We’re not worn out yet. After dinner we go back towards Black Thunder. Another loaded train is waiting by the West tower and some of the crew is out by the road. Russell goes over to talk railroad with them and learns they are waiting for a fifth engine to come up and help break out the load. A fairly new SD70Ace arrives and couples up adding 4300 Hp and 191,000 ft-lbs of torque. To give some sense of how much torque that is, the 426 Hemi of the Muscle Car era in my High School days put out 490 ft-lbs – it would take about 400 Hemis to out pull the SD70Ace – and there are 4 more locomotives on this train. When all 5 wound up to full throttle, it wasn’t quiet any more!

The mines work 24/7-365. We continue on to the main loading loop to see the night operations. The sky is getting nasty with a lot of lightning to the northwest. Lingering a little longer we finally get back in the car to head back. The sky begins to open up. We drive through the edge of a downpour, get back and settle in for the night.