Navajo Mine and Railroad

The Navajo Mine is a surface coal mine owned and operated by Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC) in New Mexico, United States, within the Navajo Nation. The mine is about 20.5 mi southwest of Farmington, New Mexico. The Navajo Mine Railroad has 13.8 mi of track between the Four Corners Generating Station and Navajo Mine.

History
Navajo Mine's coal lease was granted in 1957. In 1963, Navajo Mine began operations for Utah International. The Navajo Mine is the sole supplier of coal to the adjacent Four Corners Power Plant (FCPP). In 1977 General Electric acquired Navajo Mine from Utah International. Seven years later in 1984, BHP acquired Navajo Mine.

In 2013, the 22nd Navajo Nation Council created Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC), under legislation No. 0116-13 with a vote of 7-4. By the end of that year, NTEC acquired Navajo Mine. NTEC received a lease extension through the Department of the Interior and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement (OSMRE) for 25-year site lease extension for Navajo Mine and Four Corners Power Plant.

In 2016, NTEC contracted North American Coal Corporation as the operator for Navajo Mine, forming Bisti Fuels Company, LLC. Two years later in 2018, NTEC acquired 7% ownership of Four Corners Power Plant, the 1,550 MW power plant, making NTEC the only tribal company in the United States to have partial ownership of a coal-fired power plant.

Expanding further, NTEC acquired Cloud Peak Energy assets that included three coal mines in Wyoming and Montana. Those mines are Antelope, Cordero Rojo, and Spring Creek. This made NTEC the third-largest coal producer in the United States. Finally, on October 01, 2021, NTEC assumed full operations at Navajo Mine, thus becoming the first tribally owned coal mining company to operate a coal mine on tribal land. Navajo Mine employs approximately 370 people, with 86% being enrolled Navajo members.

A 7 mi-long standard gauge line was built in 1974 from the power plant to the Hosteen stockpile. The line was expanded to the present 14 mi in 1983. Because there was no connection to the national railroad network, three diesel locomotives and 22 Maxon bottom dump coal hopper cars were transported from Gallup on low-bed trucks. At the beginning, only one train operated. There were problems with clogged oil bath filters on the diesel locomotives due to excessive coal dust, but the issues were solved with a new filter type.

Electric operation started 1984, as being more economical. (Diesel operation had become too expensive with increasing train loads and fuel prices.) Another 20 hopper cars were purchased, enabling operation of two trains, each having 18 cars. However, electric operations were discontinued in 2019 in favor of GE ET44AC diesel locomotives.

When Kayenta Mine operations ceased and its railroad was decommissioned, the coal hopper cars were brought to Navajo Mine.

More recently, NTEC has been investing in solar power to expand to other energy alternatives. In addition, they expanded into the Helium realm, acquiring Tacitus. This acquisition consisted of helium wells and infrastructure in the Tocito Dome Field on the Navajo Nation as well as Federal and State leases for additional exploration in Utah. The Tocito Dome Field is proven and producing with existing offtake contracts in place.

Route
The line runs from the Navajo Mine north-northwest to the Four Corners Generating Station, which is located 25 mi west of Farmington, New Mexico. It has no physical connection to any other railroad.

Operation
Trains are operated with an electric GE E60 locomotive on the north end and a diesel-electric ALCO Century 420 locomotive on the south end. The Century 425 is normally operated only as a control cab to for the radio remote-controlled E60, when the empty train is returning to the mine. The prime mover in the diesel-electric is still present to provide emergency power in event of an electric outage. There is sufficient equipment to create three trains, but only two trains are normally operated, each consisting of 21 coal hoppers. Each train typically makes 12 round trips during each 24-hour operating day. Only one crew member is at work at a time: this person takes an empty train to the coal load out, then changes to the loaded train to take it back to the power plant. While this train is underway, the other train is being loaded.

The railroad catenary has a voltage of 25 kV 60 Hz AC. The pantographs of the E60s are mounted atop pedestals on the roof to adapt to the unusually high catenary. Extra filters for cleaning the machine room air are mounted on the roof of the locomotive.

At the coal loadouts, front-end loaders deposit the coal into the hopper cars. Each car has a capacity between 100 and 125 ST.

In 2020, Arizona Public Service (APS) announced plans to close the Four Corners Generating Station. This closure would render both the mine and the railroad obsolete.

In addition to the mine served by the railroad, the Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC) owns three other mines in Montana and Wyoming.

Motive power

 * General Electric E60 with the road numbers LOE20, LOE21 and LOE23. These locomotives were built for Amtrak with the road numbers #961, #963 and #968 and were sold directly to the Navajo Mine Railroad, except #961, which was first sold to New Jersey Transit. All these locomotives were scrapped in 2003 and replaced by four E60s first delivered to Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México. These locomotives had previously served the Mexico City—Irapuato line, which was converted to an all-diesel operation.
 * ALCO Century 425 with the road numbers LOD7, LOD8 and LOD9. All locomotives are former Norfolk & Western (N&W) engines, which had the road numbers #1000, #1002 and #1005. The locomotives were originally ordered by the Wabash Railroad, before that company's merger with the N&W. They were rebuilt by Morrison Knudsen for operation on the Navajo Mine Railroad.
 * Two General Electric ET44AC locomotives were delivered new in 2017 with road numbers 2026 and 2027.