(erielack) Notes on the Types and sizes of Anthracite

["Jim Guthrie" <jguthrie_@_pipeline.com>]

After one of my earlier posts, I was asked off-list about my remarks on the 
different types and sizes of anthracite -- and that anthracite is not 
fungible -- i.e. there were different kinds and sizes that were all shipped 
in separate hoppers (and bags in boxcars).
Here's a summary:

1. Trade Regions: There were three major trade regions for anthracite --  
Wyoming, Lehigh and Schuylkill. Marketing often made attempt to separate 
snthacite by region. The regions were further subdivided viz Carbondale, 
Scranton, Pittston, Wilkes Barre, Kingston and Plymouth in the 
Northern/Wyoming field; Green Mountain, Balck Creek, Hazleton, Beaver Meadow 
and Panther Creek sold as Lehigh Coal; Eastern Schuylkill, Western 
Schuylkill, lorberry, Lykens Valley, East Mahanoym West Mahanoy and Shamokin 
in the Schuykill region. Further confusing the issue is that the Schuylkill 
and Lehigh regions are really divided differently geologically.

To add to the confusion, railroads like the DL&W and the D&H -- serving 
essentially the same areas, sold Scranton Coal and Lackawanna Coal, 
respectively. And although Pittston Coal had a specific name, the Erie 
broadnened the definition to include all its anthracite. The Reading, Lehigh 
Valley, CNJ and PRR served two or more regions; the Lehigh Coal and 
Navigation served one region but some was shipped via the CNJ and later on 
the L&NE and, for a time, on the NYS&W.

And this is before marketing product differentiation gimmicks such as 
tinitng the coal (Blue - DL&W, Red-Reading,Silver-D&H, and for the 
ever-thrifty Erie - basic Black (indeed the Erie advertised that its 
anthracite was Black while the others were adding tints).

Some railroads sold anthracite as to sub locations or specific mines -- the 
NYS&W sold "Jermyn Coal" as did the Erie after 1901, for example.

2. Grades of anthracite -- anthracite had different burning characteristics 
beyond the marketing regions of the source:. Among the common types:

Free Burning White Ash
Hard White Ash
Red Ash
Shamokin
Schuylkill Red Ash
Lorberry
Lykens Valley

These different "grades" -- obviously relating to location in the case of 
Lykens and Lorberry -- were also marketed separately -- so the DL&W might 
market "Scranton Free Burning White Ash" as well as "Scranton Red Ash" in 
different situations. And CNJ might add "WIlkes Barre and "Lehigh,"  for 
example.

These grade should not be confused with the different veins of anthracite 
mined -- where digging straight down in Scranton, one might encounter the 
Dunmore #1 Vein, the Sunmore #2 vein, the Red Ash Vein, and the Marcy Vein 
at different levels and different thicknesses, with specific characteristics 
of that mine, including percentage of bone and slate found in the 
anthracite.

3. There were at different common sizes of anthracite -- minimum size up to 
the previous size in each case:

Lump -- >4"
Broken -- >=2 3/4"
Egg -- >=2"
Stove -- >=1 3/8"
Chestnut >=3/4"
Pea -- >=1/2"
Buckwheat -- >=1/4"
Rice -- >1/8"
Barley -- smaller
Dust -- even smaller

Sometimes the smaller sizes like Barley and Rice were counted at Buckwheat 
#3 and Buckwheat #2. Each size generally had different uses -- the Larger 
sizes like lump were often used in industry -- making steam, electricity and 
the like. Some sizes were best for certain kinds of industrial heating --  
like stove coal for industrial furnaces. Even smaller sizes might be used in 
homes in stoves for cooking, and in furnaces for hot water and home heating.

The implication in operations would be that each kind of anthracite -- say, 
Scranton+Free Burning White Ash+Stove would be shipped in a separate hopper 
car. A colliery might load several different grades/sizes from the breaker 
each day. And each carand its specific characteristics would have to be 
tracked, and then classified along the line for delivery to the customer (or 
to a boat at tidewater) in the right order or of the right kind.

So -- if you are a modeler doing anthracite c WWI (you get to use all those 
Camelbacks <g>) and, say, Little Ferry-Edgewater, you might have trains off 
the Erie, the NYS&W, the L&NE and from the storage yard at Coalberg. Each 
might be mixed -- and your job is to sort those trains into strings of cars 
to be ent to the dumper in the right order by source/tradename, 
characteristic and size . . . useally in different trains after 
classification to the dumper. And then there would be individual cars 
plunked out of the line for local line trade as well.

So -- anthracite is not a fungible product -- it was differentiated in many 
ways, and railroad operations were conducted accordingly.

This is admittedly somethng of a simplification, and I'm sure I've missed 
some categories and sub categories. A should hasten to add that the 
bituminous people attempted the same thing -- but one has to keep in mind 
that much of the marketing/product differentiation went away once the home 
heating market disappeared.

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie
ELHS #1296


	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	http://EL-List.railfan.net/
	To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html

------------------------------