After WWII, power companies were building oil, gas and nuclear plants, until the 1970s oil crisis and Three Mile Island nuclear disaster. Coal came back for a while.
The coal business did decline after WW2 but it was still substantial for some roads. The decline was primarily in the use of coal for home and structure heating as it was replaced by oil and natural gas. The various anthracite roads took a major hit in their revenues and NYO&W was abandoned. Steam coal for power plant generation and metallurgical (coking) coal did continue in substantial volume.
I keep reading about how coal business is going away for the railroads and how they will be hard pressed to replace the traffic, etc. Deja-Vu! How did the railroads deal with this last time it happened-right after WWII when the coal business went away?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
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