Domestic coal onesy-twosy

[NW Mailing List]

I will just add, as a followup to the fine analysis of coal that Alex
outlined, that my grandfather was very successful as a coal salesman
because he knew coal combustion in his markets (commercial and household
steam boilers; he did not call on the big electric generating companies) as
well, if not better than anyone in his territory. I received many lessons,
which I will admit bored me to tears, about coal combustion. He was able to
look at the grate, the ash, and the stack emissions and tell whether the
coal was burning efficiently. From that he made recommendations about
operations and the coal composition. Every steam plant had its own
characteristics.

And a real sidelight, in a book I did on the N&W there are photos taken by
August Thieme high in the rotary dumpers at Lamberts Point. Thieme was a
chemist with an engineering firm and was retained by a coal broker to do
chemical analyses of export coal to confirm client specs before loading in
ships. (He did the analyses in the yard, not in the dumpers!) Those slides
are now in the Archives.

Bill McClure
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