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BBC reporting that heritage railways will run out of coal in 2021

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Titfield

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Any form of emissions is going too come under increasing scrutiny over the next few years. I doubt that Heritage Railways will be able to deflect criticism if they persist in a "we only pollute a little" " we are heritage" line of argument.

Surely given the threat it would be in the interest of Heritage Railways to measure and manage their emissions taking practical steps to reduce or offset them?
 

leytongabriel

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News today that the gov has not intervened against a deep coal mine planned in Cumbria, leaving it to the county council.
 

randyrippley

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The Welsh Government have announced a plan to ban coal burning in home fires. Is this going to affect heritage lines and any possible small scale mining ventures?
Read my old post of a year ago that I linked to above, and the reports it quotes.

Basically the steam railways in the UK survive by piggybacking their needs onto the demand for imported house coal. If the use of coal for home heating is stopped, then importing coal for railway use becomes impractical. The economics would make it impractical.

News today that the gov has not intervened against a deep coal mine planned in Cumbria, leaving it to the county council.
Metallurgical grade coking coal is no use for steam locomotives, so the decision is irrelevant

I'd assume if anything that it will be a positive thing for heritage railways because less demand for coal for burning at home.
It doesn't work that way. Less demand for coal at home means no-one will bother to import it, so nothing for the railway industry at all
 

trebor79

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How much do railways pay for coal, roughly speaking?
And does anybody know what the typical annual demand in the heritage sector is (covid aside)?

I work in a related sector and there are potentially viable alternatives, that still involve a shovel. There would be some grate and perhaps draughting modifications needed, but nothing irreversible or terrifically expensive.
 

Speed43125

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How much do railways pay for coal, roughly speaking?
And does anybody know what the typical annual demand in the heritage sector is (covid aside)?

I work in a related sector and there are potentially viable alternatives, that still involve a shovel. There would be some grate and perhaps draughting modifications needed, but nothing irreversible or terrifically expensive.
I can tell you it's roughly 26,000 tonnes p/a
 

Titfield

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The All Party Parliamentary Group on Heritage Rail issued a report on coal in July 2019.

Go to https://www.hra.uk.com/coal for the report.
UK heritage railways currently use c. 26,000 tonnes of coal each year. There are other, smaller users of coal such as traction engines, road-going steam engines, steam canal boats, historic houses and industrial museums. It is likely the total heritage use is c. 35,000 tonnes. This amounts to a tiny proportion of the c. 12million tonnes annual UK usage of coal.

The future use of bituminous coal by heritage railways and other heritage users – and the future supply of such coal – is now a very significant issue for our sector. This is due to three separate but linked issues:

  1. A potential statutory threat to our ‘right’ or need to burn coal
  2. The probable closure of the two remaining UK mines
  3. The consequential closure of the supply and distribution network
  4. The technical and commercial difficulties of importing consistent and suitable supplies of screened, sized and washed lump coal from around the world
IIRC Heritage Railways have been paying £210 - £250 per tonne.
 
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randyrippley

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The All Party Parliamentary Group on Heritage Rail issued a report on coal in July 2019.

Go to https://www.hra.uk.com/coal for the report.

IIRC Heritage Railways have been paying £210 - £250 per tonne
£250/tonne won't cover the cost of the paperwork to import a lorry of coal, let alone the fuel and shipping overheads.
Or even the cost of the coal.
The economics shift from importing in multi-thousand tonne shiploads in coasters, to importing single 38 tonne trucks by ferry

iI don't know what the breakeven price for importing aggregate materials by truck from Europe would be, but its got to involve something like a 10x price hike
 
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Titfield

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I thought one idea mooted was for a consortium of heritage railways to import xthousand tons of coal by ship to Harwich or somewhere similar and for the consortium members to draw it down (ie take delivery) as and when required.
 

paul1609

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I thought one idea mooted was for a consortium of heritage railways to import xthousand tons of coal by ship to Harwich or somewhere similar and for the consortium members to draw it down (ie take delivery) as and when required.
On the K &ESR we've done that with ballast before. Its come by coastal shipping from Cornwall to Rye, where the harbour company stored it for us. A local haulage company moved it for us outside of their peak periods or as a back load from Rye. We have also imported coal from Poland and Russia in the past but that's always come via importers up country.
 

trebor79

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The All Party Parliamentary Group on Heritage Rail issued a report on coal in July 2019.

Go to https://www.hra.uk.com/coal for the report.

IIRC Heritage Railways have been paying £210 - £250 per tonne.
Interesting report and interesting comments on difficulties with pellet fuels. They don't seem insurmountable - but I can see why there would be issues if you just shovel them onto an unmodified grate.
If I said we could do pellet fuel at a £/GJ competitive (slightly cheaper) than coal would there be interest? Would definitely require modified grates though.
 

Titfield

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Perhaps a way forward would be to convince one heritage railway to carry out a trial with a modified grate?

This would need a high quality project plan to ensure that the basis of the trial and what constituted success was clearly outlined.
 

randyrippley

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Perhaps a way forward would be to convince one heritage railway to carry out a trial with a modified grate?

