Eastern Railroad Discussion > King coal

While this post may not be related to RR rolling stock, it does promote coal which was burned in steam locomotives, so here goes ----- I fired up my coal burning stoker stove last night as the temperature dropped into the low 20's here in Laurel Run last night, Saves on the oil costs, cozy warm in here now.

Ed K. cp Laurel Run

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You must be one of the very last residential coal users. It's hard even to find coal of the proper size anymore.

My house, which dates to 1922, originally had convection hot air heat. The coal bunker is still in the basement. It was replenished through a basement window converted to a coal hatch. It appears they just opened the hatch and shoveled the coal into the bunker.

House was converted to gas forced air heat many years ago. The existing ductwork was used, and with the addition of a cool air return through the space where the back stairs used to be, the house received central air conditioning in 1987.

Coal is only a memory for us, except for the big green metal coal bunker in one corner of the basement.

shoretower Wrote:
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> You must be one of the very last residential coal
> users. It's hard even to find coal of the proper
> size anymore.
>
> My house, which dates to 1922, originally had
> convection hot air heat. The coal bunker is still
> in the basement. It was replenished through a
> basement window converted to a coal hatch. It
> appears they just opened the hatch and shoveled
> the coal into the bunker.
>
> House was converted to gas forced air heat many
> years ago. The existing ductwork was used, and
> with the addition of a cool air return through the
> space where the back stairs used to be, the house
> received central air conditioning in 1987.
>
> Coal is only a memory for us, except for the big
> green metal coal bunker in one corner of the
> basement.


Many homes in the coal mining areas of the Appalachians still burn coal. Maybe not always as the primary heating method. But surely as an auxilliary method.

Nice little collection of trinkets you have there, Ed! Although........something tells me that we are only seeing a snippet of what the rest of your house looks like! LOL

Jon

resqjon Wrote:
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> Nice little collection of trinkets you have there,
> Ed! Although........something tells me that we
> are only seeing a snippet of what the rest of your
> house looks like! LOL
>
> Jon


Since I have no wife anymore to put doily's and flowers and such around, I can do it my way!!My son Ron with Keystone.
Ed K. Lol

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Don't knock heating with coal!

You'll find the King of Coal...Antracite...burning in residences all over Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and ALL of New England! I just haven't fired up my stoker just yet, but real soon, here in Western Massachusetts. Beats oil, propane, and electric heat costs hands down! And with a stoker, it's "set it, and forget it". When I'm up and running, I dump the ash pan and pour in more rice coal once a day!

(Many homes in the coal mining areas of the Appalachians still burn coal. Maybe not always as the primary heating method. But surely as an auxilliary method.)

From someone who lives in Appalachians. I would say a few not many homes burn coal

Larry

Awesome......

Some Home Depot locations in western NJ will order bagged coal on request. I've seen them stacked on pallets.

Home Depot has several coal and dual fuel stoves on its website, I suspect they were pretty popular during the recent power failures.

Out here in NE PA we are sitting on a lot of coal.
Ed K.

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BRAtkinson Wrote:
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> Don't knock heating with coal!
>
> You'll find the King of Coal...Antracite...burning
> in residences all over Pennsylvania, New York, New
> Jersey, and ALL of New England! I just haven't
> fired up my stoker just yet, but real soon, here
> in Western Massachusetts. Beats oil, propane, and
> electric heat costs hands down! And with a
> stoker, it's "set it, and forget it". When I'm up
> and running, I dump the ash pan and pour in more
> rice coal once a day!


That's what I was gonna say, I know a lot of people here in the anthracite coal region that not only heat with coal, but have upgraded their homes to heat with rice coal beacause it is the cheapest way to heat. it does help when the source is right out your back door.

Perhaps you could re-fashion that coal box into the shape of a K-4 tender...!! :)

My Dad got a stoker when I was about 3 or 4 years old. When I reached my teens I got the job of tending the stoker and removing the clinkers from the furnace along with my dad. We had a coal bin about 10 feet from the stoker. We also had a window where the coal company would put a conveyor and shoot the coal into the bin. We got a load of coal one Saturday just before we were going downtown. My younger brother decided to help the coal man do his job. Mom was ready to go catch the bus but had to give my brother a bath and new clean clothes. I'll say one thing about that furnace. It sure put out some real heat. When the stoker broke down several years later we replaced it with a gas furnace. Just wasn't the same.

I've heard stories about farmers along a railroad giving crews a load of vegetables from time to time and the fireman would "accidentally" drop a few lumps of coal next to the farm as they went by throughout the year.

You got a nice stoker there and a real collections of choo choo history.

John

When I worked for Triple Crown Services out of Rutherford, PA, we would ship Roadrailers full of 50lb bags of coal to several points, including: Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis. It just seemed strange to ship coal in a 53' semi trailer!

-Richard
HG-Tower

HG-Tower Wrote:
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> When I worked for Triple Crown Services out of
> Rutherford, PA, we would ship Roadrailers full of
> 50lb bags of coal to several points, including:
> Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis. It
> just seemed strange to ship coal in a 53' semi
> trailer!
>
> -Richard
> HG-Tower

I have a slide somewhere in the collection that has a Southern Big John (100 Ton Grain Car) that has a stencil that says "For Coal Loading Only" on it. I took the image 10-15 years ago on the former Interstate RR in far SW Va.

NSTopHat

I have a wood burning stove. Though I don't use it much, I have heated the whole house with it. The kind of heat you get from a wood or coal burning stove is not the same as that from a modern furnace. It feels good.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/12 13:43 by wabash2800.

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> I have a wood burning. Though I don;t use it much,
> I have heated the whole house with. The kind of
> heat you get from a wood or coal burning stove is
> not the same as that from a modern furnace. It
> feels good.

That's why I use coal rather than natural gas for most of the winter, even though it's about $100 more for the season. When I got the stove 4 years ago, coal was about $300 cheaper than natural gas. Fracking in the US to get gas and oil has significantly lowered the price for both.

The constant temperature produced by coal (or pellets, or wood stove) has a 'more comforatble' feel to it. None of this 3-4 degree variation in temperature every hour or so, based on what the anticipator in the thermostat says.

Any idea the cost of a ton of coal for use these days? We may need it after the "next 4 " begins. With the cost of electric we'll be back on coal oil for lights.

Here in IA a bag of rice coal is approx $10/50lbs