The White Moutain Central 3 different engines #1, #5, #6 all operate with Wood.
This is the Clark's Trading Post railroad at North Woodstock, NH and its Climax #6 always seem to be forgotten in the count of operable Climax in the USA. It actually has an almost new boiler, replacing the original a few years ago. They also have a Shay #5 but it is stored in its original condition, and only sees the daylight once a year for occasional railfan weekend. It is so original, the old oil cans are still sitting within the safe spots near the frame, and the lower flues are still plugged with cinder and grit.
How can they make such a error as Trains Magazine publishes the Tourist Train Guide which includes their wood burning data.
Hey, even Babe Ruth didn't hit a home run every time at bat.
I read the article today, very good and enjoyable.
Hungry for Good Coal?
I guess that was just the writer running with the "Iron Horse" analogy where a draft animal needs to be supplied proper fodder?
For a moment there, I thought it was discussion of the fuel requirements for proper firebox combustion with respect to lump size, the tendency of the lumps to make dust that gets pulled out of the fire and up the stack under high draft conditions, the amount of volatiles that can generate smoke, the amount of ash, the tendency of the ash to melt and form "clinker", or the tendency of the coal to swell or "cake" when the volatiles are "coked" off, all of these effects choking off the fire, but in some instances, reducing the "sparks" thrown out the stack by binding small coal particles to the firebed.
I thought that maybe "good coal" was a concern of coal-burning tourist lines because the coal mining industry supplies a product that gets ground to a fine powder when fed to electric utility boilers and there is no longer an effort to make it suitable for the mode of coal lumps on a firegrate in a locomotive boiler?
I guess those concerns are all "inside baseball." (sigh)
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
My live steam club is facing this issue. The mine we bought from about 10 years ago has closed down and we can't find any good-quality coal in bulk order.
The stuff that works okay for the full sized locos at IRM or Strasburg just isn't good enough.
We've tried just about everything, but it's either too big in lump size, too dirty (passengers don't ussually like a face full of smoke, the engineer too) or it just won't burn hot enough.
Finding good coal is an issue that everyone should pay attention to. With new "green" movements we might soon find ourselves without a quality coal supplier, as my club has.
Can you give us a sense of the differences in firing a live-steam model in relation to full-size railroad steam?
The last time our club got invited to the Whiskey River RR at the Little A-Merrick-A amusement park in Marshall, WI, it seems that they had stuffed the fireboxes of their operating engines full with coal in rather largish lump, but this seemingly indifferent firing technique didn't appear to generate much smoke. These locomotives were "zoo gauge" (16" in this instance), so they are perhaps a bit larger than many live-steam models and somewhat smaller than a proper "narrow gauge" (2' and up) railroad.
Apart from Livio Dante Porta's Gas Producer Combustion System and some other outliers, it appears that the standard technique for firing with lump coal is the "little and often" method maintaining a thin, evenly spread firebed that is "light and bright." That doesn't seem what they were doing on those subscale engines but they were doing OK with what they were doing. I did hear from one of the people who is part of steam engine operations that they pay top dollar for the coal they use, so maybe they are getting their results from a high-quality coal?
I have limited expirience firing full-sized steam (About 20 minutes or so on the Strasburg), but I know enough to say that full sized steam is another beast. I fire our locomotives (12'' gauge) the same way I have been taught and read on the full sized engines. In my expirience you can scale full-size firing techniques down to live steam, but NOT the other way around. Firing live steam, honestly, requires little skill when you have good coal.
Live steamers typically have smaller fireboxes than are optimal, so more has to be done with less grate area, hence the need for high quality coal. (For these purposes I swear by Pocahontas No. 6)
Of course what it comes down to is the man behind the shovel. You don't need A1-prime coal to get the job done (although it can make it easier) when you know what you're doing. Full sized steamers typically use lower quality coal than we do, mostly because they need more of it, it is less expensive, and most importantly it WORKS.
I could have gone on and on about firing techniques, but each person has different techniques which are most easily learned through hands-on expirience. For more on "standard" techniques I recomend "Firing with Bituminous Coal" by George Baker.
Here is a free copy: http://rgusrail.com/manual/baker_fpi_2/index.html
A FEW THOUGHTS ON HUNGRY STEAM ENGINES!
Steam Locomotive Coal - as history used it, has evolved into "complex coal products" used in modern power generation such as "clean coal." It is currently an enviornmental "politically incorrect" fuel product under process of being banned by the Federal Government Enviornmental Protection Agency and its activists.
