Future of Coal

Thanks for posting that David, very interesting and the latest Steam Railway is fronting very strongly about jusypt this issue. Should be noted that some here will be effected as they use coal in their Live Steam Dragons though I sespect a good trawl and carrier bag full if the dust at the bottom of any preserved lines coal dump would provide a goody years or so’s supply of what would be considered to be dust at the big railway.

Interesting about the so called bio-coal, this is a big con as it tends to need more of the stuff to get the equivalent amount of heat and the CO2 used to create it is likely to be more than saved by not using the proper stuff. Just look at dragging bio-fuel across the Atlantic, shoving it on a train to create Electricity at Drax Power Station which in itself has to use power hungry processes to make it fit to burn. Madness.
 
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I'm quite lucky, I live in West Lothian which was built on the coal mining industry, the old bing where I take our dug a walk has at least three different types of coal.

If I ever get round to built live steam locos i should be okay for a good few years.

Coal is a science in it's own right and some experimenting will be required to see which if the coals burns best in a small boiler.

Interestingly, and taking a wee thread tangent, in China when I use to pop over for the weekend, some of their locos burnt pulverised coal, a screw from the tender delivered the coal to a shelf in the fire box where it was then put where required.
 
<contraversial>
In the back of my mind, in the middle of the various miners strikes, someone in, I think Nottinghamshire, came up with a method of burning coal by "fluid bed desulphurisation". Now, I cant think of any reason why this was, well, ignored as it was IIRC a hugely cleaner method of electricity production. Clearly, it was not a political descision to shove this idea in the back of a drawer, and the "dash for gas" (611p/therm, time as at sending on the BBC website.) has been a complete success, non?
</contraversial>
 
DafyddElvy said:
I'm quite lucky, I live in West Lothian which was built on the coal mining industry, the old bing where I take our dug a walk has at least three different types of coal.

If I ever get round to built live steam locos i should be okay for a good few years.

Coal is a science in it's own right and some experimenting will be required to see which if the coals burns best in a small boiler.

Interestingly, and taking a wee thread tangent, in China when I use to pop over for the weekend, some of their locos burnt pulverised coal, a screw from the tender delivered the coal to a shelf in the fire box where it was then put where required.
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Are you sure you mean pulverised coal ? I'm not sure the Chinese ever used this. It needs to be handled rather like oil with specialised equipment. It's been tried a few times over the years - the Great Central had a go, as did the Southern Railway who gave up after an explosion. The system met with moderate success in Australia, but most use was made in Germany where there was a lot of lignite. Some East German Kriegsloks were converted as class 52.9 and the last of these wasn't withdrawn until 1979. In his book, David Wardale remarks on the dusty quality of Chinese coal and I wonder if this is what you observed. He also notes that the QJs were often hand rather than stoker fired for better economy -presumably with the mechanical stoker much of this stuff would have emerged from the chimney unburnt.
Phil
 
dunnyrail said:
Interesting about the so called bio-coal, this is a big con as it tends to need more of the stuff to get the equivalent amount of heat and the CO2 used to create it is likely to be more than saved by nit using the proper stuff. Just look at dragging bio-fuel across the Atlantic, shoving it on a train to create Electricity at Drax Power Station which in itself has to use power hungry processes to make it fit to burn. Madness.
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I've been following the trials of the bio-coal for a little while now, I was surprised to learn initially that the trials started with the same stuff being sold on petrol station forecourts for household fires but that's probably why it was worth anyone's time and money to investigate. In the UK at least, it appears that it is primarily a single company supporting this. As the trials have continued with progressively larger locomotives, recently graduating up to a standard 2MT, the formula of the 'coal' has been tweaked. Each time the results look to be improving in terms of the energy being produced at suitable temperatures and the ash deposit left behind after burning.

I think con might be a little strong, but maybe it stems from the association 'bio' has with things that are meant to be environmentally friendly? I haven't seen anyone involved with the experiment claiming it to be a clean way of turning carbon into energy, just an alternative to a resource that is rapidly becoming unobtainable. There might still be decades worth of coal lying underground in this country, but it seems very unlikely that anyone is going to invest cash into digging it up and keeping it in lumps just for the comparatively small requirements of the heritage sector. Fair enough we do have to ship in the waste bio-matter to form the bio-coal (I think it was mainly discarded olive stones last time I checked?) but the same is true of lump coal. The stuff that is managing to come from Eastern Europe isn't exactly renown for it's burning qualities compared to what used to be available in Wales or the North of England either, but it's all there is.

