Here in central Nebraska we see many coal trains on the UP and BNSF lines loaded with coal going eastward and empties going back to Wyoming. But yesterday we saw a couple of trains headed west with a single hopper loaded with coal in the center of a long train of empties. With the first train we thought it was just a fluke. But a second one the same way? (We saw it about two hours later.) Can anyone explain such a consist?

Dick