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Re: India's plan A is to buy "clean" (er) coal from Australia....
Author: George Andrews
Date: 08-15-2019 - 16:38
" Phoebe Snow, Dressed in White - Rides the Road of Anthracite. " -- Advertising for Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad.
Anthracite Coal, or ' Hard Coal ', burns VERY HOT, but also very clean, with very little soot or ash. For these reasons it was the home heating fuel of choice for much of the Eastern U.S. until after World War 2. Stoves & furnaces ( locomotive fireboxes too ) used for hard coal had to be built thicker & stronger to handle the increased BTU output.
Anthracite Coal deposits were located in Northeast Pennsylvania, from Carbondale in the N.E., down through Scranton & Wilkes Barre to Hazelton and Pottsville, PA. Anthracite Coal was so popular that several railroads were originally built just to haul it. The Lehigh Valley, Lehigh & New England, Erie, Pennsylvania, Reading, & Delaware Lackawanna & Western all owned hard coal mines. (Even today, Reading & Northern hauls some Anthracite. ) The lure of Anthracite was such that until the late 1940's, 5 railroads ( DL&W, Erie, CNJ, NYO&W, and D&H ) all served the Lackawanna Valley around Scranton.
Several factors combined in a Perfect Storm to kill the Anthracite Coal business in the 15 years after the end of World War 2:
1) Conversion of home heating to oil then natural gas; no coal or ashes to shovel
2) High cost of hard rock mining for Anthracite vs. oil & gas
3) Some mines in the area playing out
4) The Knox Mine Disaster in 1959, which flooded most of the mines.
Anthracite Coal, or ' Hard Coal ', burns VERY HOT, but also very clean, with very little soot or ash. For these reasons it was the home heating fuel of choice for much of the Eastern U.S. until after World War 2. Stoves & furnaces ( locomotive fireboxes too ) used for hard coal had to be built thicker & stronger to handle the increased BTU output.
Anthracite Coal deposits were located in Northeast Pennsylvania, from Carbondale in the N.E., down through Scranton & Wilkes Barre to Hazelton and Pottsville, PA. Anthracite Coal was so popular that several railroads were originally built just to haul it. The Lehigh Valley, Lehigh & New England, Erie, Pennsylvania, Reading, & Delaware Lackawanna & Western all owned hard coal mines. (Even today, Reading & Northern hauls some Anthracite. ) The lure of Anthracite was such that until the late 1940's, 5 railroads ( DL&W, Erie, CNJ, NYO&W, and D&H ) all served the Lackawanna Valley around Scranton.
Several factors combined in a Perfect Storm to kill the Anthracite Coal business in the 15 years after the end of World War 2:
1) Conversion of home heating to oil then natural gas; no coal or ashes to shovel
2) High cost of hard rock mining for Anthracite vs. oil & gas
3) Some mines in the area playing out
4) The Knox Mine Disaster in 1959, which flooded most of the mines.
