Jim What would be the most numerous size produced? The size used for home heating? And that would be egg or stove? Would it be safe to say that the large storage yards that most RR had for stock piling coal during the summer months and then reloading it back into RR cars for shipment in the fall and winter was of Stove or Egg? It wouldn't make any sense to separate coal at a breaker and then remix it with a different size at a ground storage facility. I 'm sure there were many of these at various locations on all the Anthacite roads. East Dover and Hampton, PA on the Lackawanna come to mind. Hampton, NJ on the CNJ would be another. Bob Bahrs In a message dated 2/28/2009 2:58:24 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, jguthrie_@_pipeline.com writes: 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 **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1218822736x1201267884/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID %3D62%26bcd%3DfebemailfooterNO62) The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List http://EL-List.railfan.net/ To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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