Coal - How many of us have held and burned it?

[Anonymous]

Handled it, shovelled it into our furnace as an 8-year old. I remember the ashes that would fly up the heating ducts to settle on every horizontal surface in the house. We had our coal in a bin in the basement. The bin was a room about 8 X 10 feet. The coal delivery service would run a very long chute to the basement window above the coal bin and let it roll in. Coal was $18 a ton then and sometimes, if my parents had been able to save enough money from the previous week, they could buy 2 tons of coal.

While I didn't have to worry about digging through a coal bin in the freezing mornings, I did have to carry my share of coal ashes out to be dumped.

No, I don't miss doing it, but I miss the smell of a coal fire, unless it's a high-sulfur coal.

[CNW-400]

If you're ever in the Chicago area be sure to visit the Museum of Science & Industry.

Not only can you see and tour the original Burlington Zepher and a fantastic three and a half million dollar HO layout, but you can also tour an actual coal mine.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Coal oil is another term for kerosene. Not sure how it originated.

[Anonymous]

Coal Oil? not sure, maybe referring to "Shale oil". As far as "White Gas", that refers to unleaded gasoline which was not common too long ago. Burning coal, yep, fond memories of shoveling coal into the furnace to heat our building , used plenty of it in pot belly stoves and still collect it along abandoned right of ways for model purposes and heating.......

[CBQ_Guy]

I read or heard recently the term coal oil. I also remember a good thirty + years ago reference to white gas. Any old timers know what this stuff is (was)? Thanks in advance....

[Anonymous]

I am a coal fired power plant operator. Coal is part of my everyday work and is not as great as many would like to think. It smells awful after you work around it for awhile and it certainly is one of the dirtiest things to work around. I think this is the main reason why I only model diesel era trains. I can't even stand the thought of coal, because it reminds me too much of work, which really takes the fun out of my hobby.

[der5997]

Used to burn coal at home in England in the 40s and 50s. Then smokeless fuel came in. Used that, and coke too. Last coal opperation I saw was in Alberta, an open pit mine for Trans Alta Power.
Where I am now on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, there is coal laying around in small bits in the yard. I think a previous owner used it for heating. Its handy for the coal loads in my N hoppers, and also for doing up packages for "first footing" in the neighbourhood on New Years Day.

[Anonymous]

I've got a piece in my train room which fell off a tender on the Mt. Washington cog railway. I've burned it for heat in my SoCal fireplace, run my blacksmith froge with it (even have several hundred pounds on hand), seen it on the trains on the UP main accross the street from my old house, and now have a trainroom in a California basement which still has its coal chute.

[Seamonster]

None of the choices really fit me, but reading the responses sure brought back a lot of childhood memories! We had a coal furnace in our basement in the late-40's and 50's before it was changed to an oil furnace and finally to natural gas. I remember that huge monster sitting in the middle of the basement floor with its big round pipes going up to the living areas. My father used to have to go down every evening and bank the fire so it wouldn't go out during the night and freeze us. We used to have a coal bin in a corner of the basement and I can remember getting in there and getting covered in black coal dust and getting royal heck from my mother. I can still recall the terrible racket as the coal poured down the chute from the delivery truck into the bin. Ah, the memories!
... Bob

[Anonymous]

I have a lump of coal that I keep in a hole by the RR tracks at my friends house. It must be from a steamer (I've yet to see a hopper fully loaded). That track is pretty old, it still has the "railjoiners", not the welded rail. So when a train goes by you can here the good ole "clickity clack".

[Anonymous]

Lots of coal in Vancouver and Greater Vancouver. Roberts Bank is major into coal and in North Vancouver where I live, thousands and thousands of tons of it. My worst memory of it was when as a kid I saw a pile of burnt coal sitting by the garbage and for some stupid reason decided to put my foot in it. Only then did I discover, the center of the pile was still red hot.

Anything that requires a lot of work to run or maintain, I generally don't have warm memories of, I'm lazy. I'm convinced it was some lazy guy who invented the refrigerator because he was tired of hauling ice, maybe the same guy invented the oil burning furnace and the electric stove. God bless lazy one's everywhere, with out them the world would be a harder place to live.

[Anonymous]

No big deal if you are older.
In my lifetime, we burned coal in the fireplace in England, early 40's to early 50's. It was rationed during the war, and had to be swapped for other goods, to get 'extra'.
My Dad used to bring home a bag of coal on the train, that he had swapped for stuff from his restaurant.
When we came to Toronto ,Canada in 1952, the fireplace needed coal. Buying in cords of cut hardwood was virtually unknown in the cities back then.
Coal was dirty and inefficient for what we did with it.
Hard to miss it if you come from back then.
regards
Mike[:)]

[JoeUmp]

I've seen the coal over the tops of the hoppers in a number of coal drags. They pass by only about a mile from the house. I've also seen the pile that the IU power plant used to keep on hand next to the boiler building. And I picked up a lump from off of the tracks for my own use. I plan on getting enough to fill my own coal drag on the IMRR.

