Steam & Excursion > Miles per Ton of Coal

OK, let's just use a USRA light Pacific for the sake of discussion. I don't know what the coal capacity on the tender would be but I'll guess about 16 tons?

So on a passenger train of, say six heavyweight cars at speed on a Midwest line, (relatively flat with moderate grades if any), how far could the loco go before recoaling? 100 miles? One division point? Of course, it would have to take on water much more often and could do that at station stops.

So, again, how far could it go between stops at a coaling machine or having to change engines?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/10 21:30 by wabash2800.

What's the name of the engineer??

Well, a fast hogger could use more coal but there were limits as coal was conserved and being wastful could get you in trouble.

The Milwaukee Road 100-Class 4-6-4 engines carried 25 tons of coal. Between Chicago and St. Paul they always re-coaled at New Lisbon, Wisconsin, 221 miles from Chicago. On this run, in 1940, these engines routinely traveled between 90 and 110 m.p.h. pulling the "Hiawatha" passenger trains.

If it was the Union Pacific in Western Washington, it would take two loads of coal from Seattle to Portland, due to the low grade coal they used out here.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the U.P. never used coal in the Seattle- Portland area, to my knowledge, they always burned oil. I don't believe I remember seeing a coaling facility at Albina, I don't know about Seattle. Anybody know for sure???

patd3985 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the U.P. never used
> coal in the Seattle- Portland area, to my
> knowledge, they always burned oil. I don't believe
> I remember seeing a coaling facility at Albina, I
> don't know about Seattle. Anybody know for sure???


No, I'm not aware of UP using coal west of Ogden. Maybe NP?

Or the G.N.???

I just finished reading "Set Up Running." It follows and Pennsy engineman through a 45 year career. I think the question asked, "Name the engineer." is right on. Not only the engineer, but the fireman as well. If they know how to work the engine to its best advantage, the set up, and the fire is properly banked and stoker usage limited to when needed, the distance between coal stops would be far longer than for other crew combinations. If you like steam and haven't read this book, I highly recommend it.

I concur that a lot depends on the crew operating the locomotive. I have fired for different engineers who can sometime use 25% more coal and water than other engineers who are much lighter with their throttle and valve settings. I cannot speak to how much a light USRA pacific uses but I can tell you that on average the MILW 261 used about 100 gallons of water and 100 pounds of coal per mile running at 60 mph which translates to about 20 miles to a ton of coal while actually on the road. I know that Rich Melvin will usually calculate the total amount of coal used for a trip which would include fire up hostling, and layover coal use and IIRC he generally would come up with a figure of about 11 miles to a ton for a 765 trip.(Rich, please correct me if my memory is faulty) But on the road and all things being equal, the coal use I believe would be about the same for the 261 and the 765. I don't think that a light pacific would use all that much less coal pulling the same train as it would be doing the same amount of work at speed, and probably with a lower operating boiler pressure. For informational purposes I generally tell our guests on our cab tours that we get 15-20 miles to a ton of coal on average and also share the above numbers to illustrate how much water is being boiled away to operate the locomotive each mile.

I'll agree that some folks might not be the greatest engineers on tourist railroads, etc. (though they might think they are) but I'm told in the days of steam, class one railroads did make an effort to conserve coal (at least by the 30s). There were committees, training sessions, goals etc. I'm not sure about all roads, but from what I understand most roads didn't take too kindly to a hogger that just wasn't very good at the craft.

Now the quality of coal used was another story. On the Wabash they mixed a high ratio of "screen coal" in with lump coal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/10 11:05 by wabash2800.

patd3985 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but the U.P. never used
> coal in the Seattle- Portland area, to my
> knowledge, they always burned oil. I don't believe
> I remember seeing a coaling facility at Albina, I
> don't know about Seattle. Anybody know for sure???

Before the WWII. They had a mine in Centralia, they used the infamously bad "Tono" Coal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/10 13:21 by 6ET.

Over all the miles that we have run the 765, she has averaged 9.9 miles per ton. Let's round that off to 10 miles per ton to make the math easy.

Good West Virginia coal delivered to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, etc. is $190 per ton today. Divide that by 10 miles per ton and you get $19 per mile just for the coal to run the 765.

Steve Lee was right...they DO burn money.

Rich_Melvin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Over all the miles that we have run the 765, she
> has averaged 9.9 miles per ton. Let's round that
> off to 10 miles per ton to make the math easy.
>
> Good West Virginia coal delivered to Ohio,
> Indiana, Michigan, etc. is $190 per ton today.
> Divide that by 10 miles per ton and you get $19
> per mile just for the coal to run the 765.
>
> Steve Lee was right...they DO burn money.

All railfans should see this number so that they can see how expensive it is just to coal these things--very costly these days.

IC_2024 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rich_Melvin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Over all the miles that we have run the 765,
> she
> > has averaged 9.9 miles per ton. Let's round
> that
> > off to 10 miles per ton to make the math easy.
> >
> > Good West Virginia coal delivered to Ohio,
> > Indiana, Michigan, etc. is $190 per ton today.
> > Divide that by 10 miles per ton and you get $19
> > per mile just for the coal to run the 765.
> >
> > Steve Lee was right...they DO burn money.
>
> All railfans should see this number so that they
> can see how expensive it is just to coal these
> things--very costly these days.

And, the engineers and fireman need to know that every shovelful of coal costs almost $1.50.

Every minute the pop valve is open wastes one shovelful of coal.

Black smoke wastes approximately 50% of the energy of the coal.

Not running fully hooked up can waste 1/4 to 1/3 of the energy available.

-Larry Doyle

I notice discussion has been on coal. But fuel oil is also used in abundance. For Example T&P's 2-10-4's would burn from 9 to 16 gallons of oil per mile depending on the load and grade with a experienced crew.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/10 20:37 by tomstp.

Well, say the tender wasn't quite full but should have been and the train is late so, say you have to make up time and I don't know, uh. . . say you have to pick up an extra coach. So with all of that, say you need water too but not right away, that will happen later at, say town #4. I can't remember the engineers name or was that even given. Well, now we've meddled around and wasted a ton of coal and haven't got out of the yard yet. So, say the TM has us back up and completely fill the tender to say, a foot above the boards. Does that ton wasted come into the calculation here. AAAaarrrrggghhh! I forgot to carry the 1 and devide by 2000 lbs. We'll have to start over, does that count on how much coal I've used?? :)

I think I'm close to the answers though. . . . .

Rich_Melvin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Over all the miles that we have run the 765, she
> has averaged 9.9 miles per ton. Let's round that
> off to 10 miles per ton to make the math easy.
>
> Good West Virginia coal delivered to Ohio,
> Indiana, Michigan, etc. is $190 per ton today.
> Divide that by 10 miles per ton and you get $19
> per mile just for the coal to run the 765.
>
> Steve Lee was right...they DO burn money.

OK, let's say there is a 200-mile round trip with a fare of $100 per rider. The cost of the coal $19/mile x 200 miles = $3,800. The first 38 tickets sold pay for the cost of the coal. That amounts to less than one passenger car. Therefore, ther costs ccount for much more of the cost to run an excursion than the cost of the coal used by the locomotive.

Well, you know if an operation thinks that coal is not a big expense of the total and doesn't care if it is wasted, that is fool hardy. Anything you can save is a good idea--within reason. Most of the not for profits are not flush with cash.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/10 20:13 by wabash2800.

I never meant to imply that anyone excursion operator would believe that coal can be wasted. The point of my post was note that while coal is expensive, there are other factors which are more important in determining the overall cost of an excursion.