CUPCAKE HAULAGE: The 12-tonne-capacity concentrate “cupcakes”

When Curragh Resources first considered taking over the Faro operation, concentrate transportation to the Alaskan seaport at Skagway was a key, make-or-break factor. The previous mine owners had relied on White Pass and Yukon Railways to truck the concentrates in containers from Faro to Whitehorse. They were then transferred to the railway’s narrow-gauge tracks for shipment to tidewater. Curragh opted to truck directly to Skagway using Super B-train trucks on a contract basis. The saving? A hefty $20 million per year when the ocean-going fleet is factored in.

In addition to forehauling “cons,” the Super B-trains backhaul freight in containers. Incoming material, such as grinding media, are shipped in (ISO) containers on rail to Seattle and barge to Skagway and then north on Super B-trains to Faro. The containerized system has significantly reduced freight costs, said Harold Upton, Manager, Transportation and Administration. Curragh regularly ships its reagents and other chemicals in bulk (drums, bags, and so on), using this system with its 75 (ISO) boxes, 36 half-highs, and eight 12,500-litre fuel containers.

In addition to shipping grinding media and reagents to Faro and Sa Dena Hes, the transportation system can move 100,000 litres of fuel a day to the mines. This gives Curragh the ability to purchase fuel for both mines directly from west coast refineries and ship it at low cost. Currently, White Pass Petroleum Products (Yukon/Alaska agents for Chevron) supplies and delivers fuel to both mines at competitive rates. (Curragh also assists Yukon Energy Corp. and Yukon Electrical Co. to buy and deliver low-cost diesel fuel to their diesel-powered generating stations, potentially providing industrial and household users with lower electrical rates.)

Yukon Alaska Transport (YAT), a subsidiary of Lynden Inc., a U.S.-based transport company and Curragh’s contractor, operates the 44 Super B-trains 24 hours a day, seven days a week from Faro to Skagway and back, an 1,100-km round trip that takes 19 hours. (The B-Train differs from the more usual pindle hookup of a twin-trailer “A-Train” in that the B-Train’s second trailer is attached by a fifth wheel to the first.)

A maintenance and repair shop, owned by Curragh, is on the outskirts of Whitehorse. In sum, the YAT operation employs 115 drivers, 33 maintenance and operations support people and six administrative support people. Curragh has three administrative people on its transportation staff. Curragh owns all the B-train trailers, the pods and other specialized equipment, while the truck contractor owns the tractors.

For the information of truck buffs, the haul contractor runs a fleet of Autocar, Peterbuilt, and Western Star trucks powered by Caterpillar 3406B diesels. Yukon Alaska Transport is in the midst of converting to tri-axle drive (nine axles in total) from the former dual-drive (8 axles in total).

The Faro-Skagway run sees 1,900 tonnes of concentrates shipped daily in “cupcake” containers, four to a truck, that each hold 12 tonnes of concentrates. Unlike traditional rectangular containers, these cone shaped pods facilitate unloading, particularly in the winter months. As well, to prevent the moist concentrates (6.5% moisture) from freezing to the container walls and bottoms, each container is sprayed with a fine film of low-priced glycol, better known in the trade as “stillbottoms.” Were this not done, even a small portion of concentrates clinging to the container walls and trucked uselessly back and forth between mine and port, would add up to several thousand tonnes of lost concentrate payload every year.

It takes 20 minutes to load a Super B-train at the minesites and 12 minutes to unload in Skagway. On the backhaul, up to 500 containers of lime, soda ash, grinding media and other reagents and chemicals make the trip annually through the mountain pass. (For general, non-backhaul freight, Curragh, at both Faro and Sa Dena Hes, relies on White Pass Transportation Ltd. and its sister company Motorways Ltd. to serve Faro, and Canadian Freightways Ltd. to serve Sa Dena Hes.)

The Sa Dena Hes-Skagway haul results in a daily 500 tonnes of Sa Dena Hes concentrates arriving at the 105,000-tonne-capacity portside warehouse. Gateway Transport, another Lynden subsidiary, in Watson Lake has the contract for the highway haul (26 hours, 1,325 km to Skagway and back). It operates 15 Super B-Trains (9-axle configuration with tri-axle-drive tractors), each 25 m long with a gross vehicle weight of 72,575 kg. The round-the-clock, 7-day-per-week operation employs 30 drivers, 14 maintenance and operations people and four administrative staff.

Curragh owns the trailers and the terminals in Whitehorse and Watson Lake. It does this because the trailer and container design is unique and would be impossible to replace on short notice should the trucking contractor be confronted with a problem that can’t be resolved.

At Skagway, an incorporated city, contractor Bowhead Equipment Co., another Lynden subsidiary, unloads and stores concentrates and maintains everything from inventory records to forklifts. The warehouse/loadout system operates round-the-clock with 10 people seven days a week. The portside loadout fills the belly of a freighter at the rate of 15,000 tonnes per day. The freighters, in the 30,000- to 40,000-tonne class, are scheduled at the rate of one every two to three weeks. They carry the concentrates to ports in Europe (voyage time: four to five weeks), Korea, and Japan (voyage time: two to three weeks).

On a map that does not show topographic relief, the Skagway haul might appear to be just another Sunday drive. Take the road in the dead of winter, though, and it is anything but. On our visit, Upton drove the route, keeping in touch by radio with the truckers who were negotiating several minor snowslides, whiteouts at the top of the pass and soupy fog on the downhill leg into Skagway. On the Alaska side of the summit, truckers gear down and cautiously make their way down the 18 km. of winding mountain road that drops precipitously 1,108 m vertically into Skagway. In a matter of minutes, they traverse the climatic equivalent of a trek from the high Arctic (minus 40deg C is not unusual at the top of the pass) to something like Prince Rupert’s temperate winter weather. Upton says the contractor’s drivers must have logged a minimum 300,000 miles behind the wheel of a B-Train before they pass muster on the White Pass run. Their average age is 40.

The highway itself is a new, remarkably broad, two- and often three-lane blacktop maintained exceptionally well, says Upton, both summer and winter by the maintenance crews of the Yukon Territorial government. The crews also clear winter snowslides. Although the Alaskan portion is only 18 km. long, it is also very demanding during the winter months and Upton has nothing but praise for the Alaskan road crews. The Canada/U.S. border is White Pass/Summit, 1,107 m above sea level.