Once widely understood, COAL is a subject today needing some modern explanation. Many steam railroads historically used the cheapest coal products they could get away with because of the fuel costs. Northern Pacific used on line Lignite coals that were unburnable by most railroads, Union Pacific used similar "cost saving" on line products with sometimes questionable performance. It is felt this was the reason that the UP 4000 series "Big Boy" 4-8-8-4 locomotives did not generally effectively compete with C&O 1600 "Allegheney" 2-6-6-6 engines in their horsepower generated.
Several railroads developed unique firebox designs like the Wooton firebox (Reading Railroad 2100's) just to effectively use the coal they desired to burn.
The Lackawana Railroad advertized that it used just the expensive "good stuff" ANTHRACITE COAL. A Lackawana Railroad advertisement of the 1890 vintage used a young woman - Gibson Girl - in white formal dress who proclaimed on billboards across the region, "My gown stays white both day and nite, Upon the Road of Anthracite!"
On the whole it is felt that the Eastern US Railroads had access to better quality "on line" coal deposits in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Lower quality bulk coals were often found in the Western States. Just how true this is probably open to the areas in question.
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Ralph Johnson design engineer for Baldwin Locomotive Works, USA writes in 1944 in his book THE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE a basic explanation of coal for locomotive use,
Def. COAL - is a dark brown or black mineral substance. All coals are formed from vegetable growth fossilized by moisture, heat, pressure, and time, and can be individually distinguished by their chemical peculiarities. A broad classification includes WOOD FIBRE, which is the lowest of the group, followed in order by PEAT, LIGNITE COAL, BITUMINOUS COAL, SEMI-BITUMINOUS COAL, SEMI-ANTHRACITE COAL and GRAPHITE. Starting from the lowest in this group, each succeeding varitey of coal is distinguished by an increase in carbon and a decrease in oxygen. The hydrogen remains practically constant for the lower part of the group, but decreases rapidly in the higher part of the group.
The British, Royal Coal Commission study of the EAST KENT coal mining industry done in 1866-71 gives the empirical and convenient classification of coal -
ANTHRACITE - All coal with less than 7.5% volatile matter that is non combustible.
SEMI-ANTRACITE - All coal with 7.5%-12.5% volatile matter that is non combustible.
SEMI-BITUMINOUS - All coal with 12.5%-25% volatile matter that is non combustible.
BITUMINOUS - All coal with 25%-50% volatile matter that is non combustible.
LIGNITE - All coal with 50% volatile matter that is non combustible.
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In measuring the HEATING VALUE of COAL, the British Thermal Unit, the BTU is employed, which is "the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree F in temperature." The approximate heating values for the various coals are as follows - heat per pound of coal.
SEMI-ANTRACITE and HIGH GRADE BITUMINOUS .......14,000 BTU per lb.
ANTHRACITE and AVERAGE BITUMINOUS ..................13,500 BTU per lb.
LOW GRADE BITUMINOUS COAL ..............................12,500 BTU per lb.
SUB-BITUMINOUS COAL ..........................................11,000 BTU per lb.
LIGNITE COAL ........................................................ 8,700 BTU per lb.
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The HEAT ENERGIES given here show the BTU heating units available for evaporation of water if the coal is burned with 100% efficiency and ALL the heat produced is utilized!
In actual practice it is found that the steam locomotive boiler operates more inefficiently - at efficiencies varying from approxomately 80% for the very low rates of combustion to 40% efficiency for the very high rates of combustion.
The harder the locomotive is fired and worked the more power it makes as the efficiency DECREASES and more under utilized heat goes "up the stack."
Lets face it - the railroad steam locomotive is a highly mobile and highly powered "steam engine" that becomes less and less efficient and increasingly more powerful the harder it is worked.
For example a HIGH GRADE BITUMINOUS burned at 75% of boiler efficiency will heat 10.8 gallons of water from 212* F. per pound of coal.
The same boiler working hard at 40% efficiency of high load will heat only 5.8 gallons of water from 212* F. per pound of coal.
Similarly a poor LIGNITE COAL burned at 75% boiler efficiency will heat only 6.7 gallons of water from 212*F and the same boiler working hard at 40% efficiency of high load use will then heat only 3.6 gallons of water from 212* F. per pound of coal.
LIGNITE performs pretty poorly compared to the better coals. It is hard to believe the Northern Pacific Railroad developed the 2-8-8-4 locomotives in 1928 just to use this low cost product. The firebox was so large the railroad board of directors held a formal dinner inside the engine just to prove the point. The firebox had 182 square feet of grate area and was 22 feet long by 12 feet wide. The combustion chamber extended 6 feet into the boiler tube! These engines ran on Northern Pacific for many years. It would be mind boggling to think of the power that could be generated in this firebox on better grades of coal.
