Coal and British Steam Loco's

[Dusten Barefoot]

What kind of coal do English engines burn? Do they burn a soft or hard coal? I have noticed that most of the engines I see on youtube have a beautiful clean white smoke.  I wonder if it is the coal you are burning or your firing technique.
Thanks
Dusten

[Santa Fe buff]

Dear Dusten,
   I'm currently looking around the Internet for files of information on your subject. While searching using the Google's search engine, I came across this interesting United Kingdom website. Although I will continue to search websites for you requested information, I thought that you would like to showed this website.

http://www.collieryroad.com/online/catalog/show/product/CR1005/flying%20scotsman%20steam%20locomotive

Sincerely,
  Josh B.

[Santa Fe buff]

Dear Dusten,
   I could not find any article for it. Please wait for some one with more knowledge on United Kingdom locomotives give you your answer.

Sincerely,
  Josh B.

[pdlethbridge]

I see that they give the left to right dimensions, how come no right to left?

[Jhanecker2]

I would think that they would use their own local coal , probably soft bituminous .  Steamers steaming white are probably not under heavy load.  If you look at DVDs  of steamers in action you see the variations in smoke stack emissions  in color and intensity depending on the  load being placed on the engine .  Remember the Industrial Revolution  started in England because of the material and technical resources of the  area were all there.

[Dusten Barefoot]

Ok, thanks ya'll, the engines I have viewed are not under a heavy load. They are hauling passangers.  Even under a wheel slip and tough grade I do not see any sign of smoke change. At Tweetsie Railroad in NC, #12 a Baldwin 4-6-0 does not pull a heavy load around the mountain but the smoke is a dirty black color. The coal burnt at Tweetsie is a Soft coal. So I am still wondering if Britain is using a hard coal or their firing technique?
Thanks for the Info so far.
Dusten

Btw, doe's speed have anything to do with, Im pretty sure it does.

[rogertra]

It depends.

The UK used many, many types of coal from numerous coal fields.  Each railway had it's own supllier.

Typically the "best" coal was used in the top "Express" passenger trains with lower grade coal used for freight and switchers.

A typical 'engine shed' say with an allocation of some 50 or more steam locos would stock two grades of coal and have two bunkers in the coaling tower (if it had one) or two bunkers in the coaling stage.  One bunker would contain coal for the passenger engines, the other for freight and switchers.

Passenger coal was large lumps, well over fist size upto six inches or more.  Freight coal was smaller lumps to dust, rather like steam locos in North America burnt due to the use of automatic stokers.  Another cheap fuel used, and hated by the crews, was briquettes.  This was coal dust held together in 'briquettes' about four inches square that fell apart into dust of struck with a hammer or hit the sides of the firebox when being tossed into the 'box.  It also stung the crews eyes.  As I said, they hatred it.

The "best" steam coal in the world came from Wales and was used extensively by the Great Western Railway which was the main railway company serving the Welsh coal fields.

[Dusten Barefoot]

Thanks Rogertra.
That helped out a lot. I might have to go and look in to the brickets. That is something I have never heard of before.
Thanks for the information supplyed
Dusten

[hindmarch]

Hi Dusten, i think the coal they used to use in UK is called ANTHRACITE you can Google it under Anthracite Coal,most of the deposits came from Wales.Regards Bryan

[Hamish K]

Thanks Rogertra.
That helped out a lot. I might have to go and look in to the brickets. That is something I have never heard of before.
Thanks for the information supplyed
Dusten

Dusten, if like me ,you were a boy in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in the 1960s you would have known all about "briquettes". They were dreadfull things, made in Victoria from brown coal, which is very soft and has a very high moisture content. Compressing the brown coal into briquettes was necessary as it was too soft to be easily handled. Brown coal was (and is)  mainly used for electricity generation, but was also used by other industries and, as briquettes, domestically.  Domestic use included for hot water sustems (we had a briquette water heater) and burning in combustion stoves and firepleaces. "Briquettes" were hard to light, smoky, and handling them left you covered in coal dust. I was very glad when we converted to an electric hot water service as lighting the briquette hot water heater and cleaning out the ash was one of  my jobs.

As far as I know these briquettes were not used for steam locomotives as the quality was too low, black coal (soft or bituminous I think) being used by the Victorian Railways for their locomotives. However I believe in europe and the UK coal briquettes may be made from black coal dust and this type could be suitable for locomotives.

In relation to UK locomotive coal I understand that both hard (anthracite) and soft (bitunimous) was used, depending on the part of the country from which the coal was sourced. A UK poster might have more information.

Hamish

[Dusten Barefoot]

I know the big words for coal .That was probably the only thing I paid attention to in Earth Science. Yeah Lignite is the Brown coal you are talking about about Hamish.
Dusten

[Hamish K]

Yes, brown coal is lignite, but in Australia, outside of scientific circles, it is simply called brown coal.

Hamish

[thirdrail]

The amount of smoke generated is a function of the way the locomotive is being fired and the capacity of the boiler to generate sufficient steam to do the job the locomotive is being asked to do. British steam locomotives sacrificed easy maintainability for greater efficiency, therefore used less coal than their North American counterparts, but spent more time in the engine sheds. A properly fired steam engine should only show a slight haze coming from the stack.

Most tourist railways purposely overfire their steam locomotives because the tourists expect to see black smoke. If you see "white smoke", that isn't actually smoke, but exhaust steam, which is a lot more visible in cold weather.

[Stephen D. Richards]

Dusten, to throw a little more into the fire (pun intended) the PA coal fields are replete with Anthracite Coal which is the "hard" coal and very low in Sulphur.  Burns the cleanest of the North American coals.    Stephen

[Dusten Barefoot]

Thanks for all the helpful info. Too bad to say that a lot of tourist railroads do overfire for show. If you ask me, a clean white smoke, or vapor belowing out the stack is more beautiful that seeing black smoke. But what the public want's they get.
Take it easy  
Dusten