Oil was considered a luxury at the time, If you ever see basements built before 1960 and earlier, you might find signs of coal bunkers etc inside the actual foundation of the basement. We had oil in ours but coal would not have been too difficult given the right equiptment.
Gas was also in existance, particularly near older cities like Baltimore.
Be careful here. Manufactured gas would have been available in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, but it was mainly used for lighting, not heating. Natural gas would have become available much later, say the 1940’s.
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One of the industries south of town was Standard Oil. I’m not sure what they did then, but there are tons of gas wells here now.
If you look a round on the old Sanborne maps say for around 1910, the Old Dog would guess that you will find a gas works near Indiana. They used to take “fat” coal and heat it to release they gas. While coke was a by-product, it was not suitable for metal making. Coal tar was also a by-product which could be distilled to get creosote. The gas was expensive and limited in heat value, hence hot suitable for heating. The invention of the “mantel” like is now used in gasoline lanterns increased the light output. The gas works was usually a seperate utility not owned by an oil company. That is way the gasholders that you see in your LHS lettered for oil companies are something of a joke. Interesting structures, but they should be lettered for the local gas company.
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Im trying to be, I do recall street lights run by gas in the WW1 era from history books. In fact I think it was shipping that changed over from Coal to Oil and then the homes did the same. Only later did electricity or gas (Or solar etc) come into play for heating.
Our house was built in 1939 and had coal up until about 1963 according to my Dad, when we switched to gas.
Looking at the ads for late '50s/early '60s Beaver Falls, there looked to be about as many coal dealers as oil dealers in the directories, but gas was well in place at the time. I would’ve thought there’d be almost no coal by then. In any case, there was enough to warrant selling it on my layout!
My grandparents lived out in a relatively rural area and had oil heat and LP gas for cooking.
KL
Dog,
I gave my research to a member of my old club who wanted to add an Indiana Branch to the club layout. It turns out that he was born in 1938 and played in the streets around the railroad in Indiana. I thought he had moved here much later in life as he was a professor at IUP.
The automobile unloading dock was the center track like you suggested and it was an end unloading ramp.
He also said the coal was only the very end of the trestle and the front end of that spur was used to offload paper to the Indiana Gazette.
He confirms that trains did indeed back in, but there was not a dedicated switcher. The road engines did all the switching. I figure, I’ll let my S1s do the work anyway. There were other little things like what building did what and where they stashed the cabin. But he was a wealth of info. I’m going to cash in on that resource.
Now if I can only get some pictures.
Manufactured gas, also known as Producer Gas, is made by passing steam through ovens filled with burning coke. It starts with fresh air being blown into the coke. When the coke is red hot, the air is switched off and steam is passed through the bulk which yields a mixture of hydrogen, CO, and CO2. This gas was collected in inverted (open bottomed) bells or drums that were immersed in pools of water. As the gas collected in the drums, the drums rose out of the water, and as the gas was used up, the drums fell, thus providing a steady pressure to the distrubution system.
Homes used the gas for lighting and for cooking. The expression “taking the gas” was the term for the popular form of suicide during those times. I’ll leave the idea up to your imagination.
This is a bit of an aside, but I found the idea interesting.
When the Old Dog saw the farmer equipment deater, it suspected there would be an end loading ramp around somewhere to unload farm machinery
If the local auto dealers were served, there would be a side unloading ramp around somewhere.
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