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British coal will no longer be available


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Sadly perhaps coal fired steam loco's are living on borrowed time, however as they say, foreign coal has been used before so not the end. Also AFAIK many engines in BR service were used (at least for a short while) as oil burners. So is that an economic option once the cost of conversion has been paid for? As oil is a hydrocarbon (rather than coal which is mostly carbon) it should be a bit 'cleaner' burning?

A bit OT, it is annoying when steam loco's are deliberately poorly fired to produce black smoke - I saw this done for a filming company once who wanted 'more smoke', not a very good advert for steam :-(

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5 minutes ago, H2O said:

Also AFAIK many engines in BR service were used (at least for a short while) as oil burners. So is that an economic option once the cost of conversion has been paid for? As oil is a hydrocarbon (rather than coal which is mostly carbon) it should be a bit 'cleaner' burning?

 

I've often wondered about this and why don't heritage railways use oil as BR did, as mentioned?  Cleaner burning, less mess and no smuts in your eyes.  Has to be a good reason somewhere!  Cost of conversion?

      Brian.

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36 minutes ago, H2O said:

Sadly perhaps coal fired steam loco's are living on borrowed time, however as they say, foreign coal has been used before so not the end. Also AFAIK many engines in BR service were used (at least for a short while) as oil burners. So is that an economic option once the cost of conversion has been paid for? As oil is a hydrocarbon (rather than coal which is mostly carbon) it should be a bit 'cleaner' burning?

A bit OT, it is annoying when steam loco's are deliberately poorly fired to produce black smoke - I saw this done for a filming company once who wanted 'more smoke', not a very good advert for steam :-(

Hi H2O,

 

The best way to create black smoke for films and photography is to throw in a plastic milk bottle of cylinder oil of two and then shut the fire hole doors with the damper wide open. How much brown clag do you want ?

 

Gibbo.

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1 hour ago, H2O said:

Also AFAIK many engines in BR service were used (at least for a short while) as oil burners.

Oil burning didn't catch on with BR as over 95% of our oil was imported. The Government was bankrupt and could not afford the foreign exchange to buy it.

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1 hour ago, brianusa said:

 

I've often wondered about this and why don't heritage railways use oil as BR did, as mentioned?  Cleaner burning, less mess and no smuts in your eyes.  Has to be a good reason somewhere!  Cost of conversion?

      Brian.

I found its really hard to shovel it into the tender .Makes an awfull mess and drips all over the place ..

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1 hour ago, brianusa said:

 

I've often wondered about this and why don't heritage railways use oil as BR did, as mentioned?  Cleaner burning, less mess and no smuts in your eyes.  Has to be a good reason somewhere!  Cost of conversion?

      Brian.

 

If I recall correctly, the Ffestiniog were running on oil in the late 70s.

 

Adrian

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47 minutes ago, figworthy said:

 

If I recall correctly, the Ffestiniog were running on oil in the late 70s.

 

Adrian

Waste oil. Utterly foul stuff. Eventually (in the late 1990s as I recall) they went over to gasoil before changing to coal early this century.

 

Oil would produce less CO2, but I very much doubt it is any cleaner in terms of particulates and other pollutants. By particulates, I mean stuff measured in microns, not stuff measured in millimetres that burns holes in that nice jacket you knew you shouldn't have worn to visit a heritiage railway.

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Just bear in mind a lot of this is press buzz to go with the political lobbying the HRA does so it’s not as gloomy as it sounds - completely understandable for them to be making noise about it, but it’s not news to anyone in the heritage railways.

 

There are various plans being suggested to distribute foreign coal. I’m not sure how much of it is public so I’ll bite my tongue here, but it’s not ‘the end of steam trains’ as some of the quotes in the article seems to suggest. 

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Interesting snippet from the bbc article:

Quote

It is estimated the heritage railway industry used 26,000 tonnes of coal per year pre-Covid, accounting for 0.02% of the UK's carbon emissions

Any comparative figures for emissions from preservation diesels? And for mainline diesels?

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Isn't there a new mine supposed to be opening in Cumbria? IIRC it's to supply coal for the steel industry, which still needs it. I don't know when it'll come on line though (not right away), or whether the coal is suitable.

 

On the smoke front it's good to look at the Bittern 90 mph runs, where it needed to be fired well rather than to produce lots of smoke, can see very little smoke, just a bit every now and then that quickly clears (presumably when another shovel is thrown in).

Edited by Reorte
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4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

Isn't there a new mine supposed to be opening in Cumbria? IIRC it's to supply coal for the steel industry, which still needs it. I don't know when it'll come on line though (not right away), or whether the coal is suitable.

 

News here.

 

jch

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I thought this was the most interesting snippet from the article, which would seem to contradict the rest of it.

 

Quote: 

"We'd been using British coal the past ten years but our supply ran out in mid-December," said Duncan Ballard, the railway's contracts manager.

"We are currently sourcing coal from abroad and are working with other railways to secure a sustainable and reasonably-priced source. 

"One of the unexpected benefits of this is that its CO2 emissions are significantly lower than those of our previous coal."

 

David

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World's gone quite mad.

 

Natural gas to be outlawed in new build soon, talk about outlawed completely in 10-20 years. (Half of our electricity is generated by gas)

 

https://electricinsights.co.uk/#/dashboard?_k=k12090

 

Right now, 6 Jan at 10.45am  51.05% is generated by gas, 8% by coal, wind less than 10% (high atmospheric pressure, little wind, cold & freezing).

 

I wonder what is next on Greeta's list ? Ban all preserved railways as non essential ? Ban model railways ?

 

Brit15

 

 

Edited by APOLLO
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I have a modest lump of Welsh steam coal that  fell off Black Prince and  almost knocked me out while trackside photographing on The North Norfolk Railway .Will this be a modern bitcoin ? Valuable beyond the dreams of man .I was keeping it for the apocalypse either to heat the house or throw at  a zombie or the bloke next door .I have taken a fair sized chunk off already to  break up as coal for my locos .

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1 hour ago, jchinuk said:

Perhaps Tesla could be persuaded to build suitable wagons containing batteries and drive motors.  Hitch one to the steam trains to power the whole thing along?

 

jch 

Take the mechanicals out of crashed Teslas etc and fit them within locomotive tenders, consulting some Hornby and Lima designers from the 1970s-80s if necessary.  That should still leave space for a sound chip and speakers within the redundant coal space.

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7 minutes ago, Jamie said:

Take the mechanicals out of crashed Teslas etc and fit them within locomotive tenders, consulting some Hornby and Lima designers from the 1970s-80s if necessary.  That should still leave space for a sound chip and speakers within the redundant coal space.

Will these have Synchronised smoke as well? :jester:

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9 minutes ago, Jamie said:

Take the mechanicals out of crashed Teslas etc and fit them within locomotive tenders, consulting some Hornby and Lima designers from the 1970s-80s if necessary.  That should still leave space for a sound chip and speakers within the redundant coal space.

 

Surely consult noughties Hornby designers and scale up their live steam design?

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35 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

Surely consult noughties Hornby designers and scale up their live steam design?

Didn't the Swiss do that at one point, electrifying but didn't have enough electric locos so used it to heat the water? Not terribly efficient but did the job as a stopgap temporary measure.

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