UK Coal

A job for P2 mikado 2007 perhaps ? I understand prototype P1 2393/4 were designed to haul 100-coal wagons

 

What will happen to the price of coal as many of the power stations move away from using it?

 

The laws of supply and demand will rule. At present there is a glut of coal. The markets will adjust themselves accordingly. However, power station coal isn't much use in a conventional steam loco and you can't re-grade it into nice handy cobbles so it is unlikely to have much affect on our little world..

 

I was just wondering about the economics of the producers; I imagine the power stations are a big consumer and would be a blow to the mining companies, even if they are not using quite the same size lumps!

 

You could try making briquetts - I remember seeing what looked like minature sacks in a WC tender once. Mind the fireman called them something else, invective deleted.

Re water affecting the quality of coal it gets a good soaking before leaving pit for dust supretion. Sprayed at coalface, every conveyor change and finally dumped in a liquid in which coal just floats.

 

my point was that using inferior imported coal in the absence of superior UK coal will mean considerable difficulties for certain types of locos and also mainline running. ok , im aware there was a bulk buy of suitable polish steam coal a few years ago but dont know if this source is still available and in any event wasnt suitable for lots of locos.
cheers,
julian

 

The UK has no more a monopoly over "superior" coal than jonny foreigner does over only selling "inferior" fuel.

I think you'll find that the UK has plenty of poor quality of coal (of course such quality terms rely very much on what qualities you're looking for in a fuel), and in the same way there are plenty of 'superior' coals available from overseas. In this country the demand for coal and the industry to support it has shrunk considerably, as a consequence some of the smaller seams and lower quality fuels will be uneconomic for the opencasts and larger pits. Poland, Russia, Columbia etc. are all bloomin' big countries, and they'll all have more than one mine. The problem is that by the time the ship has reached this country the average purchaser has little idea exactly what mine or seam the fuel comes from - so it would be wrong to cast aside all fuel from country 'X' as useless on the basis of one sample.

Turn the clock back a few years and it would be equally unfair for someone overseas to refer to UK coal as just one product. The difference between soft Welsh coals, harder coals from the Midlands, Scottish coal, anthracite, and the really rubbish fuels which are perhaps pushing it a bit to even call coal - they could all be mined from "the UK", but their characteristics are all very different. I've heard it said that Daw Mill coal can be very variable quality depending which seam was being worked. I'm aware a delivery of apparently Daw Mill was absolutely fine at a local steam pumping station - where the demand on it is fairly low, yet someone who used the same stuff on an Aveling GND, which is much more demanding, was cursing the terrible stuff that wouldn't steam and turned to sheets of clinker almost instantly - it was the same 'superior' UK coal taken from the same pile.

 

The P1 was an entirely different beast to the P2 though.

 

I'm afraid that you are showing a significant lack of knowledge with regard to coal. The quality of coal varied significantly from seam to seam and even within the same seam. It is always amusing to hear someone say that (say) Russian coal is good or bad. To tar it all with the same brush is ridiculous when you realise how vast the country is; you would need to tie it down to a particular mine and a particular seam to make even a subjective opinion.
Coal quality varied hugely in the UK and the railways knew which mines and which seams they needed to buy for suitable coal. This was fairly easy in the days of hand filling where the seam origin could be easily identified and segregated but, once mechanisation came into the industry, together with coal preparation plants, segregating the different seams became a much harder task. One reason why the quality of Daw Mill varied so widely was that, in its latter days, it only mined the Warwickshire thick seam, which as actually an amalgam of seven different seams that came together with thickess varying up to 20 feet and over. Some of these seams were good, some bad but segregating them is well nigh impossible unless you only mine the good part and leave the rest behind, which doesn't make economic sense.

 

At Foxfield the Dilhorne seam yielded good steam coal and was the only one bought by the LMS from there.

Jon

 

i am perfectly aware that much UK coal isnt/wasnt suitable for steam loco use and depends/depended on which seam.
i am also aware that some foreign coal is suitable and the same reasoning applies and difficulties in ensuring the correct supply.
however, generally most foreign coal is not suitable, and the drop in the USA coal price and importation of USA coal into the UK for power stations etc is a serious concern, and whilst the power stations can cope with it a steam locomotive of UK type will not, and the flooding of the market by cheap foreign coal has led to the recent decisions of UK Coal Ltd.
cheers,
julian

 

Isn't the cheap availability of US coal over here as much to do with very cheap shale gas in the US, which has forced their coal producers to look for alternative markets?

Tom

 

hi Tom,
i believe you are absolutely correct.
cheers,
julian

 

This may be of interest

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37011378

 

The usual media inability to report planning matters accurately. Planning permission has not been granted. That becomes clear as one reads down the article but that is some way after the statement that it has.

 

Whats the stuff the Free Miners in the Forest of Dean produce like?

 

not steam coal so of no use on heritage railways except to heat waiting rooms & signal boxes

 

I am afraid it is the usual media inability to report anything accurately!

Paul H