Hanging In There

There is a coal dealer of the kind you speak of in Akron Ohio that is still in business to this day. Church Coal on Tripplet Blvd. I entered the science fair in 8th grade with an idea about how to better mine coal from open pit. The guys at Church Coal supplied the materials and coal information needed for me to build the display model. I didn't win the science fair but I sure learned a lot about coal. I doubt much has changed at Church Coal since 1950. If you are ever in the area your could get some modeling photos.

On Google maps you can see the spur where the AC&Y spotted 55 ton hoppers. I assume the W&LE is still doing the same today.

Map

Coal

In my research of the RDG line between Reading and Wilmington, of the towns on line only Wilmington had a gas plant, and it was rail served.

I would suspect that the coal for the gas plant would not be co-located with a retail dealer.

Coal in the summer would be used for any process that required heat or steam:  cooking, steam operated machinery, steam operated pumps, cleaning, metal processing, etc.  Industrial uses of coal would continue year round.  So if I had a chair making factory that used steam to heat the wood to bend it, I would need coal all year.  If I had a factory that had steam powered pumps to circulate water through my industrial process, I would need coal all year round.  If I had coal fired ovens in my bakery, I would need coal all year round.  If I had a plant that needed to heat the feedstocks to get them to flow (sulphur, tar, molasses), I would need coal all year round.

Would those businesses you mention go to the coal dealer?

Thanks for the list of ideas Dave.  But my question is, woudln't their demand for coal be more than the coal dealer could handle, and those businesses would have the coal delivered by rail to them?  Or was their demand small to moderate where they would say get a truck load or two from the coal dealer, but not enough for direct delivery?

Does anyone have any resources/articles/etc that could provide information as to not the actual model of a coal dealer (i've seen a few of them) but to give the background info on how they operated in terms of demand for coal year round, how much coal was delivered on a daily/weekly basis etc.  I first wanted to put in coal dealers on the P&A layout, but then realized they might not need to be served in the summer since people wouldn't be using coal to as a fuel source to heat their homes during the summer in western PA.  If I had a better understanding on what kind of customers the Coal Dealers had that would need coal in the summer months (the time of year I am modeling) it would help not only justify having them on the layout, but figuring out how often they would receive coal deliveries, and how much. 

Ken L.

Summer Coal

Ken,

Some business that may need coal that time of year from dealers could include institutions (schools, govt offices) which would burn small quantities of coal to heat water, as they may not have switched to gas or electric water heaters. (Did they even have these back then?). Small foundries may also fall into this group as well as small industries using steam powered equipment. However the latter might just be beginning to switch over to other sources of power.

Larger industries that may receive a carload a week may include lime, cement and glass manufacturers. Most foundries are likely receiving coke, so if you have several local foundries, it may not be unlikely that the coal dealer also handles coke. I vaguely remember that coke was also used in heating in place of coal.

A group I belong to may be able to help:  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BlackDiamond/   Most of the discussion tend to be about modern operations from a business viewpoint, but modelers are also welcome.

Stogie

Coal volume

Thanks for the list of ideas Dave.  But my question is, woudln't their demand for coal be more than the coal dealer could handle, and those businesses would have the coal delivered by rail to them?  Or was their demand small to moderate where they would say get a truck load or two from the coal dealer, but not enough for direct delivery?

Think about the implications of this.  If the only way a business can get coal is by rail then that means ALL industry has to be next to the tracks and NO industry would be off the tracks.

Of course we know this is not true.  There were businesses not located next to the tracks. 

Go to the HABS-HAER site and search for "bakery".  The majority are small buildings in towns, not rail served.

If coal dealers only sold coal 5 months out of the year, how did they stay in business?

Rather than try and figure out the economic model, why don't you get some railroad customer lists for a railroad in Pennsylvania and see that there are in fact dozens of coal dealers out there and model coal dealers.  Then just keep them at 50% of capacity to account for the lack of demand for heating purposes.

Coal

I can speak for one city I use to live in. Holyoke, MA. There was a private company that received coal for supplying coal to various business, homes and apartment blocks that used coal for heating/cooking. They would grade the coal as some were using a "modern coal burner". Pea size coal that was fed into the burner area automaticlly similar to peller furnaces today. Just fill the hopper.

tinyurl.com/3n4fue9

The city had a dam for water power, steam heat for factories and another facility that was for gasification.

tinyurl.com/3nxx6s6

Springfield MA and Northampton MA also had the same.

To my knowledge, coal distributors were privately owned.

Coal gasification was town/city owned.

Do some Google searches for what might be a town/city in you railroad.

No doubt both had different suppliers and sources for the type of coal needed.

For some years I lived in a small town in southern Maryland, 4,000 people and the house had a cellar with coal chute.

A railroad went through town and there was barge service from Chesapeake Bay. Do not know what kind of delivery they had.

This thread has inspired me to do a lot of searching for this issue.

Rich