Bill's Note to Pat's Picture: This sort of a train will soon become common place in our communities along US Highway 30.  Expect to see trains of 100 + cars long, coal trains, or more likely corn ethanol trains.  Be ready to expect delays if you plan to cross rail road tracks….If we don't have Coal trains, We will soon have ethanol trains hauling corn… This is a given, since an ethanol plant is now supposedly under construction.  Food for fuel, and not very efficient fuel either. You can make ethanol from Hemp, from switch grass and from a number of other organic substances much more efficiently (and cheaply) than you can from food crops...but they presently prefer corn.
Talk to your Port Commissioners about this. Talk to your other elected officials.  Coal isn't clean and does not leave a kind carbon footprint. Long trains will tie up traffic for long periods of time.  Our elected Commissioners don't seem to think that there is anything wrong with this.  Ask them how many jobs a coal burner will create and who will really benefit. Ask them how many jobs will be created by the ethanol plant.  See what happens when an ambulance or fire truck needs to cross the rail road tracks, when we they are running a long haul train.  My guess is that the public will not come out ahead, and public safety will suffer in the process.