While I agree that it's probably a good idea to keep an eye on the possibility of a "ban" on the use of coal for firing locomotives, I have my doubts that any national ban will come along any time soon. The present national administration wants to bring coal back, remember? And we Americans are a lot more independent and libertarian in our outlook than the Brits. They are used to having their government enact policy and enforce it without their input, much more so than we.

In addition, we have any awful lot of folks in this country who are still burning coal or wood for heating, and many of them live in rather remote places where it would be difficult to have oil or natural gas or propane delivered. There are also more than a few people in various corners of the nation who obtain their heating fuel by "bootlegging" coal or wood, and without a huge enforcement effort, they are not going to make the change.

As long as it is legal to use coal for heating fuel, there will be places where mining will occur, and those places will be willing to sell coal by the truckload. I'd say any total ban on coal and wood is quite a few years in the future.

Many of the homes in this part of rural West Virginia still burn coal. When driving past a certain neighbor who has an outdoor stove next to the road, I like to pause and savor a whiff of bituminous bliss.

I don't want to get political here, but as much as I want to agree with this line of thinking and trust that as a nation we are too "libertarian" for a ban to actually happen, we are currently in a midst of a "war" between two leadership factions: one of which has tried to proclaim that "coal is back, baby!" (it isn't, not by a long shot.... ask BNSF, CSX, NS, etc.), and one whose past leader literally declared a "war on coal" and whose current "front leader" as of this morning can sincerely be expected to do end runs around Congress to sign executive orders to ban both coal AND fracking on Jan. 21, 2021 if he's in a bad mood that day.
I want to be completely wrong about the above. I hope I am. But the fact remains that we (the coal-burners) have to be aware that we ARE vulnerable to such irrational political decisions.



The Navajo reservations in Arizona are truly suffering this winter from a double-whammy of not only three major "gravy train" employers (mine, RR, and power plant) shutting down, but lack of access to "free coal" from the Kayenta Mine for household use.
All across Arizona, there are people who burn wood for heat, securing permits from the NPS and Bureau of Land Management to harvest dead juniper from designated areas of government land. This serves a double purpose of providing fuel and helping to reduce tinder in wildfire zones. And what's harvested is a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of what is truly "available" out there. And some of the folks I know that use those stoves? They also have solar panels for heat and electric as well.



Again, I agree, or want to, but I have to factor in irrational political forces in an arena where the likes of Greta Thunberg have been nominated as spokespersons.
One of the brighter minds in the debate I've heard told me and anyone else who would listen a long time ago, "Coal and oil are far too valuable as petrochemical stock, in a global planetary sense, to ever set a match to, but until we're harvesting unobtanium from lassoed asteroids or going all nuclear power, it's what we're stuck with for now."

After writing the above, I went out to the store and found this as the lead story in today's Arizona Republic:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/lo ... 727917002/

You can read this article in a multitude of ways, some of which are very unflattering to both the communities involved and the leaders/politicians that made this happen. But the gist of it is, just like the "death" of coal and traditional mining brought misfortune, economic ruin, and death or pending death to many former coal communities in Appalachia, so has the death of coal mining brought severe economic hardship to a large Native American community in the Southwest. This is almost precisely like the numerous "company towns" in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, etc. that were dependent upon one company as employer, mercantile, power company, landlord, health care provider, etc., and then the mine ran out or flooded. We can argue whether or not any community--then or now--should have ever allowed itself to become dependent upon only one revenue source and what the solution is now in this aftermath, but that's not a debate for this forum. The same thing has played out elsewhere and with other things (ore, lumber, oil, fish, etc.).

As this story highlights, the "romantic smell of coal smoke" is not the only thing we stand to lose with coal's reduced role in society and commerce.

Incidentally, on a side note, I tried to figure out which North American heritage railroad would be the very last to be affected by loss of coal.......... I finally came to the conclusion that it would be either the occasional steam operations of the Reading & Northern, the EBT (provided there's still SOME coal to be had out of the Broad Top field)...... or, last of all, the Pioneer Coal Mine Tunnel & Steam Lokie in Ashland, Pa. ...... any other nominees?

Perhaps Cass Scenic Railway & the Durbin Rocket in WV, both operated by the same organization.

Georgetown Loop comes to mind - the only coal burned there is in the caboose stoves.

