A train every 6 minutes.
Can you imagine a town where a train goes right through the center of it every 6 minutes? How do they get any sleep?
Newcastle, WY is, well was, such a town. I had no idea that Wyoming was coal country, and oil country, but that is a different story.
In 1887, the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad stretching its way across the continental US reached Nebraska and realized it was too expensive to bring the coal needed to run their engines from the east. If they were going to continue west, they needed a new source.
Coal had been reported in eastern Wyoming. The railroad investigated and the Cambria mine, and town, was founded. The railroad stretched its line west running a spur up to the mine. The junction of the main line and the spur came to be the town of Newcastle, WY.
For the next 40 years the coal from the Cambria Mine flowed down the tracks and through Newcastle. In 1928, the mine finally petered out, but not the coal industry. To the west large resources of coal were found right near the surface. These mines are the largest producers of coal in the US. This coal is still transported via train right through Newcastle.
Today, I am sitting on the hill above Newcastle, which happens to be the town cemetery and a beautiful spot to write, watching a coal train snake through town like a mythical monster from a Viking saga, Darrin counts 135 cars full of coal.
The trains don’t run every 6 minutes anymore, but they do run back and forth almost every 15 minutes or so, day and night.
Now that’s a lot of coal!
