A cloud of dust billows from deep under the coal train as each car drops 100 tons of black rock into large underground hoppers at the Navajo Generating Station.

The electric train provides the lifeblood for the biggest coal plant in the West. Its route across the high-desert reservation south of Navajo National Monumentsustains a stockpile of coal outside Page for three, 750-megawatt generators to burn around the clock.

When the plant is running at full power, it receives three deliveries a day from the Kayenta Mine, totaling about 240 cars of coal. Each round trip from the plant to the mine takes six to seven hours.

The 78 miles of track may be the about the only asset that survives a complex negotiation over the future of the power plant and the mine that supplies it.

The utilities that own the power plant are planning to operate it only through 2019 and have set an Oct. 1 deadline for a new owner to step in. The utilities say they can make cheaper, cleaner electricity for their customers in Arizona and Nevada by burning natural gas.

If the plant closes, the tribe has negotiated to keep the train tracks, valued at $120 million. The tribe could use them to promote tourism between Kayenta and Page by leveraging the amenities of Lake Powell and other attractions.

Navajo Speaker LoRenzo Bates said offering the tracks a second life through tourism needs more research and is among many decisions the tribe must make regarding the coal operations.

“It hasn’t gotten that far,” he said. "These are all part of the investments the Nation is going to have to make."

MORE: When coal-fired power plant closes, this mine will die. So will a lifeline for one tribe

Loading the train in Kayenta

For the short term, the train will continue to carry coal rather than tourists.

As the engine heads for the mine, four wild horses hear the electric train clanking on the rails and scamper into the desert.

Traveling at 40 miles per hour with the windows open, operator Randy Reed can tell by the sound on the rails whether the train is speeding up or slowing down.

Reed, who is in his mid-50s, has worked for Salt River Project, the plant's operator, 39 years and has driven the train for 32.

“I came here right out of high school,” he said. “It is the only job I’ve ever really known.”

Alongside U.S. 160 outside Kayenta, the four, 200-foot-tall coal silos and the conveyor can be seen from miles away.

On the approach, the train slows to about 1 mile per hour so the cars can move continuously through the silos. From behind thick glass windows at the bottom of the silos, workers for Peabody Energy fill each car with its payload in two, 50-ton pours.

The black rock slamming into the bottom of the metal train cars makes a deafening roar.

Wet coal creates little dust as it’s poured. But on hot, dry days, the dust chokes the loading area. Behind the windows, operators remain focused to ensure they fill each car evenly.

Sometimes the feeders that pour the coal from the bottom of the silos get stuck open, and thousands of tons can pour unchecked onto the tracks.

One of the train operators will usually watch from inside the silo while the other runs the train, speeding up or slowing down as needed, depending on how the coal is pouring that day.

The operator inside the silo also collects a small bag containing a coal sample so that it can be tested for sulfur, water content and other characteristics.

When the last car is filled and passes through the silo, the operator who has stayed behind has to walk or hitch a ride with a friendly coal miner back to the train engine, which is now a mile down the track.

Back at the power plant, the 775-foot emissions stacks loom overhead as workers shout instructions in Navajo. Here, in the open, workers wear dust masks and hearing protection.

The train creeps through an area called the load out, where the bottom of the train cars open and spill the coal into cavernous underground hoppers.

Conveyors then lift the coal into bins before it is burned for power, or onto the massive storage pile beside the plant.

READ: 10 challenges to keeping the Navajo Generating Station open

Running the train

Eight train operators and several other employees run the Black Mesa and Lake Powell Railroad. It can be dangerous, but the safety record to date is good.

To minimize air pollution, the train runs on electricity supplied by overhead wires similar to the light rail in metro Phoenix, rather than on diesel power.

The train also was a better option for transporting coal than the process used by the former Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada, which opened a few years before the Navajo plant and took coal from the same mine.

Mohave, which shut down in 2005, used water to slurry the coal in a pipe 275 miles to the plant. That system seemed wasteful to many reservation residents who don’t have water in their own homes.

The train’s electrical system provides 5,000 volts of electricity, which translates into 6,500 horse power. The power comes from the coal plant and is purchased through the tribe because it operates in the Navajo utility territory.