This would need a high quality project plan to ensure that the basis of the trial and what constituted success was clearly outlined.
The problem is each locomotive would need to be treated as a one-off - with the numerous different designs of grate, firebox, boiler and smokebox in existence, what works on one loco may well not work on another. Almost every one is different.
I suspect every individual loco is going to need research work to discover the needed configuration of firebox and smokebox - to the point where the modded locos won't be representative of the historic reality. And who's got the money to carry out the research and mods on every loco? And who's prepared to compromise the locos historic authenticity?
 
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Titfield

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The problem is each locomotive would need to be treated as a one-off - with the numerous different designs of grate, firebox, boiler and smokebox in existence, what works on one loco may well not work on another. Almost every one is different.
I suspect every individual loco is going to need research work to discover the needed configuration of firebox and smokebox - to the point where the modded locos won't be representative of the historic reality. And who's got the money to carry out the research and mods on every loco? And who's prepared to compromise the locos historic authenticity?

Well HRs have got to come up with a plan as the current methodology is unlikely to work much longer going forward.
 

NSEFAN

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The problem is each locomotive would need to be treated as a one-off - with the numerous different designs of grate, firebox, boiler and smokebox in existence, what works on one loco may well not work on another. Almost every one is different.
I suspect every individual loco is going to need research work to discover the needed configuration of firebox and smokebox - to the point where the modded locos won't be representative of the historic reality. And who's got the money to carry out the research and mods on every loco? And who's prepared to compromise the locos historic authenticity?
For preserved lines with low speeds and lighter loads, I would imagine that lower quality fuel would be acceptable provided the locomotive can get up to sufficient steam to move. On the mainlines where 75mph and 12+ carriage trains are used, fuel quality is probably a much bigger issue for keeping time and not getting stuck.
 

randyrippley

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Well HRs have got to come up with a plan as the current methodology is unlikely to work much longer going forward.
Mothball the steam locos as static museum pieces, and use Pacers on the line, with the marketing priority being given to sightseeing the countryside in comfort, rather than riding old trains
 

randyrippley

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'Pacers' and 'comfort' in the same sentence. Amazing.
In comparison to a scratty old DMU or rustbucket mk1 with ratttly windows then yes, comfort.
The replacement of first-gen DMUs with the Pacer fleet was a major comfort upgrade, just a shame there were so few, resulting in the overcrowding
 

Flying Phil

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Mothball the steam locos as static museum pieces, and use Pacers on the line, with the marketing priority being given to sightseeing the countryside in comfort, rather than riding old trains
Given the number of passengers who actively choose to ride in a steam hauled Mk1 coach, I suspect there will be a steady supply of suitable steam coal for many years to come........true the price may go up slightly, but the cost of coal per passenger is very small.
 

43096

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The answer is to do what BR did in the 1960s and go diesel. Keep the kettles for special occasions if you must...
 

Monty

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In comparison to a scratty old DMU or rustbucket mk1 with ratttly windows then yes, comfort.
The replacement of first-gen DMUs with the Pacer fleet was a major comfort upgrade, just a shame there were so few, resulting in the overcrowding

The answer is to do what BR did in the 1960s and go diesel. Keep the kettles for special occasions if you must...

Kinda defeats the point of railway preservation, and it's not a viable long term solution considering the government want to rid us of diesel and petrol engines asap. The Swanage has been importing coal from Poland and Russia for years now and contrary to popular belief you can get high quality anthracite coal from the east.
 

Darandio

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Kinda defeats the point of railway preservation, and it's not a viable long term solution considering the government want to rid us of diesel and petrol engines asap. The Swanage has been importing coal from Poland and Russia for years now and contrary to popular belief you can get high quality anthracite coal from the east.

That's a strange outlook, it's as though importing coal from overseas and burning it in a steam train is so much more clean and efficient........
 

Titfield

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Oh the irony. Swanage imports coal, thus resulting in bigger emissions which contribute to global warming. Global warming leads to rising sea levels and flooding which Swanage and the railway has suffered from in the recent past.
 

Flying Phil

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If we are to blame (In part) heritage Railways for global warming, is there not a counter argument that the steam emission (white when condensed) causes greater reflectivity on earth and less solar warming?
 

43096

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If we are to blame (In part) heritage Railways for global warming, is there not a counter argument that the steam emission (white when condensed) causes greater reflectivity on earth and less solar warming?
Let’s be honest, the contribution of heritage railways to climate change is so infinitesimally small as to be an utter irrelevance.
 

Flying Phil

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Would you make this argument for coal fired power stations? :D
No, because coal fired power stations recycle the water that is boiled. The cooling towers are just to cool the condenser water. My comment was meant to be tongue in the cheek though - always difficult on-line......
 

paul1609

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For preserved lines with low speeds and lighter loads, I would imagine that lower quality fuel would be acceptable provided the locomotive can get up to sufficient steam to move. On the mainlines where 75mph and 12+ carriage trains are used, fuel quality is probably a much bigger issue for keeping time and not getting stuck.
Unfortunately thats not true. On my line K&ESR and others NYMR, Tanfield etc the locos are working at close to 100% of their capacity. Some of our historic locos such as the Terriers and P Class are limited to 2 MK1 coaches or equivalent on Tenterden Bank. If you reduced that any further to use an alternative fuel they would not be able to haul enough passengers to earn their upkeep.

Very true. It's like going after Scout campfires while at the same time doing nothing about road vehicles.
I was reading an article the other day which suggested that in homes that are using natural gas for cooking. The atmosphere exceeds the legal limit for NOx and PM 2.5 on roads!
 
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