Let’s say you are a coal dealer in Iowa. Don’t think there are any mines out there. That coal comes from somewhere. Besides long term contracts that see a weekly or bi weekly delivery, how was that done? Not by coal car either. I mean the ordering supply side. It would take a long while to send in an order letter. The only methods at the time. It would take way to long especially in winter when the owner might need say an increase in shipments. We’re there regional distributors? Places that ordered direct from the mines in coal belt, then distributed locally to dealers as they needed? Walters blue coal kit comes to mind as more of a regional distributor. So many places were thousands of miles from a mine and a local distributor for the local dealers makes more sense 5an the dealer contacting a mine directly thousand plus miles away by mail. Was there really a distribution network? Seams to be part of railroading that doesn’t get mentioned for small layouts
You forget that every town that had a coal dealer had a railroad station and a telrgraph operator - think Western Union. So any distributor could be contacted in hours.
You also wouldn’t be dealing with the mine anyhow. It isn’t like you talk to the guy who owns the well pad over on Jefferson Road when you’re buying natural gas. You’d be talking to the regional sales office in Des Moines or Chicago from Consolidated Pennsylvania (to make up a name) like any other product you were buying for resale.
There were coal mines in Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois.
You are talking about small amounts, less than 10 tons? They would be delivered by wagon. Or truck. You don’t say what era.
You are then talking about the 1850’s or earlier. In that era there wouldn’t be that many railroads either, so moot point.
The telgraph was common by the 1850’s-1860’s, and telephones were available in the 1890’s.
That’s what most coal yards were. If you are modeling a coal yard, that’s basically what you have. The retail coal yard orders coal form the coal company (not a “mine”), and the coal is shipped to the coal yard by rail, then the consumers buy coal from the coal yard in smaller amount hundreds of pounds to several tons. If you are buying small quantities of coal, you are buying it from the coal yard, not from the mining co.
Most big companies in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s had telegraphic codes for ordering things. If you wanted 50 tons of egg coal, you would telegraph the coal company “Edgar” (as an example), if you wanted 100 tons of egg you would telegraph “Edward”. If you wanted 500 tons of buckwheat size, you might telegraph “Butterdish”. Since telegrams are charged by the word the customer could send their name and a couple words and put in a telegraphic order.
how would this be different than in the days before RRs when coal was moved thru canals. the delaware & raritan canal in NJ provided a route from philadelphia thru trenton to New York. The Reading Coal Company existed before the RR moved coal from the coal mine regions down canals to Philadelphia
You might have toask that on the “Model Canaler” magazine forum.
Obviously the distribution where there wasn’t canals or railroads would have to be by wagons.
A lot of industry not located by canals or railroads used wood or charcoal (produced locally), or had a coal mine nearby. Here is a link to an iron furnace not by a canal and predating railroads :
Actually, in West Virginia, at least, the mines shut down for the month of August for annual maintenance. The miners were either furloughed or employed in said maintenance. The Virginian Railway took advantage of the annual shutdown to maintain its right of way, facilities, locomotives and rolling stock after another year of hard use.
Burlington used its 2-10-2 Santa Fe’s and 2-10-4 Colorados in Illinois
Chicago and Illinois Midland - owned from 1907 to 1987 by Commowealth Edison to haul steam coal from southertn Illinois to to its power plants - was fanous for a fleet of Ex-Wabash and ACL 2-10-2’s
The IC hauled vast quantities of coal north from southetn Illinois behind its 4-8-2’s and 2-10-2’s
[quote user=“dehusman”]
telephones were available in the 1890’s.[/quote
Although land line service coast to coast was accomplished in January, 1915, long distance telephone was very much an exotic luxury item (much cheaper to telegraph) "On January 25, 1915, inside the Jekyll Island Clubhouse, joined by J P Morgan and William Rockefeller, Vail participated in the first coast-to-coast conference call.
The call included President Woodrow Wilson" - Vail was president of AT&T and he had ordered the 1100 miles specially strung copper wire to accomplish what was essetially a stunt.
It wasn’t until AT&T Long Lines opened its microwave network that a true national system began operating.
"The first coast-to-coast telephone call was made August 17, 1951, usng the Long Lines &m
True. But you don’t need coast to coast phone service. If a small, coal dealer is going to order coal, they aren’t going to call a mine in W Virginia, they are going to call a representative for coal company, probably in their region, and order coal. The coal dealers didn’t deal with the mines directly, they dealt with the mining companies. A mining company cold have dozens of mines.
