Coal

WSR's General Manager is quoted in the local newspaper West Somerset Free Press. The article has a few facts and figures which may be of interest:
http://www.west-somerset-today.co.u...ritage railway gauges threat of coal shortage

Steve

 

ive followed this thread with some interest living in the south wales valleys and having taken a keen interest in 'coal' over many years - for my own use in my stove and my miniature locos, and from a political economic and social history perspective etc.

to correct a few previous posts last month, bargoed and blaenavon didnt mine steam coal seams, and so far as i know the TR never had supplies of bargoed housecoal! TR preference was for 'lady windsor' cobbles before 1990 (and excellent stuff it was too, from ynysybwl).

one has to consider coal seams in some detail and how they are then dealt with... for example the ffros-y-fran stuff is not washed and what they excavate on the hillside above merthyr tydfil (clearly seen by anyone driving up the A470) is what they find. their main customer is east aberthaw power station which isnt picky like loco boilers.

a batch of coal that isnt properly graded or washed will inevitable contain a fair amount of crap and second rate stuff.

Tower Colliery, the last deep mine in south wales, actually had a number of steam coal seams which werent mined. i had a long chat with them a few years ago. the cost of extracting the stuff - upgrading the workings to these seams etc made it not viable so far as they were concerned.

whilst there are considerable quantities of steam coal in south wales, it has always been expensive to mine (other than modern opencast methods which are restricted to very few areas). this is due to the depth of the seams, their narrowness, and considerable geological faults.

i used 'coventry hard' for awhile and found it excellent stuff, and the Bluebell considered their terriers ran as well on it if not better than welsh steam coal.

i am afraid that this concern over suitable coal supplies wont be easily resolved other than the heritage railways clubbing together again to buy a ship load of suitable polish coal - which can be mined cheaply and supply guaranteed. personally i can see the supply problem creating all sorts of problems not least for mainline running.

cheers,
julian

 

Two things stand out here. The first is that NONE of the railways involved in this issue have even mentioned their Trade Association, HRA. Equally, HRA has not really had much to say, either. In the current issue of "Heritage Railway", HRA is taken to task by a number of people, who have stated HRA isn't interested in the problem. The question has to be "Why are they not interested?"

 

An interesting point. Perhaps only reinforces the perception that the HRA is just a talking-shop and has very little influence over how the industry is run?

 

Maybe they are apparent not interested because they recognise they are relatively powerless to tackle that problem. What's the total UK market for coal for heritage railways? Maybe 50,000 tons, say no more than £10m. In a very capital-intensive industry, especially for deep mined coal, that will never be more than a small bonus for the mines concerned, not a major market. It's impossible to believe that the HRA could have much influence, even if they could get every heritage line in the country to agree on a common supplier, which is a big ask in itself.

If I were the HRA, I'd be much more worried about the other long term strategic problem that is strangling steam railways, which is that overhauls are getting progressively more complex and expensive, while the people able to to them are getting older and scarcer. Hence the year on year steady drip drip of ever decreasing numbers of engines being available to do ever increasing mileages on heritage railways. That is the long term strategic threat, not rising coal costs, but it is also a problem that an be addressed by relatively modest revenue spending (not capital) for example by designing and sponsoring apprenticeships. That should be what the HRA is focused on.

Tom

 

Going away from apprenticeships, does coal go 'stale' after a while? If so it would need to come in at regular intervals from a fresh distribution source, and just hiring a ship every six months will not necessarily work. Thoughts?

 

I generally agree that the HRA can't do much about coal but I don't really believe that it can do much about funding apprenticeships either. Where would the money come from to fund such a scheme? If it were to come from its member organisations, why should railway X give the HRA money to fund an apprentice at railway Y when it could be spending it on its own apprentice.

 

I wasn't thinking so much about funding the apprentices themselves, more about coming up with a common apprenticeship framework (essentially a syllabus) which is a pre-requisite of unlocking government funding, and would make the industry more attractive to school leavers as essentially giving them confidence about acquiring transferable skills. But if the HRA can't do anything about training, then they definitely can't do anything about coal!

