Re: Coal from Crested Butte area....where did it go?

The presence of the anthracite coal seam near CB was (and is) the exception rather than the rule in the western U.S. Anthracite has more "heat content", higher Btu per pound, than the bituminous or sub-bituminous grades that are more common. Not surprising it was viewed as worthwhile to ship to specific customers, and favored for locos,even if other "lower-grade" coal was closer/cheaper.

I recently saw close-up the operation of a modern, unit train, rotary coal dump at a power plant. Aside from the cars being huge, the main difference between these and the Salida Transfer was that the cars do not have to be uncoupled. The couplers are built to rotate in their pockets, the axis of the rotary dump is exactly aligned with the coupler end-to-end axis. The typical pace is one car per 2 minutes. Probably the time to uncouple and re-couple determined how fast the Salida Transfer could unload a hopper.

Bob of AZ