Any train that uses the tracks once the plant closes will have to find a new source of power or run on diesel.

The track is fenced off except for its 38 crossings, used mostly by Navajo residents accessing their homes.

For most of its history the train has been reliable. In the spring, the train derailed and was out of service for a few weeks. It was only the second major derailment in its history, according to SRP officials.

It has had approximately three accidents with vehicles in the past 15 years, and never found at fault, according to a 2016 operational plan SRP submitted to the federal government.

The most frequent trouble on the line occurs when livestock break through the fences along the track.

It takes half a mile to stop an empty train, farther for one loaded with coal. Not only is it unlikely the train can stop to avoid livestock, but trying to hard-stop a train moving at full speed often leads to damage and worn brakes. So the operators don’t even bother.

Reed said you barely hear cattle when the train hits them, though the sound is distinct.

“It’s still flesh,” he said.

Whenever livestock is killed, the operators file a report and SRP workers find and compensate the owners, he said.

Bad weather can create another hazard.

“Fog is the worst one of all,” he said. “It can be a crazy whiteout from snow. I’ve seen lightning storms all across the reservation. But fog, unfortunately you have to keep moving even when there is no visibility.”

The last nine miles returning to the plant with a loaded train are extra tricky because they are on a 2.5 percent downgrade, making it a priority to control the train’s speed.

A few years ago Reed was operating the train when he and the other operator in the cab noticed dirt flying up ahead. When they rounded a bend, they saw a car on the tracks pointed away from them. The driver was still in the car.

They pulled the brakes but still struck the car, crumpling the rear end of the vehicle but not crushing the driver.

The car was ejected from the tracks and they called for help. A medical helicopter was dispatched to the scene. The car’s driver died though, and is believed to have been suffering from a medical episode that led him to drive onto the track and eventually killed him.

Another time a construction crew gave the all-clear signal with equipment on the track. Reed and his fellow operator noticed the equipment in time and pulled the brakes. The train stopped without incident, but Reed said it was a frightening experience nonetheless.

“We had to have a little talk with them after that,” he said.

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Train operators contemplate closure

Reed lives in Page. He has five adult children and eight grandchildren. He was 15 when his family moved from Missouri to Arizona. His father worked at SRP vulcanizing conveyor belts, and retired in 1998.

Like all plant workers, the pending closure is on his mind. But Reed runs a sport-boat charter business on Lake Powell. He used to offer fishing charters, but it’s easier towing customers around on water skis or inner tubes than it is to find hungry fish every day, he said.

If the plant closes before he is ready to retire, he’ll just commit more time to that business, he said.

But the threat of closure hangs heavy over some of the approximately 393 workers, 90 percent of whom are Native Americans.

Freddie Hatathlie has worked at the plant for 25 years. He is from Coalmine Canyon, on the reservation. He attended Arizona State University for engineering, but didn’t finish his degree.

He joined the Army and after his initial term enlisted in the Reserve. He was called up following 9/11 and deployed to the Middle East.

Work at the plant has allowed him to stay in northern Arizona. He recently was training for a new position as a train operator after working in power operations.

Ron “Skyhorse” Little has been running the train for 28 years, and worked elsewhere in the plant for a decade before that. He is from Navajo Mountain and now lives in Page.

He has a daughter who attended Northern Arizona University and now works for another tribe outside of Phoenix. His son is in college.

Little, 56, said it has been good work considering he had no prior training.

“I learned it all here in the yard,” he said. “I don’t have any schooling. I learned on the job.”

He said he doesn’t want to see the plant close, but worries more about younger workers than for himself.

“My retirement is coming up,” he said. “I pretty much don’t have to look around.”

If no new owner comes forward in the next few weeks, SRP likely will begin taking action for the eventual decommissioning of Navajo Generating Station — covering over the 765-acre coal ash disposal area and landfill, dismantling the power plant and its equipment.

In documents submitted to the government, the utility pledged to restore the area "as nearly as may be possible to its original condition" by December 2024.

READ MORE:

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