N&W in 1907 -- Lump Coal

[NW Mailing List]

Coal used to be sold by its various grades - Lump, egg, stove, nut, pea, stoker, industrial stoker (1957 classifications).  Lump used to bring the highest price per ton and the slack or fine coal was used in the coke ovens.

In 1907 lump coal would have been prized for both industrial and maritime use.  Other grades would have been used in home heating.  The challenge to the southern West Virginia bituminous coal field, and the pocahontas coal field in particular, was the coal was very soft and broke easily.  This was fine for a metallurgical use in coke ovens, but difficult when trying to break into the steam coal market.  Pocahontas coalfields had to pick through or screen the coal to get lump coal.  The competition was the hard anthracite coal that had to be broken up to suitable sizes (hence the term breaker from the Pennsylvania coalfields).

The Pocahontas coal sales agency spent a lot of time convincing buyers on the quality of Pocahontas coal and sent its inspectors to the mines to ensure that a grade of coal being loaded in a hopper contained the required sizes of coal.  If the hopper did not the coal inspector could require the car be reloaded or lumps added(much to the disgust of the mine foreman).  The Pocahontas coal sales agency also developed proper firing techniques for the soft coal to show that run of mine Pocahontas coal burned just as well as anthracite lumps.  Eventually Pocahontas coal became known as the Navy standard.

The name Pocahontas Coal became such a valuable commodity that the region and mines entitled to sell their product as Pocahontas Coal was defined by a US Supreme Court decision and affirmed by another federal court case as... a certain definite territory which includes portions of McDowell, Mercer, and Wyoming Counties, WV and of Tazewell County, VA, and is the territory served by the N&W by its main line and branch lines between Flat Top Yard and Iaeger, WV, and by its Dry Fork line from Iaeger,WV to Cedar Bluff, VA; and that territory served by the Virginian RR, main line from Clark's Gap to Maben and on its branch line from Mullens to Stone Coal Creek.  

Today's coal is mainly used for power plants or metalurgical use and is normally crushed to a fine coal.

Alex Schust

--- Original Message ----- 
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  Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 4:24 PM
  Subject: N&W in 1907 -- Lump Coal


  In and About the Town
  ------
      Flagman K. T. Hurt was crippled on the yard yesterday, having his foot quite severely mashed by a large lump of coal falling on it.

  Bluefield Daily Telegraph
  May 9, 1907

  [Old pictures show that the coal in many cars of those times was in large lumps as opposed to the almost universal loads of fine coal today.]

  Gordon Hamilton


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