How might we plan for the sustainability of steam powered heritage rail, while being friendly to the climate?

[The Stationmaster]

21 minutes ago, Reorte said:

When it comes to coal, very much so. Of course it's not just a case of ticking one off after the other; some are harder to do away with even if they're more significant contributors, some are easy targets even if their contribution is negligible. In the former category we still have some coal-fired power generation, even if it's not in constant use. Removing that would be worthwhile but you don't have to look very far to see why doing so poses problems right now. In the latter we have the attack on household coal use, which is very minor indeed (despite some people trying to point to the pre-Clear Air Acts days to justify it) so there's no good reason for eliminating it, but it ticks the right boxes with city-dwelling youngsters who've never seen a lump of coal in their life.

Your latter point is spot on.  i have relatives ina Yorkshire village which is far from traditional mining country although the Selby Deep mine was nearby in more recent years.  On our last visit - early years of this century the amount of c domestic coal burning amazed my wife who hadn't seen anything like it for many years.  The main reason for it was that all the houses on the post-war council estate had been built with coal fired boilers so the only way un-moderrnised house could get hot water was by  burning coal.  

 

More amusingly we found during GW150 - so back in 1985 - while the majority of small children had to ask what the black stuff in the tender was for there were even some parents who couldn't tell them what it was or whjy it was there.

[Reorte]

2 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Your latter point is spot on.  i have relatives ina Yorkshire village which is far from traditional mining country although the Selby Deep mine was nearby in more recent years.  On our last visit - early years of this century the amount of c domestic coal burning amazed my wife who hadn't seen anything like it for many years.  The main reason for it was that all the houses on the post-war council estate had been built with coal fired boilers so the only way un-moderrnised house could get hot water was by  burning coal. 

The only time I've lived anywhere with a coal-fired central heating boiler (and this surprisingly was a house I think was built in the 70s) it was anthracite-fired, and I don't ever recall any visible smoke from its chimney, or any other sign of it being in use other than the house always being very cold whenever we came back from being away, due to the boiler going out. I do remember my parents grumbling about it a lot, especially when it came to getting it re-lit. At least there was an immersion heater too for getting some hot water when the boiler wasn't running.

 

Come to think of it my grandparents also had a coal boiler; they'd replaced it long enough ago that I'd almost forgotten. Theirs was in the kitchen, so that was always a warm room even when the rest of the house wasn't (and upstairs never was, they didn't seem to believe in heating bedrooms).

 

There was an ordinary coal fire in the living room too.

[KingEdwardII]

Coal burning for domestic heating is a very distant memory for me.

 

The last house I remember having coal heating was my grandparents' place - in South Wales, during the 1970s and 1980s. The only source of heat in the house were coal fires - an open grate in the front parlour and a stove in the main living room. Powered by concessionary coal, which explained why it lasted so long, well after most folk had gone over to gas heating.

 

The contrast between to tropical heat in the living room and the chill of the bedrooms was extreme.

 

I don't shed any tears for the demise of coal for domestic heating - messy and awkward to use.

 

On the other hand, I now have an addiction to a wood burning stove, but only as an addition to the central heating. Every piece of wood is examined for its suitability to feed the stove and no tree is safe...

 

Yours, Mike.

[TheQ]

We have an open fire rarely used and a multifuel stove in another room used all winter. Up until, I believe, 1980, the house had 4 open fires and a coal fired range in the Kitchen...

 

I'm about to do our order for this year, and the last chance order has to be before 1st May next year.

for those of us on Tanked gas (3 times the price of mains gas) it's a way of keeping our costs down. what we will do when we run out I have no idea.

[Reorte]

12 minutes ago, TheQ said:

We have an open fire rarely used and a multifuel stove in another room used all winter. Up until, I believe, 1980, the house had 4 open fires and a coal fired range in the Kitchen...

 

I'm about to do our order for this year, and the last chance order has to be before 1st May next year.

for those of us on Tanked gas (3 times the price of mains gas) it's a way of keeping our costs down. what we will do when we run out I have no idea.

You'll still be able to get the smokeless stuff or anthracite. Not as good (although I didn't think many stoves will take ordinary coal anyway without quickly clogging up).

[TheQ]

The smokeless stuff we had been using isn't low enough CO2 and all the replacements are much more expensive..

[6990WitherslackHall]

21 hours ago, AMJ said:

Figures are available indicating that locos, both road and rail, contribute only a small percentage of the overall carbon footprint.  I bet that the visitors have a bigger footprint by the transport they use.

Since I can't drive, yet, I take the train almost everywhere. I also take the bus when I'm going from, for example, Scarborough to Pickering.

 

Getting from A to B would have so much easier back in the 60s...

[billbedford]

9 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

The contrast between to tropical heat in the living room and the chill of the bedrooms was extreme.

 

Yep. I sometimes get all nostalgic for waking to find the windows iced over - on the inside. 

[KingEdwardII]

8 hours ago, billbedford said:

find the windows iced over - on the inside

I think the most memorable thing of that kind for me was waking up to find a snowdrift on the inside windowsill of my bedroom. This was during the harsh winter of 1962/1963 and the sash window of my bedroom had been left open at the top a fraction. The fine powdery snow had quietly blown in during the night. And not melted...

 

Yours, Mike.

[Colin_McLeod]

23 hours ago, Reorte said:

......with city-dwelling youngsters who've never seen a lump of coal in their life.

 

My six year old grandson, who lives in Manchester, visited us recently and that was the first time he had seen turf.

 

Our central heating system is fed from a multifuel stove with boiler.  It uses mainly turf or coal with occasional timber offcuts from build model railway baseboards etc.!

 

 

 

[Reorte]

On 14/06/2022 at 22:34, billbedford said:

 

Yep. I sometimes get all nostalgic for waking to find the windows iced over - on the inside. 

I'm nostalgic for that because the coldest house I've been in, which frequently did get that (and I was surprised my bedside glass of water never iced over) was one we were in when I was at home from university. That meant I had no reason to get up early, which meant someone else had already got the fire going in the kitchen by the time I appeared for breakfast. That was very nice. Less so for my dad I guess.