Use of house coal?

[Daniel]

Hello,

I wanted to get people's opinion of the types of fuel we should be burning.
I have always used anthracite as this is the coal that is supplied by my local club. I recently went to a polly rally and a member there only ran his engine with house coal. The s,ell was fantastic and the sight of the coal was equally as good! He said he has no adverse effects from using this type of coal and just cleans his boiler tubes after every run and this is sufficient. We have just purchased some house coal for the multi-fuel stove and I'm debating whether to use it on my engine as I have been warned against it in the past.

D you think it would cause any adverse effects or ,aye use half anthracite half house coal?

Kind regards

Daniel

[teakfreak]

Personally I'd give it a try. I'm not very keen on anthracite - with my 4" traction engine, as soon as it starts to work hard I get a rain of sparks from the chimney that I don't get with steam coal. Be prepared for rather more smoke than with steam coal though.

[Andrew C]

It depends o the quality of the coal if it is realy dirty. If there is lots of fine dust that is almost brown then don't bother. Lots of smoke and not much heat. If on the other hand the dust is almost black wash it all and it may well be ok.

You will find out quit quickly if it's any good by the engine performance. If you struggle to keep pressure and the fire won't respond it may not be much use. Some of the anthriste
from eastern Europe is rubbish, not all as some is quite good. The amout of ash in smokebox and clinker on the firebars and good indicators too.

If you run the engine for longer than about half an hour i always feel that you should clean the tubes when you finish for the day.

Andrew

[smallbrother]

I was fortunate to spend 15 years exploring, evaluating, digging and selling coal across the South Wales coalfield.

The coal in the east around Bleanavon was "house coal" whilst the stuff around Llanelli in the west was anthracite.

Geologists and scientists explained to me (as a civil engineer) that the anthracite was the highest ranked coal and the ranking decreased through semi-anthracite, then steam coal and then house coal as you moved east.

The high ranked coal has more energy stored within than low ranked coal.

So, yes, in short, house coal can do the job, but why burn inferior stuff?

There is no harm in using it however and it will not do any damage. It will though produce more ash and hence the need to clean things out will arise more often.

Incidentally, the "steam coal" area extends from about Rhymney in the east to about Hirwaun to the west. This coal was a bit cheaper than the pure anthracites but provided good performance in the boilers of the early 20th century. The Royal Navy was particularly fond of the stuff under the mountain between Aberdare and Merthyr.

Pete.

[andrewsleigh]

i prefer using it. thought iv been told im not alowd to use it in the club wren anymore....
a steam engines not the same without that smell and smoke wafting around.

i hear allot of people going on about how its dirty and makes more ash, and furrs tubes up. well just clean it!

im not entirely happy unless come off an engines with a nice layer of black on me.

[Smifffy]

I ran our club engine on some house coal that someone brought in a few weeks back. It burned very well, generating lots of heat but it was very smokey.

An afternoon's driving and I was ready to take a place in the Black and White Minstrel Show!

[goldstar31]

Oct 25, 2011 22:33:07 GMT smallbrother said:

. The Royal Navy was particularly fond of the stuff under the mountain between Aberdare and Merthyr.

Pete.

And at the Battle of Jutland, no one could see the signals -for the smoke.

[3405jimmy]

At a local rally I used the stuff they hand out free to the traction engines. Which I was told was “good quality” house coal. After using it when I came to run my 4” TE again it would not draw I eventually found that the part burned combustibles had formed a plug round the steam and blower vents in the chimney and blocked it up.

My local coal merchant supplies a house coal alternative briquette called five star which burns very well leaving just a very fine ash and little soot in the tubes. Other than that I have had good results using signal fuels coal.

Jim

[cupalloys]

Approaching this from a silver soldering angle ...

The inside of a firebox and smokebox can hardly be described as environmentally benign!

Generally speaking the corrosion/oxidation resistance of the 42% silver cadmium bearing alloy has been sufficient to meet the demands placed on it.

However it is thought that this alloy is working at the top end of its capabilities.

Cheaper coals (as I understand it) require a greater draught of air to effect good combustion and boiler performance. This produces a more oxygen rich atmosphere that can make it difficult for the silver solder to withstand.

This manifests itself when boilers are returned to the professionals for repair. It is not unknown for the silver solder to have disappeared! It was there when the boiler left them!

Can the cheaper coal shorten the boiler life?

It is a concern among the professional boiler makers that the longevity of their product can be compromised by circumstances beyond their control.

Greater oxidation resistance is one good thing to come from the enforced change to the 55% silver cadmium free alloy. It will help to overcome the problems associated with cheaper/inferior coals.
But the chances are that your boiler has not been joined with the 55% silver alloy.

