Coal trains on the rise in southwest Virginia NEWSWIRE

BIG STONE GAP, Va. — Within a year of mothballing a section of its former Clinchfield line between Frisco, Tenn., and McClure, Va., CSX Transportation has witnessed a notable upswing in coal traffic over the past two weeks. Newly-formed Contura Energy LLC is now leading the way to increased rail traffic out of southwestern Virginia. That traffic comes just weeks after the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia confirmed that a new deal had been approved in the restructuring of Alpha Natural Resources mining operations.

Contura Energy emerged from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization as a new company comprised of the members of Alpha Natural’s top lien holders. Along with purchasing Alpha’s Nicholas, McClure, and Toms Creek complexes in West Virginia and Virginia, Contura now controls the company’s two Powder River Basin mining complexes in Wyoming, all of the companies interest in its Dominion Terminal Associates coal export terminal in Newport News, Va., among other assets and working capital, and all its Pennsylvania coal operations and certain coal reserves.

In one week alone, Contura’s McClure Complex has moved from loading two metallurgical coal unit trains per week to six in the third week of July, with five new train orders already confirmed the week beginning July 25, with more orders expected. As the locals notice a decrease in stored empty coal hoppers along the mothballed section of the former Clinchfield Railroad, chatter has already begun to keep a watchful eye on how this might affect coal traffic leaving the Powder River Basin.