----- Original Message -----
From: Charles R Yungkurth
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 12:52 PM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: Coal car loading on "home" roads...







What seems to be overlooked in this discussion of coal movements by rail is that during the steam years over 25% of all coal mined was used for locomotive fuel (I have the figure around here somewhere). Another large percentage waas used for generating electrical power. Quite a few railroads, notably in New England, had no on line mines so all their loco fuel had to be from off line sources.

Another fact is hardly any anthracite coal was burned by the "Anthracite Raods" after about 1920. hence all the bituminous had to be braght in from connecting lines. And while it is true that a few raods sent their own cars off line to be laoded with loco coal, this was not common.

Moody's Steam Railraod Investment Manuals have a lot of interesting statistics on car loading perfromed on line and car loads received, listed by category. For instance, in the 1949 edition which I have on hand it shows the following car loads data:

Bitum Coal Rec'd Bit Coal Orginated Anth Coal Rec'd Anth Coal Orgin

D&H 61,186 0 26,196 76,255

DL&W 54,314 0 19,473 72,828

NH 36,324 0 20,734 0

B&0 220,532 532,424

CV 163,735 (tons) 0 96,332 (tons) 0

It is a pretty safe assumption that the anthracite loads were used for home heating plus some small industries. While these figures don't give the kind of detail we would like, such as how much was used for loco fuel, etc. they certainly indicate a large amount of interchange of coal loads plus movement of non-home road cars of coal.

Might also ponder where all the west bound N&W coal went...surely it was not all used in Columbus and Cleveland...it's western terminus points.

This is a huge subject......subject to many model railroader myths plus "surely it must have been" and 'logic says that" thinking. Tony Koester and I have long thaought that a good book on the bituminous coal industry is needed but the subject is so alrge and complex that it is almsot impossible to address it!

Chuck Yungkurth
Boulder CO



________________________________
From: Dave Nelson <Lake_Muskoka@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 9:56:39 AM
Subject: RE: [STMFC] Re: Coal car loading on "home" roads...

water.kresse@ comcast.net wrote:
> If you believe their coal marketing literature, the C&O coal going up
> to Philly, NYC, Boston, and further into New England typically went
> by boat and/or barge intercoastal- wise. Washington/Baltimor e could
> see C&O coal cars.
>
>
>
> Al Kresse

Walter brings up an important point here -- the water movement of rail
originated coal shipments. What makes it important is not that it occurred
but that the ICC required the railroads to record such transfers as-if the
water movement occurred by railroad. So should you come across commodity
data in an annual report and/or ICC publication you need to know that
tons/carloads of coal delivered to another carrier (marked outbound) and
tons/carloads of coal received from another carrier (marked inbound)... that
said interchange could be using a barge, not a hopper. The same is true
for Iron Ore and possibly for all other commodities shipped this way (e.g.,
lumber from British Columbia to Los Angeles). This rule applied to all
coasts and the Great Lakes as well.

Water movement was cheap as well. IIRC there was a post on the old FCL that
spoke of delivering coal to a Lake Erie facility so it could be moved by
water a whole100 miles and then loaded again in hoppers.

All of this tends to muddy the waters when trying to understand traffic
flows... How much of that coal carried by the B&M was received at a wharf
vs. a rail connection? Very hard to say when all you have is the ICC data.

Dave Nelson








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