Coal Age Magazine - For nearly 100 years, Coal Age has been the magazine that readers can trust for guidance and insight on this important industry.
Issue link: https://coal.epubxp.com/i/82345
1940-1949 themselves. All time production heights came during World War I when anthracite miners won more than 99.6 million tons out of the ground in 1917. But less than a gener- ation later, at the bottom of the Great Depression, production was down 50%. World War II, however, brought anoth- er surge. In 1944, anthracite hit a modern high pulling 63.7 million tons out that year. With that momentum carrying over into the next year, the industry was start- ing to dream big again when Coal Age reported that "more than 6 million cus- tomers in 17 states burn it in anything from stoker-fired boilers to hand-fired pots." Yet the writing was on the wall— the editors merely read it well. "The ques- tion remains, will those customers continue to burn it in equal or greater quantities after the war, when competi- tive fuels will be more available, when new and better equipment begins to flood the market, when every customer's cellar becomes a potential battleground among anthracite, other solid fuels, oil and gas?" The answer, sadly, was no. Though the coal industry as a whole lost ground after the war, by 1948, anthracite was stilling holding its own producing back-to-back 57 million tons years. But in 1949, anthracite took its first big step in its long slow demise. Production fell to just 42.7 million tons. That downward trend would accelerate rapidly through the 1950s due to the cul- prits listed above—and more. To add insult to injury, some of the first railroads to com- pletely convert from steam locomotives and "dieselize" were traditional anthracite consumers and carriers. Despite labor peace, lower production costs and better equipment, nothing could help. Those 6 million consumers just didn't purchase anthracite anymore. A decade later in 1959, those same eight counties produced only 20.6 million tons—and falling. *Coal Age, September 1944 92 www.coalage.com Diesel Locomotives & the Beginning of the End of the Iron Horse Beginning just before the war, oil had real- ly begun to make deep inroads into coal's traditional markets. No industry was more tempted to switch over than the railroads. Ironically, the iron horse had been, for gen- erations, coal's biggest customer. Indeed, many—including past Coal Age editors— had argued that the much smaller coal industry had really served as just the fuel subsidiary of the railroad colossus itself. By 1940, new diesel locomotives were begin- ning to win favor. First as switching engines, then on mainline passenger trains, both the public and the railroads were seemingly fascinated by internal combustion. General Motors purchased the first major domestic diesel-locomotive manufacturer and started a nationwide campaign promoting the technology. Only the war and diversion of those diesel engines into submarines and Liberty ships would slow delivery to the railroads. Looking at the history of diesel locomotive usage in the September 1944 issue, Coal Age ran a piece titled "The Iron Horse: Coal's Big Market Problem." Coal's future as a locomotive fuel, the editors stated, "depends upon progres- sive thinking and general sup- port of research into improved steam-locomotive design, how- ever, the diesel has captured popular fancy and diesel manu- facturers have sounded the them over and over again that diesel power is the modern power." In 1942, there were only 1,667 diesel locomotives in service, more than 60% con- fined to switching duties against roughly 40,000 steam engines. In 1943, the railroads ordered 442 steam engines against 612 diesels, and that trend did not stop through the war or afterward. 100th Anniversary Special Issue Though 20% of the bituminous mined in 1943 went to the largest railroads, coal was down to 81.8% of overall railroad transporta- tion fuel and falling. "There is no longer any question whether or not there is a trend to the diesel. It is now, in the opinion of many, a question of whether the trend can be stopped. There is obviously no danger of los- ing the entire railroad market overnight—or ever, for that matter. There are roads that will continue to use steam and would not be found dead in the same roundhouse with a diesel. Unfortunately, their motive is more one of coal traffic than of relative steam or diesel efficiency." The problem was that, even though diesels were 250% more expensive than steam engines, "according to its supporters, diesels do more than two and a half times the work and it does it cheaper." Experimental steam and gas turbine loco- motives were trotted out by the end of the decade, but, by then thousands of shiny new diesels were taking over crack passenger and crack freight trains. With coal supplies fre- quently interrupted as well, many rail lines started putting their older locomotives on deadlines. Throughout the decade, stories written by executives of the Hanna and Consolidated Coal Cos., would lament the losses and openly worry about the long-term impact of the loss of railroad customers. Borrowing from Benjamin Franklin's famous quote, "If we don't hang together, we'll hang separately," R.L. Ireland, presi- dent of Hanna, stated that coal producers need to change both their merchandising attitude and provide railroads with a better, more consistent product if they plan on keeping them as customers going forward. "Too often in the past coal mines have sold the carriers coal that ill-suited their needs. With the excuse of keeping revenue traffic moving, surplus merchandise sizes have been foisted on railroad purchasing agents…Those agents have long memories," he wrote in the April 1947 issue. In October 1946, assistant editor W.A. Stanbury Jr. penned a long piece on the future of the gas-turbine locomotive pre- dicting the new technology could prove a game-changer. Expected at the time to undergo on-the-rail testing by June 1, 1948, two types of gas turbines were, at the time, being developed by a consortium including the three major steam locomotive builders, the Battelle Memorial Institute and several other research groups. Though in 1949 sev- eral heavy coal burning eastern lines, including the Norfolk & Western and Chesapeake & Ohio would order new August 2012