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Re: Loaded Coal train NB through Sacramento today
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 07-21-2015 - 11:57
PG&E, and probably most other utilities in Calif, stopped burning coal in favor of natural gas by about 1920. It's the reason that pictures of cities such as LA and SF from the 1930s though 1990s show light colored buildings: no accumulation of coal soot like in Chicago, Boston, NYC, Philly, etc. In fact when you see a city pic from this era and it has light colored buildings, it always a west-coast city: San Diego, LA, SF, PDX, Seattle, etc. It's been only after the widespread use of coal began to disappear in the midwest and east (1970s onward) that years of weather washing has been able to rinse the soot gradually off the buildings, revealing them to be the bright and shiny things they were when new. There are pix around of the process in action: tall buildings and sky scrapers which are light colored at the top and almost black lower down. I once closely examined a building in Boston which had 50 year accumulation of coal soot; it was almost 1/2" thick in places.
Coal's use returned to Calif in the 1970s-1990s, but I'm not all that familiar with the scale of use nor the situation today. I do know of a coal burning power plant in the foothills east of Wasco (possibly So Cal Edison) because an unloading facility with rotary dumper and extensive conveyor belt system (as in miles long) was constructed in the 1990s along the east side of the Santa Fe at the Wasco siding. Don't know whether it's still active.
The SP converted to oil-burning by c1904 because it's a lot easier and cheaper to ship and handle than coal, not to mention the almost complete lack of after-combustion debris to dispose of (soot, ashes, etc.). There's also the fact that Calif has never had significant amount of coal but lots of petroleum reserves (still does). Not sure what the UP and Santa Fe did with their engines which operated in Calif. From what I've read, albeit casually, the SP did have some coal burners right up to the end, but they were used primarily on the line to Tucumcari and the New Mexico area. Whenever coal burners were reassigned out of this area, they were converted to oil.
Environmental concerns over coal and oil burning locomotives are a relatively recent development.
Coal's use returned to Calif in the 1970s-1990s, but I'm not all that familiar with the scale of use nor the situation today. I do know of a coal burning power plant in the foothills east of Wasco (possibly So Cal Edison) because an unloading facility with rotary dumper and extensive conveyor belt system (as in miles long) was constructed in the 1990s along the east side of the Santa Fe at the Wasco siding. Don't know whether it's still active.
The SP converted to oil-burning by c1904 because it's a lot easier and cheaper to ship and handle than coal, not to mention the almost complete lack of after-combustion debris to dispose of (soot, ashes, etc.). There's also the fact that Calif has never had significant amount of coal but lots of petroleum reserves (still does). Not sure what the UP and Santa Fe did with their engines which operated in Calif. From what I've read, albeit casually, the SP did have some coal burners right up to the end, but they were used primarily on the line to Tucumcari and the New Mexico area. Whenever coal burners were reassigned out of this area, they were converted to oil.
Environmental concerns over coal and oil burning locomotives are a relatively recent development.
