Coal and its future

Just received this flier from Mole Valley Farmers shop, selling off bags of coal. This will become the norm, if we dont all support the NTET cause.

Question are the premium bags of house coal worth buying for 6 " models?


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house coal clearance

Economy house coal - £6 per bag inc vat - shop now

premium house coal - £7 per bag inc vat - shop offer

shop offers

Can buy proper welsh steam for around £7 a bag if you are OK buying it by the ton.

When ever I've used anything thats said "house" on it has been rather smokey and didnt have anything like the staying power, OK if you want a quick smokey light up but it would have to be considerably cheaper than £6 or £7 a bag (which I suspect are 20kg rather than 25KG)

How much coal would be needed to, for example, getting a 4” into steam and running it for half an hour but not travelling anywhere ?
Thanks !

Thanks for the reply, where did you get the welsh steam coal from?
Also did you have to pick it up or get delivery?

I just thought since the Americans ran their early steam locomotives off timber it might be worth considering if at the right price. I am not their yet with the Foden for its first steaming,
but would like to be prepared.

milford59 wrote:How much coal would be needed to, for example, getting a 4” into steam and running it for half an hour but not travelling anywhere ?
Thanks !

I find my agri will munch through about 2/3 of a bunker of coal from start up and for the first hour once the needle comes off its rest.

Its a tricky one because from cold I can tick over from 20psi with not a lot of fire or coal but then I need to watch the fire like a hawk, where as if I load it up and take her right up to lifting the safeties and get a nice bright fire going it can sit there for an hour without any input or coal.

Often at shows the organisers kindly supply a 25kg bag of coal per day for a 4" engine and generally you'll have some left over at the end of the day depending on what you are doing.
I can do a whole 25kg bag lighting up around 9am running all day, doing a few trips around the arena, maybe a short road run and evening at the beer tent, shutting down around 10:30pm ish.
Of course I do wonder how long the free coal will go on

AlfieMoon wrote:Thanks for the reply, where did you get the welsh steam coal from?
Also did you have to pick it up or get delivery?

I just thought since the Americans ran their early steam locomotives off timber it might be worth considering if at the right price. I am not their yet with the Foden for its first steaming,
but would like to be prepared.

Just google steam coal, there is quite a lot of suppliers out there, some often include delivery in the price.

The few times I've tried wood in the agri its not been a great experience, although it was pretty soft rubbish pallet wood type stuff which had a low calorific value, also it had a nasty habit of exiting the chimney if worked hard, plus it needed continual feeding and was no where near as controllable as decent steam coal. Possibly decent hard wood like oak might be worth having a punt ?