I volunteer at a very small heritage railway, they purchased their first steam loco last year and despite it being pretty much one of the smallest locos currently working on the standard gauge it's running costs still amount to around £300 a day. A big lump (excuse the pun) of that is coal, and it's only set to get higher and higher. I think we actually purchased our coal from another railway putting in huge orders, because purchasing the small quantities we need from a merchant is a now a non-starter. Without some plentiful and readily available new supply of some combustible material I think it will become very difficult for smaller operations to justify running steam locos. Hopefully it's not the start of the snowball, but the East Lancashire Railway has already announced that it will be rationalising it's use of steam locomotives this year due to concerns about the availability of coal.
 
So far our two stateside sources for Welsh coal for our little engines are well stocked. I just purchased 20lbs and a friend bought 20 for him and him and I are splitting the other 20lb box he ordered. So we each have 30lbs of the good stuff. With only one coal burner on our 16mm railways, it should last us both a good while. Let hope they sort this all out before it really does become a huge issue as steam on these railways are the "draw" for the public that is paying the money to ride these trains. Not many come for a diesel powered train. Stateside, several lines, due to constant fire danger with dry weather conditions are converting their steam locomotives to burn fuel oil instead of coal so as to minimize the cinders coming out of the chimney. Its a shame one of the many grades of coal from the USA doesnt work really well in small scale boilers.
 
artfull dodger said:
So far our two stateside sources for Welsh coal for our little engines are well stocked. I just purchased 20lbs and a friend bought 20 for him and him and I are splitting the other 20lb box he ordered. So we each have 30lbs of the good stuff. With only one coal burner on our 16mm railways, it should last us both a good while. Let hope they sort this all out before it really does become a huge issue as steam on these railways are the "draw" for the public that is paying the money to ride these trains. Not many come for a diesel powered train. Stateside, several lines, due to constant fire danger with dry weather conditions are converting their steam locomotives to burn fuel oil instead of coal so as to minimize the cinders coming out of the chimney. Its a shame one of the many grades of coal from the USA doesnt work really well in small scale boilers.
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Of interest some years back the Ffestiniog had Oil burning locomotives, I well recall taking a video of Linda or Blanche from the submerged end of the blocked Ddault tunnel emerging from the new one using sand to clean out the tubes, a trick on oil fired engines. This was in 1983 when I moved back to London from Horbury Bridge near Healey Mills. I think the oil was similar to the horrible polluting Bunker stuff used in Ships, a possibility but probably no cheeper and certainly of doubtful environmental credentials.
musket the dog said:
I've been following the trials of the bio-coal for a little while now, I was surprised to learn initially that the trials started with the same stuff being sold on petrol station forecourts for household fires but that's probably why it was worth anyone's time and money to investigate. In the UK at least, it appears that it is primarily a single company supporting this. As the trials have continued with progressively larger locomotives, recently graduating up to a standard 2MT, the formula of the 'coal' has been tweaked. Each time the results look to be improving in terms of the energy being produced at suitable temperatures and the ash deposit left behind after burning.

I think con might be a little strong, but maybe it stems from the association 'bio' has with things that are meant to be environmentally friendly? I haven't seen anyone involved with the experiment claiming it to be a clean way of turning carbon into energy, just an alternative to a resource that is rapidly becoming unobtainable. There might still be decades worth of coal lying underground in this country, but it seems very unlikely that anyone is going to invest cash into digging it up and keeping it in lumps just for the comparatively small requirements of the heritage sector. Fair enough we do have to ship in the waste bio-matter to form the bio-coal (I think it was mainly discarded olive stones last time I checked?) but the same is true of lump coal. The stuff that is managing to come from Eastern Europe isn't exactly renown for it's burning qualities compared to what used to be available in Wales or the North of England either, but it's all there is.

I volunteer at a very small heritage railway, they purchased their first steam loco last year and despite it being pretty much one of the smallest locos currently working on the standard gauge it's running costs still amount to around £300 a day. A big lump (excuse the pun) of that is coal, and it's only set to get higher and higher. I think we actually purchased our coal from another railway putting in huge orders, because purchasing the small quantities we need from a merchant is a now a non-starter. Without some plentiful and readily available new supply of some combustible material I think it will become very difficult for smaller operations to justify running steam locos. Hopefully it's not the start of the snowball, but the East Lancashire Railway has already announced that it will be rationalising it's use of steam locomotives this year due to concerns about the availability of coal.
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Sorry by con I was thinking about the use of Bio-fuel at Drax which in my mind is clearly a con. We could and should be digging coal in uk and burning it with a clear plan to its elimination rather than trying to pretend that bio-fuel is somehow mire environmentally friendly which it is not.

