By the way, the most recent book about this event, Death In The Air, is excellent (murders being a subplot). Hard and decent bituminous coal were still in short supply and the rationing board pushed people to buy poor-quality “burnable dirt” lignite for home use. Unlucky weather patterns trapped the resulting smog close to the ground. No one seemed to think of fleeing to the hilltops to get above it.

Our home conversion consisted of placing an oil burner in the front of the furnace shooting the flame into the firebox. And an oil tank in the coal bin.

You missed the cinders to spread for winter traction.

You did not miss the mice that could no longer live in the coal pile.

Phil Mulligan

Because of COURSE London is surrounded by lots of high mountains to climb to get above a thousand-foot-high fog bank. And of course, you have lots of strength to climb high vertically when you have reduced oxygen.

I'm a-going to chalk this up to ignorance.........................

For those folks who say "simply engineer a solution" or "think of the money to be made!", the below cartoon comes swiftly to mind--one of the best and most apt cartoons of the 20th Century, in my opinion, and rightfully famous.

I have had physicists, ones both railroad-enthusiast and "greenie," say "The reason coal and oil survive in power plants and heating, in spite of its extreme value as chemical stock and its environmental costs, is that Nature did such a damned good job creating a portable and refinable form of concentrated energy extraction! Until we beat that--and nuclear seems to be the only promise of that--we're stuck with it!"

The Great Eastern Railway had several oil burning locomotives in the 1890's. This page, whilst dealing with just one particular loco class, does give some details....

https://www.gersociety.org.uk/index.php ... n/t19-t19r

Turn on terrain in Google maps. London is a river valley. Of course, it is not just UP but OUT would have worked too. No one told them to do that, because to do so would admit there was actually a problem, which was politically unacceptable, because of all the usual arguments about pollution and economic growth.

Well, the London thing happened many years ago, before people had the ease of mobility we have today. So -- instead of this veering off into yet another political tussle, let's get back to taking coal to Newcastle.

It seems to me that bringing coal to Britain by truck in Supersacks would allow for distribution to numerous heritage railway sites while at the same time taking into consideration fluctuations in seasonal usage and demand. There is certainly a business opportunity here for some enterprising soul.

You misspelled "COLTainers."

Nope. River valleys often look flat, but if you've looked at enough track profiles you know they aren't. Local air currents and the effect of air moving between the taller buildings meant the layer was unevenly distributed, more so the closer to the Thames, to the point that buses could run on one block and not the next and locomotives at one station choked while some across town were able to run nearly normally. One victim suffered horribly at home while her police officer husband was safe at his station three blocks away and a very few feet higher. Postwar London was still very much a broken city, such that finding enough door to door transport for the severely ill wasn't happening even where ambulances could run.

Memories of that event and the one in Donora, PA shaped attitudes toward coal-burning even in minor and all but harmless ways. Anyone who has ever tried to explain that a single coal-fired locomotive burning decent bituminous is not going to eat all the available oxygen or endanger their busload of school children (who have come to see the locomotive) is suffering from that legacy. That's why I'm not a fan of the giant black smoke plume so many photographers want: it scares people who don't know trains.

I agree about the smoke. A clean stack means good firing practice and efficient running. To me, a big black cloud is wasted money blown right up into the air. I’m a little dismayed whenever I see it.

Has the government banned all mining or is this an opportunity for a consortium to purchase a small mine of high quality coal for heritage use?

Its more a case of all the Local Administrations not wanting to be seen to do anything against the prevailing "Green Agenda".
You could try to open a new mine - as has happened a couple of times in the past 2 years - but it's highly unlikely anyone would give you planning permission to start!
OK to mine it in another Country, cart the stuff half way across the world and import it for use here though, as there are no restrictions on the use of coal for heritage purposes......

It's hard to tell with the current UK situation. A lot of their old mines have either been worked out of everything usable or the above-ground facilities have been obliterated. Finding an intact mine with the right coal attributes in a place where haulage isn't prohibitively expensive or difficult might be a tall task. It might be possible to, as a previous thread said about preservation, "invoke the Titanic"--make the excuse of living history demonstrating how coal was once mined--but it would take just the right people and just the right site.

A quick google seems to show that the Norfolk Southern program is dead... But for purposes of bringing coal in from a third world country, a standard 20' ISO box will work well enough. They can be loaded by pushing coal in with a skid-steer and unloaded the same way.

A bigger problem will rear its head if the Greens outlaw the importation of coal... Have to import it under the guise of "black landscape rocks."

I think the current sourcing from Russia of coal by some UK preserved lines will now be coming to an abrupt halt.....