Joe

[electromotive]

I've held it, shoveled it, and took out the ashes.....My parents home (mine) was coal heated till the late 50"s.. Then oil and gas started to be available, boy what a change..
I remember the coal man bringing bags of coal to dump in the coal chute, thats the closet that held the coal, which you then shoveled in to the furnace..
Life was a lot harder in those days...but it made me thankful for all we have today!

[johncolley]

I must be gettin' on in the grey-hair department. Back in the late '50's I oiled freights then was an apprentice car whacker and though SP was all oil burners and diesels we used coal in the pot belly stoves in the crew shacks ( old wooden passenger cars on the ground-no trucks) and the freight crews used same in the crummies. 'used to light 'em off with a fusee ,or as now known, a flare. Got the heat goin' in a hurry! Now this last summer I happened to get to Orbisonia, PA and rode the East Broad Top. Great experience and I brought home some of it's "solid fuel" as a keepsake. You never forget the smell of coal smoke on a crisp morning. johncolley tholcapn

[Anonymous]

US Air Force had me stationed in England for 3 years - '72 thru '75. The house I lived in was coal fired heating. Like other posts above, I spent many a cold morning freezing outside diging in the coal bin. Makes me appreciate the gas fired central air system I have here in AZ.

[rf16a]

I have seen and held coal but have never burned it.
I have seen many coal trains while railfanning the Altoona/Cresson PA area.
My first train ride when I was a kid was on a train powered by Strasburg Railroad 2-10-0 #90.
I have a great amount of respect for the hard working people who mine and have mined coal. Hard and dangerous work. When you see a coal train, or run a model of one, or use electricity from a coal fired power plant, think about those miners, past and present.

[CBQ_Guy]

My grand mother burned it in her coal furnace in the basement up until sometime in the 1960's when the land lord had the burner switched over to natural gas.

I wanted to play in the coal room "climb the mountain", split it to try and find fossils, etc. back then when I was just a wee model railroader, but grandma wouldn't allow it as she said I would be a mess from all the coal dust. I used to watch the coal man run his wooden chute into the coal room window in the basement, and deliver a load.

[Anonymous]

I too grew up in coal country - Scranton and Carbondale. In fact I was living in Carbondale when (in about 1950) a whole block sank 15 feel as a result of shoring giving way beneath it. My job as a kid was to fill the automatic stokers (we had two of them). What luxury. Remember those times with fondness.

The railroad I model is the noe defunct O&W which used to haul coal as a major revenue source.

[Anonymous]

Grew up in a town where the local RR station burned coal in a pot-bellied stove. I was fortunate enough to see 6 -8 steamers run through in a day. Nothing like the smell of coal smoke. Last steamer ran through my town in 1963. A few years ago I found some along the rail line, in the ballast. Took it home, put it in the fireplace, and had myself a "nostalgia party".

[Anonymous]

all i have is a clinker

[lupo]

my son has a lot of pieces of coal he picks up at various historical-railroad sites and
until the late 70's My parents house was heated with coal and my mother cooked on it,
I shoveled it for them and the cat used it when it was wet or cold outside . . . . . . .
I remember coal, but I prefer a gas-stove, central heating and cat-grit
and the block of coal in my engine display

[ClinchValleySD40]

I've held it, used it, burned it, hauled it. I've run too many coal trains to count, so not particularly fond of it.

[joseph2]

No choices for me.15 years ago my job was using a payloader to move coal at a powerplant.I love the smell of coal burning but it wasn't fun getting a clinker out of a boiler's cinder hopper.

[Anonymous]

My parents house was heated by a coal furnace. I shoveled tons of coal and ashes.
We would play in the coal pile and slide down the coal chute to the coal cellar. Needless to say our mother wasn't to happy about that.

[Paul W. Beverung]

Well, lets see. I've got 2 tons of it on hand for my 7.5 in gauge 4in scale live steam locomotive. I haven't run in a while. Seems the B & B gang had to dig up the main to get power to the new depot,[ full size]. My Grandparents heated there house with it, and I can remember watching it being delivered many times.

[Anonymous]

I held one. It came in my stocking for christmas[:D]

[BNSFNUT]

I remeber my grandfather firing to old coal furnace. I thought it was neat and then we moved into a house when 14 and it was heated by coal fired hot water boiler.
It was fired by an under fed stoker (an Iron Fireman brand) had an large bin to hold aprox. 800 LB of rice coal, and you can guess who got to fill it. I carried coal in a bucket from the coal bin to fill it, it was about 80ft each way I learned to not let it to low. I also had to empty the ash from a 20 gal barrel about twice a month.
The system was replaced with oil in 1974 when coal and repair parts became hard to get.

[pondman]

Having been born and raised in the coal country of Pa. and southern teir of New York. My dad trucked it all over the area when I was a kid growing up. And I was all the time in coal bin moving it around to get it all in the bin. cooked with heated with it too ...and as far as the ashes went in the winter time sold then for cars on the hill by the house for .25 each bucket full so I could have spending money ............even been down in coal mine shalf to boot !!!!!!!!!! no fun i can tell you that too .......