Terminal Locations

Calvert City, KY | Danville, IL | Havana, IL

Calvert City, KY

The new Calvert City Terminal, developed by Southern Coal Handling, an established coal handling, engineering, and operations organization, in conjunction with Ashley Capital, an investment firm, provides a new gateway for receiving, blending, and transloading western coals and Illinois Basin coals. The new partnership, known as SCH Services, has made the Calvert City Terminal the first of what is expected to be several large-scale bulk material handling facilities to be developed.

The Terminal, known as CCT, is located at Mile 14 on the lower Tennessee River, near its confluence with the Ohio. CCT is strategically located on the Paducah and Louisville Railroad in a large industrial park near Calvert City, Kentucky. This central location provides ready access to BNSF, CNIC, UP, NS, and CSX railroads, as well as the Tennessee, Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers.

The new terminal is capable of receiving 3500 tons per hour of rail delivered coal on a 150-car loop track. The rail unloader can handle rotary dump and rapid discharge cars, and the coal can be sent directly to barge or to stockpile. We built it to address the expanding need for transloading and for stockpile space, but also to provide a competitive advantage for us and our customers to meet todays transloading needs more efficiently and more precisely, says John Hunt, SCH CEO and President. The stockpile is capable of holding up to one million tons of various quality coals. Accurate blending can be accomplished from the stockpile, or by blending the stockpiled coal simultaneously with coal from a train being unloaded. The rated capacity of the barge loadout is also 3500 tons per hour, and CCT intends to load 15 to 20 barges per day.

The high capacity terminal will operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and SCH already has commitments for throughput of approximately six million tons per year. The terminal offers computer controlled state of the art weighing, blending, and sampling equipment, with both inbound and outbound weighing and sampling. The abilities to blend and reload coal back into railcars and to unload and blend coal from barges are additional features that will be available in the near future. These additional services will enhance the already substantial capabilities of the terminal.

Southern Coal Handling is marketing the remaining capacity to utilities on the inland river system as a new avenue for receiving PRB and other western coals and for blending this coal with Illinois Basin coals. CCT presently has a long-term contract to transload, stockpile, and blend coal for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). This terminal is perfect for utilities that are looking toward integrating the cleaner, lower cost western fuels into their fuel mix, says Gary Quinn, SCH Vice President of Utility Services.

Southern Coal Handling, located in Madisonville, Kentucky, also operates the Havana Terminal, on the Illinois River in Havana, Illinois. SCH and its affiliate companies, Cornette Engineering Services and SCH Terminal Company, offer a broad range of coal handling services, including designing, building, and operating coal handing facilities for Midwestern utilities. Current SCH clients include Edison Mission Energy, Dynegy, Ameren, and TVA. With its new affiliation with Ashley Capital, SCH can now offer to develop, own and operate these facilities.

Ashley Capital, based in New York, is a privately-held investment firm. It seeks opportunities with a strong upside for growth and value enhancement. Ashleys investments, which are concentrated in the eastern half of the United States, include terminal facilities and industrial parks that contain large-scale distribution facilities. CCTs capacity is approximately ten million tons per year and the terminal is actively seeking new customers. The terminal is now operational, and inquiries from potential customers are welcome. Parties interested in the transloading and blending services offered at CCT, or in any of the other services offered by SCH, can call (800) 547-9918.

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Danville, IL

Kentucky-based Southern Coal Handling ( SCH) has recently broken ground on a new coal terminal in Danville, Illinois to be known as the Vermilion Transmodal Terminal. The terminal provides the rail car unloading, stockpiling and transporting (via truck) of 800,000 tons of Powder River Basin coal annually for Dynegy and its nearby Vermilion Power Plant. The terminal, which will commence operations on January 1, 2006, will be able to unload rail cars at a rate of 4,000 tons per hour and load trucks at a rate of 25 tons per minute. The loop track design will enable the terminal to receive unit trains of coal of up to 150 cars in length. In the future, the site can be expanded with complementary businesses that will make use of Vermilions strategic location at the intersection of Interstate 74 and the newly constructed rail infrastructure.

SCHs most recent prior coal terminal development was the Calvert City Terminal in Calvert City, Kentucky. There, SCH entered into a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority for SCH to unload coal from the rail cars, blend (up to three varieties of coal), stockpile and load the coal onto barges on the Tennessee River for shipment to TVAs power plants. The terminal has been in operation for just over two years and has been handling approximately 6,000,000 tons of coal per year. The design and engineering work that we did on the loop track at Calvert City has served us well in our planning for Vermilion. It enabled us to value engineer to an even greater extent so that Vermilions efficiency will be maximized, says John Hunt.

SCHs innovative approach to coal handling products and terminals and its proven track record for decreasing costs and increasing productivity at bulk terminals and utility sites give SCH its stellar reputation in the industry.

SCH specializes in providing bulk materials handling and transportation services to utilities, railroads, terminals and industrial customers. It offers a broad range of services including design, consulting, construction, operations and transportation services marketing.

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Havana, IL

The 121-mile Illinois & midland railroad serves major rail-to-barge bulk-transfer facility on the Illinois River at Havana, IL, 38miles south of Peoria. The facility can handle up to 10 million tons per year. Because I&M has neutral connections with a ll major coal-originating railroads, energy options are unsurpassed. Connections include: Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Conrail, CSXT (via TP&W), Illinois Central, Norfolk Southern, Southern Pacific, and Union Pacific.

Rotary Car Dumper

The facility's rotary car dumper can handle 286,000 lb. Gross weight equipment, unloading 109 tons every 90 seconds, conveying coal at the rate of 3,000 tons per hour either directly into barges, or to a 140,000 ton stockpile for subsequent loading into barges. It takes approximately five hours to unload a 110 car unit train. Automatic scales on the facility's three conveyor belt systems precisely measure the amount of cal loaded in to each barge, or stockpiled.

The facility has two inbound tracks for unloading along with an 800 car support yard. Cars are positioned by remote-controlled locomotives. A cable-powered mule moves single cars up an inclined track to the rotary dumper for unloading. Either Gondola or hopper cars can be accommodated, and rotary couplers are not required for unloading.

Custom blending guarantees quality

Coal blending capabilities are an important feature of the dock. Coal is accurately metered out of a 300 ton bin from the stockpile, to blend with coal being unloaded from the trains. Spray and vacuum systems controls dust.

Empty cars roll down an incline past a spring switch to a kick-back ramp, which reverses the car's outbound empty cars. The rate of travel is automatically regulated using radar-controlled retarders, similar to those used in modern rail classification yards.

Coal storage, blending capability

A 140,000 ton coal storage area is served by a Stevens Adamson reclaimer, which conveys coal to the barge loading area at the rate of 2,000 tons per hour. coal from rail cars can be blended with stockpiled coal to meet customer requirements. River barges can be loaded in as little as 20 minutes. SCH has its own full-time tow boat for breaking up and assembling tows.

Seeking additional customers

To take advantage of the excess capacity that currently exists at the Havana transfer plant, SCHT, which operates the facility, and I&M are jointly working to seek additional customers, including other Midwest power companies. Although most of the coal presently originates from Western mines served by BNSF and UP. I&M can also receive Illinois, Kentucky and Eastern coal from the CSXT (Chessie), IC, and NS. Trains can interchanged to I&M at Peoria, Barr, and Springfield, IL for movement to Havana.

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