Video Of Oil Unit Train -- Williston -- Stanley -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

I was sent this video a couple days ago from a friend who saw it on YouTube and I posted it elsewhere. Tonight I received a note from Mike who took the video and provided some background.

The train is empty. It is headed east out of Williston, North Dakota, on its way to Stanley, North Dakota, where it will be filled, and will then head to Cushing, Oklahoma. [If it's being filled in Stanley, I wonder if it's being filled at the EOG-facility?]

Here's the video, and below the story:


Empty oil train headed east out of Williston, North Dakota, headed to Stanley, North Dakota, where it will be filled, and then head to Cushing, Oklahoma. Stanley is about 70 miles east of Williston.

The designation of the train when it arrived was:

U-SAPSTN0-86T, arriving at Stanley 1236 07-03 

5020-FXE 4615+4612, 2-118-4151-7318'

The route it took: Oklahoma City -- Ark City -- Emporia -- Kansas City, KS -- Galesburg -- La Crosse -- Minneapolis -- Wilmar -- Aberdeen -- Hettinger -- Terry.

At that point, the train was to reverse direction, with 4612 on lead. Glendive -- Snowden -- Williston -- Stanley.

There is no wye at Terry. There is a loop at Stanley.

The train departing was designated:

U-STNSAP0-92T, departing Stanley 1055 07-04
5020-FXE 4615+4612, 114-0-14730-6962'

Mike says that DPU direction is not an issue. "Just yesterday [I] saw a list and AEI on a grain train going from Polo to Mexico. The train went from Polo to Eola and then via Mendota and Galesburg and further west. At Eola they had to change direction, and Aurora has no wye.

"Power should go right to El Paso, with one on the head end and two on the rear."

The key, Mike says, is to look at the first line of data.

Train symbol: U-SAPSTN0-86T.

• U: unit train.
• 86: 86th unit train of the year.
• SAPSTNO: simply station signs. SAP for some terminal in Oklahoma City and STN for Stanley [There is a "Sapalpa" just southwest of Tulsa].
• T: tank train.

Three locomotives: 5020-FXE 4615+4612.

• One locomotive on one end and two on the other.

Additional information: 2-118-4151-7318'.

• 2 loads (the hoppers most likely filled with sand for safety and protection for locomotives)
• 118 empties (the tank cars) (Mike thinks each tank car holds 714 bbls) --> 85,000 bbls/unit train
• 7,318 feet long (or about 1.4 miles long)

The route is self-explanatory. This unit train went through Minneapolis (empty), west to Wilmar, and on to the old Milwaukee main to the west coast (Aberdeen, SD). It then went on to Hettinger, ND, and into Montana at Terry.

From Terry it went north to Glendive, back to Williston and Stanley for loading.

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One day when I was in Williston at Gramma Sharon's for lunch with my dad, I overheard a group of men discussing the routing of a train they were somehow involved in. The language they spoke was a dialect of American English I had never heard before. Now I know why. They lost me at U-SAPSTNO. (And I thought military acronyms were atrocious.)

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The biggest kick I get out of this is to be able to learn that to date, there have been 86 unit trains, and to convert the length to miles. That's incredible. Some years ago there was a very interesting article in The New Yorker about how sophisticated train engines/computers had to be to manage to move a train that long, when part of it could be moving up hill, while part of it could be moving down hill.

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And 118 tank cars with a couple of others adds up to 120 cars which my dad says he counted one day to see how many cars they put on these unit trains.