Like a lot of things in life ....

you pays your money and makes your choice

Keith

PS You're right - I don't have a locomotive to run !

[NickM]

Hi Daniel

I have used a variety of different coals in my Polly V and I have now decided to use nothing other than Signal Fuels Welsh Steam Coal. It is very clean, produces minimal white smoke, virtually no soot, little ash and most importantly, no clinker. I used the supplied coal at a Polly Rally a couple of years ago and after about 2 hours continuous running could no longer raise steam. On dropping the ashpan I found I had a clinker arch across the whole firebox; fortunately it knocked out quite easily with the poker!
It is a bit expensive at £10 for 20kg but in my opinion is worth every penny, I am on my third bag and wouldn't use anything else. It is so good I would be prepared to pay twice the price, but don't go telling Signal Fuels!

From your point of view, it's only downside is that it doesn't have much smell.

I have used Welsh Anthracite which burns well and gives plenty of heat but that also gives quite a bit of clinker and I find it has quite an acrid smell that can get on your chest after a couple of hours.

Four or five years ago I bought about a ton of Ferguson's Scottish Steam Coal on ebay. Apparently it was some stuff left over from the Dorset Steam Fair. We used it for a while in a 7 & 1/4 Bagnall at the club for public running days. That was really stinky and produced thick, almost green smoke that made your eyes water and was so bad that the public started complaining! It also produced so much soot that a third of the boiler tubes were completely blocked after a 4 hour session! We had to go back to anthracite to keep the customers! Fortunately, the following year the club gained a member with a 4" traction engine and that runs perfectly on it so he bought it off me.

Recently the quality of the anthracite we buy has gone right down so we have shifted to Signal Fuels small nuts for the Bagnall; I bought 10 bags at the Midland show. Ironically, I am led to believe that Signal Fuels source the stuff from Glynneath, just a few miles from where I work but no-one locally washes, grades and bags it into convenient sized bags so it travels quite a distance from pit to loco. At least it stays within Britain though!

Hope to see you at the Polly Rallies next year, you can try some of my Signal coal and see how you like it.

Regards

Nick, Owner of Polly V 'Titus Salt', Chairman POG

[smallbrother]

Nick,

If you are in Glynneath try Parkes coal merchants. I reckon they are a good bit cheaper than Signal. The beans I bought a couple of years ago are great in my Polly 2.

Pete.

[baxterwood]

Hi,
Just some thoughts on the above, I speak as a former 1 to 1 steam loco fireman and operate a 5inch gauge 4-4-0.
I have used my loco successfully on my club track at Clitheroe using our own coal, and sometimes with the addition of some quality house coal from home. I have to say that the smell with the latter is truely wonderful and reminds me of 'lighting up' way back! but it does tend to fluff up the tubes. These I always clean after any sort of use anyway along with the smokebox.
However I did visit, along with a few other drivers with locos, another well known track this past Summer and we all fell foul of some cr-p coal they had just had delivered, supposedly steam coal. All our locos, a Castle, a Glen, an A1 Pacific, a 9F and a River Class tank failed completely all for the same reason - fireproof coal! in fact the River Tank wouldn't even raise enough steam to move of the steaming bay.
I know this is a random incident and whatever fuel be used there can always be a problem. I remember way back on the full size railway we had had some open cast steam coal on shed which looked more like something to put on a house roof than to fire a loco. It was so bad on one loco we had you couldn't run with the firebox door open and needed someone else to operate it for the fireman between each shovelful - try doing that with a Stanier Pacific!!
Happy steaming to all,
Peter

[abby]

Now which is best anthracite or welsh steam coal ?
I like the colour of the anthracite but it does burn hot!
The welsh is a bit smokey but smells right!
Only one way to settle this
"FIGHT"
But seriously , I am a bit puzzled by Cupalloys post.
I am by no means an expert , but if there is proper combustion of the fuel there should be little to no oxygen in the flue gas , and therefore nothing to cause oxidation.
If there was any oxygen then the draught would be so fierce that anthracite would burn through the grate.
However softer coals contain much more sulphur than hard ones , and I suspect that the corrosion is most likely caused by this.
Silver in particular readily forms the suphide.

regards.

[steam4ian]

G'day all

From time to time Ozzies refer to Char and are then asked what is it. It sounds like the Five Star briquettes referred to be Jim. It also burns smokeless with little ash which is like fine gritty sand.

We use brown coal for lighting up becasue it catches more easily than the char but the smoke is very pungent. When I first got my loco I had trouble keeping it alight so I used brown coal, the fumes just about killed me, I was coughing for days.

