Steam & Excursion > Coal For Chama

Early morning coal delivery to the C&T.

Ed

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That's a great shot!  Any idea where it comes from?
SR

Cool!

Couple of questions:

- Is receiving coal deilvery by rail (via Antonito) even a consideration? I would imagine it would be much more expensive to transload it at Antonito and haul it over Cumbres Pass, but one can dream!!

- Will the coaling tower at Chama ever be used again?

Love the C&TS!!  Took my first (of hopefully many) ride back in July and loved every second of it!

Rob Benkovitz
New York, NY



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/15 10:22 by rbenko.

The coal tipple at Chama has been rebuilt by the Friends and will be used for demonstrations but not to fill the tenders.

Sharon Evans
Glen Allen, VA

The coal comes from King Coal over near Hesperus, CO, southwest of Durango.
It is great stuff.
We once looked into getting coal by the carload in Antonito.  First off getting ONE car of coal was a reall hassle. Secondly, the coal would have to be handled several times to get it to Chama, running the price up above what we wee paying for Hesperus coal.  Lastly, none of the mines that would deal with us had as good a coal as what came from Hesperus.
 

Thanks for the answers - interesting!

About the coal tipple (thanks for the correct terminology!!) - WHY will it be used only for demonstration purposes?  Is it not efficient to load a tender using it?

When I was there in July, watching the ritual of getting the engine ready for the day was just like being transported back to the early-to-mid 1950s - hogger oiling around, pulling out over the ash pit to dump the ashes and rake the fire, then onto the water tank to fill up the tender and wash the deck - all accomplished with whistle signals.  However, the last step was the one that brought it back to modern day - pulling up to the coal pile, where the hogger would get out, fire up the front loader, and load the tender with it.  How awesome would it be to see the coal tipple used on a daily basis - it would make the time warp complete.

Please understand this is not a criticism - I'm sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation why using the coal tipple on a daily basis is not feasible.  It's just from a "purist" perspective it would make the whole preparation ritual that much more authentic.

Thanks again to all for responding.

 

Rob, I think the simple answer is that the tipple is 90 years old and irreplaceable. While it is (or soon will be) fully functional, the everyday wear-and-tear is just too much to ask of a structure that old.

Jason Rose
Spring, TX
Rio Grande Explorations

I think you also would have to put the coal in side dump gons since I don't think there is enough room for the big truck to  get back to where it would need to be to unload into the bucket for the tipple.

tomstp Wrote:
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> I think you also would have to put the coal in
> side dump gons since I don't think there is enough
> room for the big truck to  get back to where it
> would need to be to unload into the bucket for the
> tipple.

BINGO... There's no need (or want) to have to load coal twice.  The coal would have to be unloaded off the truck since there's no way to get the truck to the coal bin across the main line and various yard tracks.  The method would involve unloading the coal truck, using a loader to fill a gondola, then, shoving it over the pit, unloading, then raising it up into the coal bin above.. All when it's just easier to pull the locomotive next to the pile of coal.

Jason-Rose Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rob, I think the simple answer is that the tipple
> is 90 years old and irreplaceable. While it is (or
> soon will be) fully functional, the everyday
> wear-and-tear is just too much to ask of a
> structure that old.

Makes perfect sense - thanks!  Would definitely like to see it in action someday - hopefully I can catch one of the future 'demonstrations'.

    I would certainly assume one reason the coal tipple willnot be used all the time is the cost of maintaining the bucket system inside to take coal up and dump it over into the storage bin. After all, it doesn't jump up there by itself.
 

It would be interesting to know what sort of price per ton the coal costs. It's like gold dust here in the UK.

My good friends allowed me to help fire last week Friday (487) and the coal from Hesperus is very good coal. It was a priviledge to be able to get a little cab time. Somewhat smaller than the cab I used to work in and the coal on 3985 was stokered when I fired it in coal but the same theories applied.
Thanks again Ed and Jeff for the opportunity. You brought a great deal of joy in this ole engineer's heart.
 

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/15 17:25 by Bob3985.

How about some pics of Bob3985 hand-firing one of those little engines?

Earlk Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The coal comes from King Coal over near Hesperus,
> CO, southwest of Durango.
> It is great stuff.
> We once looked into getting coal by the carload in
> Antonito.  First off getting ONE car of coal was
> a reall hassle. Secondly, the coal would have to
> be handled several times to get it to Chama,
> running the price up above what we wee paying for
> Hesperus coal.  Lastly, none of the mines that
> would deal with us had as good a coal as what came
> from Hesperus.
>  
Curious as to what the properties of this coal are that make it so desireable.

And curious as to where the Durango and Silverton gets their coal.

Ed

Auburn_Ed Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And curious as to where the Durango and Silverton
> gets their coal.
>
> Ed

Same place I believe.  Ditto for the Nevada Northern.

In agree with typebangin in that I think all 3 get Hesperus coal.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/15 19:46 by Bob3985.

Hesperus coal, like a lot of coal found in western Colorado, is low-sulfur, low ash, low moisture, high BTU per ton sub-bituminous coal.  That makes it a textbook definition of "good coal."  Also, the ex-D&RGW narrow-gauge locomotives owned by the C&TS and D&S were designed to burn coal of very similar, if not identical, specifications.  From what I'm told by old-timers, the coal from Monero (west of Chama) was pretty similar, but tended to have somewhat higher sulfur content.  The Monero mines closed about the same time that D&RGW freight operations ended.  Historically, about the highest quality coal found in Colorado was the anthracite mined at Crested Butte and Redstone, with the mines in the North Fork Valley (Paonia, Bowie, and Somerset areas) being second.  Hesperus coal would likely fall just behind that.  A lot of the coal mined in NW Colorado was somewhat lower quality (usually higher moisture, higher ash, and lower BTU per ton), but was often cheaper to mine.  Today, all Colorado coal has trouble competing with Powder River Basin coal (Wyoming).  PRB coal is low sulfur, high ash, high moisture, relatively low BTU per ton coal, but it is dirt cheap to mine (strip mining) compared to Colorado coal--cheap enough that its higher tranport costs per BTU of energy content is offset by its cheap price to extract.  The C&TS and D&S locomotives would likely not run well on PRB coal--they would lack the grate area to hold the amount of  lower BTU per ton coal required to adequately heat the boiler.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/15 20:02 by WW.