Keep an eye on Connecticut. The state's only remaining coal fired power plant is scheduled to close next year. I am told that the Valley Railroad will then be effectively the last commercial user of coal in the state, a potentially untenable position given that Connecticut is politically sensitive to environmental issues and the state government is the railroad's landlord.

Alan Maples

Speaking with folks who operate steam in England has been quite enlightening.

The issue in England is primarily quality of life: i.e. good old pollution. Coal is NOT the main cause. The concern - as mentioned earlier in this thread - are those who burn wet wood to heat their homes. Coal is just going along for the ride, if you will, as an almost-equally polluting home fuel. Climate change isn’t a driving force of this legislation.

The concern among steam operators seems to be more focused on the cost of coal going forward, rather than fears that somehow coal-fired steam will be environmentally outlawed. While supplies of Welsh steam coal appear to not be in jeopardy, fewer users will mean higher prices. And that may force operators to look for cheaper, inferior, import coal.

Hopefully, there will be a solution that keeps Welsh coal affordable.

Of course, we are all historians here, so we are well aware that the UK has enacted a number of solutions over the decades to recover from extreme pollution in residential areas. And good on them. The Great Smog of London 1952 is still a relatively recent memory.

It was quite a breath of fresh air, if you will, to be able discuss this topic with folks on the basis of science, public need and economics - without politics or polemics.

I've been reading about this issue in various British and Irish media (there is a similar regulatory push happening in Ireland BTW), and this term "wet wood" is being used and I don't know what it's supposed to mean.

Does "wet wood" refer to unseasoned green wood? Wood that's been carelessly stored outdoors and is wet from precipitation? Both of the above?

-Philip Marshall

Wood that has not been "seasoned," i.e dried out, either in a kiln or by being outside for a year or more.

Thank you, Sandy. I'm not sure why they don't just say "green wood" or "unseasoned wood", which seem much more precise.

-Philip Marshall

This.

My personal thoughts on the matter.

Steam locomotive coal use is surely a drop in the bucket in total emissions production in the world right now. Steam trains are no longer the main mode of transportation, and the few that survive is such a small sample its a minor impact on the environment compared to the billions of cars, diesel locomotives, power plants, industrial plants, home heaters, etc. that operate daily across the world.

I think it would do the industry good to get a firm calculation on the emissions of heritage railroads, if only to prove numerically its not as high impact as other common day to day things. Lastly, I think the heritage railway scene preserves something that would be important in a hypothetical green tech focused future... we are one of the only glimpses into the past. It is one thing to read a book about the mass use of coal in the 20th century, it would be another to actually get out trackside and see a single coal burning engine and imagine what it was once like when tens of thousands of those were in operation. It helps codify both the green movement and the evolution of technology with a real hands on example.

I also think its appropriate to do fuel conversions when needed to. I know some people are touchy on that subject, but I'd rather see a steam engine burning oil or frying grease or biomass; than to see no steam engine at all.

As for the economics of getting high quality coal to railroads, I really have nothing to say on that matter. I am not an economist and I'd have to research more on the subject.

As far as the 'wet wood' question goes - George Bernard Shaw may have said, "The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language." Having spent my formative years in a household speaking Whatever-it-is they speak in Scotland (Father), tempered with the dialect taught at a proper New England finishing school (Mother), all overlaid with Kiwi (everybody else), I don't see what the problem is.

Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Every major change in technology has unintended consequences, some positive and some negative. Mere human beings, not being possessed of crystal balls or similar forward looking devices, are not terribly good at predicting them. As a result the movement beyond coal for providing energy, no matter how positively it may be viewed, will still have some significant downside. The availability and cost of coal as fuel for restored steam locomotives is a relatively minor downside when compared to economic impact of mine and power plant closures. The upsides of the change are the lower cost per British Thermal Unit of the various alternatives and the overall improvement in air quality.

There is no need for even the most militant anti-coal activist to target preserved railroads. The steam railroad industry does not represent a large enough market to allow the profitable mining of coal at a price which the industry as whole can afford. Sure, there may be some lines which can source their own for a while but the shipping cost from, say, Mount Union to Durango may well make the idea a non-starter. Rather than ranting, railing, and doing a 'Woe are us' routine we need to start looking seriously at finding alternatives.

I have said this here before: As much as I enjoy watching coal trains and steam locomotives, I also enjoy breathing.

GME

The problem is, that won't stop them any more than the lack of "need" to bring Canadian rail traffic to a standstill in the past two weeks, or for a petulant sixteen-year-old to scold the United Nations.

None of this has ever been about "need."