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Further for the Guiness Book of World Records, one pound of average BITUMINOUS COAL possesses as much heating value as fuel, as 2.5 pounds of average dry WOOD.
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WHEN COAL IS BURNED, first the moisture gets driven out of it, next the volatile matter in the coal is burned off and then the remaining fixed carbon ignites, leaving a residue of ASH.
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COAL ALSO VARIES in its BULK and WEIGHT.
ANTHRACITE COAL in "broken lump" size constitutes 28 cubic feet per ton and weighs 70 pounds per cubic foot. BITUMINOUS COAL in "broken lump" size constitutes 33 cubic feet per ton and weighs 60 pounds per cubic foot.
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COAL STORAGE PROBLEMS - Coal will "weather" and exposure to the elements causes it to change in heat value and weight. Open storage, indoor storage and under water storage all effect COAL. Weight and volume measurements of COAL can vary with exposure to the weather. Coal stored under water will retain 2% to 12% of its moisture content and its heat value is UNCHANGED. Exposure of COAL to the air by open storage or indoor storage REDUCES its heat value because the quantity of carbon and disposable hydrogen is increased and the quantity of oxygen and indisposable hydrogen is also increased. The most rapid loss in heat value occurs in the first 10 days. After this the rate of heat loss diminished although the heat loss continues indefinately. Heat loss of 1% to 3% after 1 year time. FINE grades of COAL suffer greater heat loss than do the larger sizes. Coal in transit will loose heat value because of oxidation of its new surfaces after mining.
SPONTANIOUS COMBUSTION of COAL - In storage this must be protected against. However, ANTHRACITE COAL will not spontaniously combust! The other SOFT COALS may ignite and burn unless stored under water. The spontanious combustion of COAL is due to the slow oxidation in an air supply sufficient to support the oxidations, but insufficient to carry away all the heat formed. The tendency of stored coal to turn to dust and its chemical nature are the major causes of fire. COAL dust and small sizes of COAL are dangerous!
"BEST VIRGINA TOBACCO" - 1620
"Sweet smoking pipe, Bright glowing stove, Companions still of my retreat, That dost my gloomy thoughts remove, and purge my brain with gentle heat."
"Tobacco, charmer of my mind, When like the meteor's transient gleam, Thy substance gone to air I find, I think, alas! my life's the same."
"What else but lighted dust am I? Thou show'st me what my fate will be: And when thy sinking ashes die, I learn that I must end like thee."
well, its a few thoughts on combustion anyway!
Doc
So, what does the coal cost ??? I am sure that all of the origins
are different. Also, most of it is probably trucked in.
Chuck
Dr D wrote the following post 5 days ago: [Copied in part]
"...A FEW THOUGHTS ON HUNGRY STEAM ENGINES!
To the last point mentioned by Dr. D. Western Coal was as mentioned nowhere near the quality of the Anthricite grades found on the Eastern railroads. Out here in Kansas there were coal deposits in the Eastern counties of the state . In the deeper mines, they utilized shaft mining techniques to get out the coal. In the more shallow mines, of gennerally 100ft or less;coal deposits were shallow and in pockets, both mined by tunneling and strip mining. In SE Kansas it was the Weir-Pittsburg Coal Beds that provided a poor quality product, in the Lignite range. The railroads that came into the area were the Santa Fe, SLSF(Frisco),KCS, and the MKT. They each ran lines into the Cherokee and Crawford, and Bourbon Counties to access the coal being mined there. The Santa Fe built locomotives at its Topeka Kansas shops and the Katy built steam engines in Parsons, Kansas, and at its shop near Waco,Tx ( Warden Shops). Engines were designed, and built in-house, to burn the lower grades of coal available.
US COAL RESERVES
When I was a student in Junior High School back in 1963 my Natural Science class did study the nature of the coal industry in the United States.
How profoundly the textbooks declared "The United States has enough Coal reserves that our nation is self sufficient and beholding to no other nation on earth for its energy reserves!
And, the WW2 and Baby Boom generations have blown that one into the weeds! America can't even think of its energy future without dependance upon foreign energy! And no one cares! The new oil fracking boom in the United States has been stalled - because the OPEC countries have discounted their oil and stalled this newly developing boom in US energy independence!