Cuppalloy's comments about sulphur particularly refer to "silver"solders with high phosphorus and low silver content, hence they are banned in the Aust code.

Regards
Ian

[steamjohn248]

We use Welsh Steam Coal from the Foss-Y-Fan site that recently came on stream, both in our 7 1/4" locos and 26' steam launch. Orriginally fetched from Evans and Ried, Barry Docks, two tons at a time, but they have been taken over and the current agents will only do it in 22 ton lorry loads. Recently got a ton in 25kg bags from Andy Holmes, sold as the same stuff but have not tried it yet. If its as good as the stuff we got from Barry it will be just fine. Very little smoke, very hot, only fine ash and nominal clinker. We are a passenger carrying railway and the clientelle don't appreciate sooty coal! Come to that neither do the passengers in the steam launch. Doesn't go out when you sit in the station with blower and ejector off, (unlike the anthracite we tried). No trouble with burned grates either (though they are without exception stainless steel).

Steamjohn

[smallbrother]

Steamjohn,

We used to despatch coal to the Dart Valley Railway in the 1970s from the Trecatty site in Merthyr which was located immediately to the north of Ffos y Fran. (Both opencast mines). I bet it is from the same seams too, although I can't remember the names. These seams were usually previously worked by underground methods. However, the method was "pillar and stall" and only about 50% could be extracted that way.

I think the trick is to use the coal that suits your mode of operation, particularly for fullsize boilers. OK, anthracite will not burn as readily as lower ranked coal, but put the blower on a little and you unlock a heck of a lot more energy. This costs more money but produces less ash and muck generally.

I would have thought that model boilers would be more suited to better quality fuel as they tend to be more fussy the smaller you go. Anthracite beans for me every time for 5" gauge.

Pete.

[jma1009]

'house coal', to use the 'old' terminology, is an inferior grade to steam coal. it produces less heat, more smoke, and more clinker and ash than steam coal. it was always cheaper than steam coal.
there were very good reasons why the railways companies preferred steam coal and paid the extra price compared to house coal.

do you remember the story of 'Henry The Green Engine'?

in more recent times, the railways (BR days) could not guarantee getting adequate supplies of steam coal and there were often shortages of coal nationally during very cold winters (which we havent experienced since 1962/3 until last winter). there is some evidence that the rush to get rid of steam in the 1960's was due to the shortages of coal and the political pressures that were created as a result.

these days coal isnt graded the same way it was, and it isnt unusual to find 'house coal' that is actually very good stuff and pretty close to steam coal....my stove is very fussy and i get my coal from one particular coal merchant because i know the stuff is very good...my stove wont burn anthracite straight off, and house coal of the old grade is useless in it!

i have burnt everything from coventry hard to deep navigation and oakdale and lady windsor cobbles in my miniature locos. i am fortunate in having half a shed full of steam coal left...enough to last me quite a few years. i break it up before a day's running and get rid of anything i dont think is up to scratch and the dust (it goes on the stove instead!) and you quickly get a feel for the right stuff...how it breaks up, its weight etc.. i see other locos struggling with inferior stuff and have a look at their grates after a run and see loads of unburnt slack and clinker.

i agree the signals fuel stuff doesnt have the 'smell'...but it is jolly good stuff.

i would never use house coal grade on a miniature loco, and i dread to think what the tar that can sometimes be produced in some grades of house coal does to tubes etc..

one of the problems with most steam coal supplies these days is that it isnt 'washed' like it was before the early 90's. you might get a bag of good stuff from the middle of a seam, or a bag of slack and coal from the edge of a seam. our miniature locos dont like 'slack'. put a load of slack on a house fire and see what happens...great big lumps of part burned rock! it only takes one big lump of slack broken up in a miniature loco tender to completely clog a fire and ruin a day's running.

[sncf141r]

Wow -

Over here in Canada, I don't know where I'd purchase coal.

Our club ordered 6-1/2 tons of coal from Signal Fuels and had it shipped across the atlantic; that was a few years ago now.

The Montreal guys have had a couple of sources; the latest was some coal that was in the basement of a building; had been sitting there for a few decades, but, I guess, is still ok. They actually vacuumed it out with a strong vacuum.

I did try petroleum coke for a while, but, it would burn hot-n-fast, with an exhaust that would take the back of your throat away...

JohnS.
You guys are lucky!

[springbok]

Hi Rosen
Note that you are 21 years of age (by your profile) and this is your first posting
so could you explain this

[ilvaporista]

It's another spam posting. Time for Tel and the hammer..