A coal pier is a transloading facility designed for the transfer of

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

between rail and ship. The typical facility for loading ships consists of a holding area and a system of conveyors for transferring the coal to dockside and loading it into the ship's

cargo hold 120px, View of the hold of a container ship A ship's hold or cargo hold is a space for carrying cargo in the ship's compartment. Description Cargo in holds may be either packaged in crates, bales, etc., or unpackaged (bulk cargo). Access to h ...

s. Originally the holding area consisted of a

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

in which the loaded cars were sorted by grade and held until needed for loading. Modern facilities are more likely to unload the cars immediately (for example, with rotary car dumpers) and store the coal in piles until the ship is loaded. This frees up the cars for immediate reuse and obviates rail yard maintenance. Dedicated coal piers began to be constructed in the 1880s at

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

s on the Atlantic Coast and

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, and many of these survive (though highly modified) to the present. In

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

, beginning in 1881, coal piers, operated by the

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...

(C&O) on the Virginia Peninsula at Newport News and in South Hampton Roads by the Norfolk and Western (N&W) and

Virginian Railway The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads. Histor ...

(VGN) at

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...

, made the port of

Hampton Roads Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James, Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point where the Chesapeake Bay flows into the Atlantic ...

the largest shipping point of coal in the world by 1930. The Curtis Bay coal terminal in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore wa ...

, built by the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

(B&O) in the 1880s, was for a time the largest such facility in the world. C&O and B&O also had facilities on

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also ha ...

. In modern times, CSX Transportation continues to serve coal piers at Newport News and Curtis Bay, and Norfolk Southern operates a large complex at

Lambert's Point Lamberts Point is a point of land on the east shore of the Elizabeth River near the downtown area of the independent city of Norfolk in the South Hampton Roads region of eastern Virginia, United States. It includes a large coal exporting facili ...

in Norfolk.

Pacific Northwest

In the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...

of the United States, a number of coal terminals such as the Gateway Pacific Terminal in Bellingham, Washington, were proposed for export of coal from the Powder River Basin to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. As of May 2013, three projects remained under consideration. Lighthouse Resources (formerly Ambre Energy) of Salt Lake City dropped their Morrow Pacific project proposed for

Boardman, Oregon Boardman is a city in Morrow County, Oregon, United States on the Columbia River and Interstate 84. As of the 2010 census the population was 3,220. It is currently the largest town in Morrow County, Oregon. History Boardman was homesteaded ...

, in May, 2016. The

US Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

sided with the Lummi nation in denying a permit for the Gateway Pacific Terminal in May, 2016. The developers withdrew their application in 2017. Millennium Bulk Terminals proposed for Longview, Washington, lost a permit appeal in March 2020. As of October, 2020, the state of

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

is suing the state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

over the denial.

References

{{reflist Railway freight terminals Water transport infrastructure Piers Coal terminals