New style of coal hoppers?

Looking at this link, it is not the environmentalist who are making the proposal but the developer, "Backers of coal shipments, including Oakland developer Phil Tagami, have argued that the facility slated for the old Oakland Army Base will be designed and built to minimize outside impacts. Among the measures outlined in a September 2015 report commissioned by Tagami’s firm are covered rail cars, underground transfer compartments and enclosed conveyor systems for moving coal from trains to ships."

The main issue appears to be the generation of coal dust during the unloading process.  My personal experience, as a teen, in shoveling anthracite coal in our basement, was that even washed coal generated a lot of dust.  I can't imagine how much dust would be generated by the softer Utah coal being shipped the distance from Utah to California. 

I think it would be interesting, that given the down turn in coal demand, who would pay for these new (?) generation of hopper cars?

Jim

I don't think they're new cars. There's a shortline in the Dakotas (they were just featured in TRAINS magazine) which runs unit trains of bathtub gondolas with removable covers. Now as to the unloading process, I've never heard of coal being unloaded underground. 

pittsburghrailfan posted:

I don't think they're new cars. There's a shortline in the Dakotas (they were just featured in TRAINS magazine) which runs unit trains of bathtub gondolas with removable covers. Now as to the unloading process, I've never heard of coal being unloaded underground. 

Lots of power plants have "underground unloading" and that is why they receive their coal in bottom dump hopper cars, i.e they do NOT use rotary dump.

Thank you everyone for the responses. They cleared up a few questions in my mind.

Neil