Coal miners in Pot County are in their second day of protesting against their employer, Quest Energy near Kemper. The miners claim the company has not paid them in weeks and is continuing to put off paying them. In protest, the miners have taken a page out of the Black Jewel protest playbook and have blocked a loaded cult train from leaving the mine. I spent some time at the side of the protest and spoke to some of the miners. On Monday, Quest Energy miners blocked a 120 car CSX Coal train from leaving the company's operation at Kemper. The main claim they haven't been paid since December 27 in our due nearly three weeks paid. They say they will not leave the tracks until they are paid. I told my priors get rigged cut off. I need $207. I said, you know, I need my money. I can't wait until it wins near 30. I've been waiting for three weeks for it now. And now they can say, well, I'm sorry, we don't know what to do. You know. And I'm like, well, yeah, you can pay me. What you owe me. So we're not going to leave until we get paid in full. The lowest we've went without a payday is two weeks. But they always did pay us. We're out out to slander them or their name or nothing. We just want our money. How much is it going to take to get you off these tracks? All my money. How much is that? Ah, three weeks worth. But now my youngest toads in cheerleading, it's hard getting them back and forwards and to their games and everything. I mean, I got to keep buying money to do it. My oldest toad, they're wanting stuff. I can't even put an entrance on my daughter's car and I just bought her for a seat to stay birthday, so she didn't drive because no money coming in. Stick us out one as I can. I just wish they'd pay us and I'm pretty sure all the other miners wish that they'd get paid. As long as that train sits there, it's $10,000 a day. So I mean, it's a big and play as games as long as they can. The protest is the second in six months in eastern Kentucky where miners have blocked a train from leaving a mine. The previous, the Black Jewel mining protest in Harlan County that went on for more than three months. Like the Black Jewel protest, the quest miners let CSX take its locomotives from the area on the condition they leave their train loaded with 12,000 tons of metallurgical coal at the mine. Engineers and CSX people asked us if we was going to hold train up and we said, yeah, we got our co-owner and they've not paid us. They said, well, do you care if we unhook our engines? They said, no, you can take your engines. We said, but I reckon 20 cars belong to Billy Smith. We told him I could take those. They want to take those with him engines. They said, no, then cars has already hooked to that unit and it was one unit and they was not going to move it. That they told us that they would not pull them cars out of there until we was gone. Quest parent company, American Resources Corporation, disputes the claim about the back pay. In a statement, the company acknowledged that there is an issue resulting in late payments, but those payments as of Monday night were between one and eight days. About the three weeks, the miners claim. We ain't out here for a phone or to be on TV or nothing like that. We're here to get our pay days. On Tuesday, the miners began seeing blips on their mobile payroll app. Adam Jensen, an executive with American Resources, said he anticipated the miners being fully paid by Tuesday evening or at the latest Wednesday. We've used to bid to payroll already through PayJack, that's our payroll provider. They have told us they are going to do everything in their power to get employees to send the APH today. In worst case scenario, it will be tomorrow night. Jensen also said the miners protesting against Quest will not have to worry about losing their jobs over the action they've taken in blocking the train. We apologize for being late on the pay and there will be no record taken. In the ones that were just out there, from the thing blocking the train, there will be no replacement. Now, once all this is over with, do you plan on going back to work for them or? No, not for them. The miners tell me that the back pay situation which sparked this protest affects around 50 miners. It's still unclear where the loaded cold train is destined and whether Quest has already been paid for it.