Tom

 

Apprenticeship schemes are already underway at LNWR Crewe and the Mid Hants Railway. The Severn Valley are about to set up an apprentice scheme.
Don't know about other places.
Is government money still available for setting up such schemes?
Sorry, Osborne ain't got no money!!

 

Yes. It's almost the only game in town for funding of 19-23 year olds who don't want to go to University.

The Bluebell have apprentices in the loco works and C&W, and are looking to develop a scheme for infrastructure as well.

Tom

 

Just a quick "coal" update: Talking to the fireman on 34053 at Kidderminster today as he baled vast quantities into 34053's firebox, the SVR are still using Russian coal. Fireman said it appeared to be ok. Didn't see too much smoke being produced by any of the engines in service today on the SVR. Cannot comment on the "clinker" issue though, because I didn't ask. Did not appear to be any out of course fire cleaning though. The Russian coal is I suppose "medium" size.
34053 appears to burn the stuff satisfactorily. As we ran down the platform at Bewdley it had burned through, the safety valves lifted, 250 lbs is impressive, and everyone on the platform covered their ears, and a hell of a blast as we went under the footbridge!

46118

 

As an ex HRA Director, I'm sure that you know full well that the HRA can't do anything whatsoever about the coal situation, which has more or less resolved itself, in any case. There's now plenty of coal available. The only bad thing is that the supply chain is now even more foreign than it was before.

 

Ah I see. Yes a good idea.

 

I fired with some of the Russian stuff recently; not a patch on the Welsh.

 

Housecoal and steam coal are being used here as if they were different things, which to some extent, they aren't. In the UK, bituminous coals are classified as caking or non-caking coals. Caking refers to its ability to swell and agglomerate. Some caking coals can be used to make coke and these coals are known as coking coals. All other bituminous coals, whether caking or non-caking, are known as steam coals, whether they are used in power stations, boilers, houses or industrial processes. It has nothing to do with their suitability for use in a steam locomotive boiler. The term Housecoal is generally used to refer to coals that are suitable for use in open fires, as distinct from coal suitable for power station use or for coke making. Such coals may, or may not, be suitable for use in a locomotive firebox.

As for the Tal-y-llyn using Bargoed coal, I can't prove or disprove this but it certainly runs in my mind that coal from there and Oakdale was being used in the late 60's/early 70's when I was actively involved. This involvement had ceased by 1978 so I cannot comment on a later preference for Lady Windsor.

The idea of heritage railways clubbing together to buy a ship load of coal is a non starter, a pipe-dream almost on a par with the notion of owning a coal mine. It would require a huge sum of money up front, a suitable storage and distribution location and a full-time management team to organise it.

 

It's also very risky. If a shipment bought by a consortium of heritage railways turns out to be of poor quality, we would be stuck with thousands of tons of it. It needs to be imported by someone who can afford to take the gamble on quality and dispose of it for other uses if it's unsuitable. There is also the issue of storage and transport. The latest crisis was temporary and caused by an underground fire at Daw Mill and production problems in Scotland. The Scottish coal from Fergussons is now available again as well as plenty of Russian. hopefully we will be ok for a while again now, even if it does mean we have to depend more of foreign coal. I spent today driving 6619 on the KESR burning Russian. It certainly steams ok and was pretty clean at the end of the day.

 

I won't go into the funding rules for Apprenticeships - but yes there is funding available. The Government via the Skills Funding Agency will fully fund an Apprenticeship for a 16 - 18 year old and co-fund an Apprenticeship for someone aged 19+. It gets complicated when you get to 24 years old and wish to follow a Level 3 Apprenticeship. In addition the Government and a number of Local Authorities are also offering grants if an employer employs an apprentice for the first time. Apprentices have to be employed with a contract of employment

 

An Apprenticeship is made of different units - some mandatory and some optional, so the employer with the training provider should be able to develop a course to meet there needs, provided that it is a recognised award then there should be no problem with accessing the funding