Who Says A Loop of Track is Unprototypical?

Artist's rendering of the new facility.

One of the axioms of model railroading is that a loop of track a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood is unprototypical, not to mention boring.

Nobody told that to the Dakota Plains Holding Inc., which is planning a double-track loop for its new oil loading facility in New Town, North Dakota.

To keep up with booming shipments of crude oil, the company is building a $50 million expansion of its crude oil loading facility in the northeastern part of the state. It will be able to rapidly load trains of up to 120 tank cars.

As reported in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the project will add looped tracks for easier loading, boosting daily throughput capacity from 30,000 barrels to 80,000 barrels.

The project, which is served by the CPR, will be completed by the end of the year.

BTW, North Dakota--once famed for being home to over 1,000 nuclear missiles pointed at the former Soviet  Union--is now the second-largest oil-producing state behind Texas. Since it doesn't have many pipelines, 68 percent of the crude oil production in the state is shipped by rail.