The use of much lower sulfur coal and the development of SO2 scrubbers at power plants had a large impact on our air and water. Land reclamation here is being demonstrated to be much more feasible than many other places where coal is known to be. A prime example at the other end of the spectrum is the Kaiparowits Plateau in southern Utah. I have been there and it is one of the most spectacular pieces of creation on the face of our planet. If it were mined, it could not be restored, not even in a million years. There is plenty of coal right here. The determination to treat the land better than in the past surrounds me. May it continue.

I began to realize that most of the mining and railroad technology in front of me has developed within the span of my own career as an engineer. Some of what I did in my early work was used in these very mines. I heard many stories but never visited myself. This is my first. When I look around at all the amazing equipment that makes this possible, I see the teams of engineers who created it but none of them have names. It is a very anonymous profession. Equally anonymous are the people who work here right now. I will remember them now every time I turn on the lights or the air conditioning.

We absorb the scene from the overpass for quite a while as the loading train slowly rolls beneath us. The loading tower is far away as are the locomotives at either end. The only sound is the slow rolling of the wheels and the wind. I notice that none of the landscape is the color of coal – it is all in the cars. There is almost none on the ground even right at the side of the tracks. We head back along Route 450 towards the Black Thunder West loading tower, stopping along the way to look at haul trucks, loading shovels and large power lines. The mines both create and use electricity. A group of antelope are sitting casually at the base of one of the powerline towers, watching what is going on much as we are.