But yes there are issues, very serious issues about the continuation of coal for heritage purposes, not just trains but boats, traction engines, stationary plants (think Kew Bridge and others) and the odd car.
 
dunnyrail said:
Of interest some years back the Ffestiniog had Oil burning locomotives, I well recall taking a video of Linda or Blanche from the submerged end of the blocked Ddault tunnel emerging from the new one using sand to clean out the tubes, a trick on oil fired engines. This was in 1983 when I moved back to London from Horbury Bridge near Healey Mills. I think the oil was similar to the horrible polluting Bunker stuff used in Ships, a possibility but probably no cheeper and certainly of doubtful environmental credentials.

For the record the Ffestiniog's oil fired steam locos used the same fuel as their diesel locos. This was more convenient and heaver oils such as Marine bunker oil would need pre heating to get it to flow. Less of a problem with large systems that always had locos in steam but the FR often ran one engine it steam and sometimes only ran at weekends. One of their locos, Mountaineer, has been in storage pending overhaul for a fair while. She is still fitted for oil firing.
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For the record the Ffestiniog's oil fired steam locos used the same fuel as their diesel locos.
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As a former FR/WHR fireman and driver I can tell you that that is not true. The FR started off with their famous waste oil collections, the results of which had be filtered and blended to produce anything useful. This ended when the chap responsible for the process died, and they then went on to basically anything they could get in commercial quantities that would burn. Towards the end I remember using stuff that had been used to flush out aircraft fuel tanks.

You would put this stuff in a diesel loco at your peril, and the two fuel types (for steam and for diesel locos) were kept very much apart.

However, it was possible to use straight (red) diesel in the steam locos, and they went exceedingly well on it, and burnt less. I believe the Vale of Rheidol used diesel rather than the stuff the FR used with great success. Unfortunately, I am not aware that the higher cost per litre vs. using less litres calculations were ever done. The Rush For Coal took over, as if nobody had ever burnt coal in a steam loco before such was the manner of some of the ideas and procedures promoted at the time. As a former Severn Valley Railway volunteer too I knew a bit about coal firing but others allegedly knew better. There was an investment in coal and ash handling technology (shovels and wheelbarrows) and the footplate days lengthened from 10 hours to about 12 as a result.

And that was that. Coal was King, after 40+ years of using oil for good reasons. A boilersmith friend of mine from the SVR spent a day on the footplate with me at the FR, Examining the firebox and smokebox of our oil-fired steed he asked how long the loco had left in its 10 year certificate as "it looks brand new". I explained the loco was 9.5 years in to its certificate. No burnt stay nuts, no "birds nests", no corrosion.

Things have moved on since then, and so have I. Can I just say too that Mountaineer has a lot of issues that need resolving before any attempt is made to get it running again, but it was great when it did and was one of my favourites.
 
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Rhos Helyg Loco Works said:
As a former FR/WHR fireman and driver I can tell you that that is not true. The FR started off with their famous waste oil collections, the results of which had be filtered and blended to produce anything useful. This ended when the chap responsible for the process died, and they then went on to basically anything they could get in commercial quantities that would burn.
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Thanks for that correction, my memory isn't so good these days. I now recall the waste oil connections as I started my footplate duties as oil firing started. My first trip was as observer on Mountaineer just prior to its conversion to coal, but I never fired a coal burner. I was never asked to fuel a diesel and simply used the tank I was told to when fuelling the steam locos.
 
I believe most all "oil burning" engines in the states use normal #2 diesel fuel with atomizing burners in the firebox. The years of burning the thick bunker C oil are long gone, and that stuff had to be preheated in the tender or it turned into thick molasses that wouldn't even flow. From the Big Boy to the narrow gauge engines on the Cumbres and Toltec. But plenty still burn coal over here as well.
 
philg said:
Perhaps this is the answer..........:)
View attachment 296017

Phil
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Finland was probably the last major country in Europe using wood fired locomotives. B hard work for the fireman who was constantly chucking logs in on the YT vid that I saw. That interesting beast looks to be in Java?
 
dunnyrail said:
Finland was probably the last major country in Europe using wood fired locomotives. B hard work for the fireman who was constantly chucking logs in on the YT vid that I saw. That interesting beast looks to be in Java?
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Yes, this loco was at Malang in Java in September 1983. It's Hohenzollern 4074/20, built for the "Malang Stoomtram Mij" and it seems to have spent its whole life there. It never moved during our visit. Indonesia was a good place to see a variety of fuel types . The small PJKA locomotives like this one usually burned wood. On Java the larger locos like the D52 2-8-2s and the CC50 Mallets were heavy oil burners, whilst on the South Sumatra system the locomotives burned coal. (As I believe they did in West Sumatra, which I didn't visit). In the many sugar mills the steam locomotives usually burned bagasse, the waste product fron sugar cane. They would often start the season burning oil, until enough bagasse had been produced. This economical system was one reason why the mills kept steam traction so late.
 
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