Orin, Wyoming | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 42°39′12″N 105°11′33″W / 42.65333°N 105.19250°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Wyoming |
County | Converse |
Area | |
• Total | 1.1 sq mi (2.9 km2) |
• Land | 1.0 sq mi (2.6 km2) |
• Water | 0.1 sq mi (.3 km2) |
Elevation | 4,705 ft (1,434 m) |
Population | |
• Total | 46 |
• Density | 41/sq mi (16/km2) |
Time zone | UTC-7 (Mountain (MST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-6 (MDT) |
Area code | 307 |
FIPS code | 56-58100[2] |
GNIS feature ID | 1592478[3] |
Orin is a hamlet and the locus of a same-named census-designated place (CDP) in Converse County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 46 at the 2010 census.
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Burlington Northern: Western Coal Connection (1970s) Part 1
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The Great Wyoming Eclipse Traffic Jam
Transcription
In the United States, we consume kilowatts like candy. We may try to conserve, but there seems a bottomless demand for energy. At the same time, there is a limit to our energy supply, especially as oil gets scarcer, and more expensive. Yet there is a partial answer: coal. Low-sulfur western coal, probably America's most abundant energy source well into the twenty-first century. So coal is vital to America's future. But to be ultimately useful, the western coal has to reach the generating plants that transform it into power. Getting it to where it needs to go is one of the jobs of Burlington Northern. It comes from big country, the coal. From the regions of huge sky, high plains, short grass. In northern Wyoming, and southern Montana. There the coal boom amounts to a second opening of the west. Lines of the Burlington Northern pass through the vast Fort Union Coal Formation, home of eighteen surface mines. Additional mines are on the drawing board. BN's assignment is to move this coal over four rail corridors to waiting power plants in the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and southwest. The hauling of that coal is one of the greatest challenges, and greatest opportunities, to face an American railroad in modern times. The rapid expansion of the western coal industry propelled BN into the largest rail maintenance and construction program of the past half century. It has put BN among the nation's largest coal carriers. In the space of half a decade, BN has spent about a billion dollars to upgrade and expand its coal-carrying capability. At the western mines, huge silos funnel coal into moving trains. More than a hundred cars in about three hours; sometimes eight trains a day. When one of them heads down the track, it's a lot of coal underway, and a lot of money - about eight million dollars worth of high-horsepower locomotives and specially-built cars. These are unit trains, carrying a single product straight through to a single destination. This eliminates time-consuming, expensive delays in switching and freight yards. Without unit trains, the cost of transporting coal to market would be prohibitive. A typical loaded unit train weighs about fourteen thousand tons, so wear and tear on equipment is considerable. At its new maintenance and repair shops at Alliance, Nebraska, BN deals with that problem. Here, BN maintains many hundreds of locomotive a year, can repair one-hundred forty cars every twenty-four hours. Here, at this key point on the central and southern coal corridors, BN keeps its rolling stock...rolling. The impending buildup of coal traffic made it apparent that new tracks would be needed to speed the flow. BN responded, by building the Gillette-Orin line, the largest stretch of new railroad to be laid in the United States since 1931. Reaching one-hundred sixteen miles from Gillette, Wyoming to Orin, Wyoming, the new line links BN's principle east-west routes. It provides another way into and out of the coal fields, reduces traffic congestion, and cuts up to one-hundred fifty-five miles round-trip from some of the hauls south. As construction of the new line begins, the Wyoming landscape comes alive with great machines. By the time the new line is completed, they will have moved more than fifteen million cubic yards of earth to build the roadbed, and they will have replaced over a million yards of topsoil, so grass can grow again. The line crosses the grain of the country. Twenty-six bridges are built, underpasses and overpasses, including the span across Antelope Creek, sixty feet high, nearly five hundred feet long. It's range county, with wildlife and livestock. There was concern about how the animals would cross the line. To accommodate them, BN installs numerous box culverts and underpasses - safe crossing for animals; easy access to the range for modern day cowboys.
History
The community was named for Orin Hughitt, the uncle of a railroad official.[4] A post office was established at the Orin Junction in 1891. The name was changed to Orin in 1895, and the post office closed in about 1962.[5]
Orin was the final place outlaw Doc Middleton owned and operated a saloon, before dying in the local jail in 1913.
Geography
The community is located at the intersection of Interstate 25/U.S. Route 26/U.S. Route 87 and U.S. Route 18/U.S. Route 20. Orin is approximately 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Douglas. A BNSF Railway line runs through the community.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 1.1 square miles (2.9 km2), with 1.0 square mile (2.6 km2) is land and 0.1 square mile (0.26 km2) (9.1%) is water.[6]
References
- ^ "2010 City Population and Housing Occupancy Status". U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved July 13, 2012.[dead link]
- ^ "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
- ^ "US Board on Geographic Names". United States Geological Survey. October 25, 2007. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
- ^ Chicago and North Western Railway Company (1908). A History of the Origin of the Place Names Connected with the Chicago & North Western and Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railways. p. 111.
- ^ "Converse County". Jim Forte Postal History. Retrieved March 1, 2015.
- ^ "2010 Wyoming Place Names". U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on April 11, 2011. Retrieved July 13, 2012.