My elementary school was heated with coal at least until 1961, my grandparents in PA coal country, heated with coal through the 60's I don't know how they got their coal.
You can still buy coal furnaces, and, at least according to some websites, are making a come back, because wood furnaces are now regulated and coal is not.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I had some New Hampshire friends who were still heating with coal 30 years ago. I would imagine that there were small distributors even then. They must have gotten that coal somewhere.
Back in the 1950s, I had a lot of relatives living in Brooklyn, NY, apartments. I remember occasionally seeing coal being delivered even then. These deliveries were by small trucks and the coal went directly down a chute into the basement.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Our house on the east side of Cleveland still had a coal furnace in 1963. Our coal was delivered by the "City Ice Company". I have seen advertising for several coal yards and many offered ice, sand & gravel, bottled gas, appliances, hauling and trucking along with lumber and, of course, coal.
Yards had to diversify in order to survive. In most areas of the U.S. anyway, coal sales were seasonal. Some switched over to fuel oil delivery.
Regards, Ed
My father-in-law built their home in 1948 in a coal producing area in PA and it had a coal furnace. That required tending the furnace each moring. He upgraded to oil burning by 1960 though surely many folks continued to heat with coal at home. The coal was delivered by a local coal company. The home had some wallpaper and each summer they had to clean it with a PlayDoh type material.
Don't know whether lumber yards in the (coal producing) area sold coal then.
I have a lumber yard and some real A Rock & Minerals HO sized coal, so thanks for the idea of adding a coal bin. My transition era layout time span stretches just a bit...from a 2-6-2 Prairie to some GE C44-9Ws. So I have some coal burning steamers.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
floridaflyer Lived in Plainfield NJ up until July '56 before moving to Syracuse.. My best friends home was still heated with coal when I left.. Don't know how much longer that continued but probably for a few years at least. But that was not the norm and the market for coal had been reduced.
Lived in Plainfield NJ up until July '56 before moving to Syracuse.. My best friends home was still heated with coal when I left.. Don't know how much longer that continued but probably for a few years at least. But that was not the norm and the market for coal had been reduced.
That was before my time, but it makes sense lumber yards may have been coal sellers back in the day homes were heated by coal. I lived in Syracuse between 1994 and 2009 and saw a few older homes had been heated by oil, but anything built past 1960, probably 1950 probably were not built with coal heading.
I would think by the 50's, coal for home heating was on it's way out of use and getting fewer and fewer. The demand for it for residential was likely dropping quickly so I doubt lumber yards would have carried much into the 1960's.
So many residents of Syracuse have moved south, mainly to Florida. Although younger people seeking jobs have left to Maryland and Virginia as the economy in central NY appears to remain depressed.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
It makes sense that would explain why in work terms (I write workers compensation) the code for a lumber yard is also the code for a fuel distributor.
Joe Staten Island West
I read a while back that lumber yards used to sell coal for home heating and was thinking of adding that to my lumberyard on my layout set in 1956. However, further research has told me that coal as a home heating fuel peaked around WWI and fuel oil and later natural gas and electric began replacing coal as a heating source. By the 1950s, heating with coal would have been rare so I'm wondering how common it would be for a lumber yard to be selling coal in 1956.
I found this old thread from 2001 on the subject:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/1294/5197.aspx
Most of the contributors are listed as Anonymous making it difficult to figure out who is saying what. I'm guessing most of them are no longer members. It sounds as if by the 1950s, coal operations would have been largely phased out.