The days are here now when coal is a politically incorrect energy source on the EPA hit list - before the days of "clean coal" however, a good Anthracite was expensive and the best product - Lignite was unusable for most railroad usages and Bituminous was the common product in New York Central Railroad grades of "freight coal" and "passenger coal."
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TODAYS COAL FACTS -
90% of coal reserves in the USA are found in 10 states. Coal is mined in 27 states and found in many more. US Coal resources constitute 12 times more of the energy found in the earth than all the oil in Saudia Arabia!
Coal is the USA's most abundant resource! and why abandon this as an energy source - when it seems engineering it into a modern fuel is what American genius is called to!
US Geological Survey records we have 1.7 trillion tons of identified coal resources - measured in reliable location, rank, quality and quantity. More coal is also likely to be found and is estimated to increase the US coal reserve at 4 trillion tons.
Available coal reserves today are 472 billion tons recoverable. 267 billion tons easily recoverable for a whopping 30% of the worlds recoverable coal asset.
Montana production has been about 25%, Illinois about 16%, Wyoming 14%, West Virginia about 8%, Kentucky and Pennsylvania each about 6%. Ohio is good for 4%, Colorado about 4% also. Texas produces about 3%, Indiana about 2%. Michigan where I live has coal mines and reserves but production is very limited.
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Obama's aggressive policies of the US Federal Government have curtailed coal production in the last 4 years. 2010 was the all time high for production and export of coal. In 2015 four major coal companies have declared bankruptcy including Alpha Natural Resources and Arch Coal the second largest producer.
In 2013, 41% of US coal production was mined from US Federal Land in the Western United States. This is all overseen by the Bureau of Land Management under the US Department of Interior. Federal coal land is leased by competitive sealed bids, however, in 2016 the Obama administration announced a three-year moratorium on federal coal lease sales.
In 2004 an effort was made to muster positive public opinion for Coal Power use by many large coal mining companies, electric utilities, and railroads and a marketing campaign was launched to convince the American public that Coal Fired Power can be enviornmentally sustainable.
Enviornmentalists condemned this effort as "greenwashing" accusing these companies and stating "the inherently enviornmentally unsustainable nature of coal fired power generation."
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Nuclear Power often touted as the substitute source for energy production has been held back by the tremendous danger of enviornmental accidents.
It is estimated that the dangerously operated and designed Chernobyl Nuclear plant in the USSR killed between 15,000 and 30,000 people. More than 2.5 million Ukranian people are still struggling with health related problems as a result of nuclear power run amuck.
On march 18th 2012 another nuclear accident happened in Japan with disasterous environmental effects.
Nuclear Radioactive waste is the byproduct in these accidents not enviornmental air pollution - but the production of the nuclear fuel by mining, enrichment and waste managment does cause Air Pollution.
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Jeffery Patterson, DO, Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconson School of Medicine and Public Health stated in his April 26, 2011 article "Radiation Exposure and the Power of Zero."
"The real issue is that the use of nuclear power and nuclear weapons is forcing humankind, and indeed the whole ecosystem, to participate in particularly cruel and totally uncontrolled experiment. Given the scientific evidence that there is not safe dose of radiation, this is an experiment that has already gone awry...The real question is whether we, as a human race can afford in good conscience to risk annihilation with our continured reliance on nuclear technology. Can we continue to despoil our environment with long-lived radioactive materials that are scattered to the wind and embedded in our precious soil, randomly exposing large populations, and foisting health impacts on unsuspecting future generations who have no choice in this matter?"
Renewable energy sources touted as the answer to air quality also have problems - wind turbines installed for power generation have blade tips moving at over 200 mph - the damage to bird populations is extrordinary - on the order of 368,000 per year. Giving rise to Federal crackdown on this new energy source. Last year over 2,500 new wind turbines were installed to increase the problem. Power companies were fined over $2.5 million by U.S. District Courts for the deaths. Fish and Wildlife director Daniel Ashe says existing wind farms can alter the times in which the turbines are running such as during migration season or using them only in high wind conditions.
Similar problems are reported by solar farms by changing the way in which sunlight is reflected away from the earth and then not absorbed to warm the earth. Sandquist reports that "It's certainly going to damage some of the ecology,"
I tried checking on purchase of a good old wood burning fireplace and found on the internet that in the state of Washington they are outlawing the little stove in the family room! Yes in Washington they have "The Wood Smoke Police" whose job it is to go around checking everyone's chimney for of all things! WOOD SMOKE!
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guess among other things I don't feel so bad about COAL anymore, in fact I love the little black diamonds that go into the locomotive firebox!
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