittington commented on Dave's post
this was november of last year.