My original thought was on local coal dealer for consumer use for heat cooking and such. Not industry. The era I was thinking was basically any in that period when coal was the prime fuel source. And areas outside mine accessible regions. Did it go through distributors or something more direct and the ordering process. Like what happened if an extra hard cold spell hit, draining the dealers supply much faster than contract delivery would fill stocks up. How would extra loads be ordered with a reasonable response time. I forgot about the telegraph. If there were regional distributors for the local sellers, how did that work? A forgotten aspect that could be done on small layouts in place of a mine scene?
My mother worked for a coal dealer in Toledo, OH. When they quit the coal business she brought me home a notebook from the N&W where they ordered their coal from with the different size coals and cars that they could order from. Many of the mines were affiliated with the railroads which is why they would order from the railroad and nit the mining company.
Also by the way i have a detailed map of The Toledo Terminal Railroad and there are like 15 coal dealers that they serviced just on that small railroad just think how many were serviced all over the country.
several coal trains run through cumberland, md every day. i’m told some goal to balitmore where the coal i shipped to china. but another trains supplies a power plant in carolina
i’m told there are 4 trains for each destination: being loaded, carrying coal, being unloaded, carrying emties
i’ll guess the power plant demands vary as well. do they just add a few more cars when they think they need it?
i’d guess local fuel distributed have enough experience to know how much fuel to order during the course of the year
ironcially, the coal fired Warrior Run power plant in Cumberland uses trucks to carry coal in and the same trucks to carry ash out, even though it is very close to the cumberland RR yard
are you suggesting that in the days when coal was primarily used for heating that mines worked less in the summer and more in the winter? that there were fewer coal trains in the summer months?
would there be more fruit trains in the late summer? where would those cars be stored until needed?
should operating session trains vary with the time of year?
Large manufacturers and distributors, as well as railroads, have sale agents who (actually in the past, in theory today) regularly communicate with their customers. If a coal dealer was selling more than expected, they knew exactly who to contact.
I would also guess that the regional offices for the coal companies could redirect loads for immediate needs, and would likely keep an eye on the weather report and get extras coming ahead of time if it looked like the need might be there. If they got in too many, they would sit in a railyard until needed, which likely wouldn’t be long as they could reduce their next inbound orders by whatever amount they had extra sitting in a yard.
I think what you are asking is, where there coal storage locations on a regional basis that would distribute coal down the chain? The mine sends coal to a regional storage location and then the coal is shipped out of a regional storag location to the customer.
Short answer is no. The coal is shipped form a mine or storage location near the mine to the customer.
You have to remember that the companies would try to keep an inventory on hand to cover those contingencies. If it took a week to order coal and get it delivered, then the dealer might keep two week’s worth of coal (or more) on hand as a cushion. Power plants are supposed to keep a 30 day supply of coal on hand.
If an extra hard cold spell hit, they ould use the cushion to cover the needs and the extra they would order would be to replenish the cushion. “Just in Time” delivery was not a thing in the coal age. You weren’t ordering coal for tomorrow or next week, you were ordering coal for next month.
Even in this modern world the power plants would put out monthly tonnage requirements/plans, if a heat wave comes along and they burn more coal, the surge would be covered by the reserve and then replenished in the next month’s plan.
(I see Dave posted while I working on this with a lot of the same comments, but since I’ve already done it I’ll post it anyway. Great minds think alike! [;)] )
One thing to keep in mind is coal is a mineral, basically rock. It doesn’t spoil. Coal dealers - whether a local seller (which in small towns was often the local grain elevator company) or a regional distributor, could stockpile huge amounts of coal. It’s wouldn’t be like an automobile plant’s “just in time” scheduling.
To amplify what others have said above, I don’t think anywhere in the continental US is “thousands of miles” away from a coal source. It wasn’t like in 1910 you only had Appalachian coal that had to be moved throughout the country. As mentioned, there is coal in Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana that an Iowa coal distributor would have access to. Northern Pacific steam engines used coal from North Dakota and Montana mines.
Keep in mind too that coal was shipped by lake boat on the Great Lakes.
Just a few days ago I watched a YouTube video of the Toledo coal docks unloading hoppers. Even though it was built in the 40s, it’s still in operation. Behind the unloading dock is a giant pile of coal in reserve in case of a shutdown or labor strike or anything else to stem the supply. The reserve pile could easily fill several Great lakes ore boats.
My career in the mining industry has taught me that the large piles are better than money in the bank. No spoilage and the price never decreases. My boss once said, " You see a pile of rocks. I see dollar signs." The more you handle it the more expensive it becomes. There’s a lot of subtle things that most people will miss when looking at mineral piles. Graded or sized material will be piled differently. Better to put ungraded or the largest size material in the middle. That way any spilled smaller sized material could be pushed into the larger size piles. Not every inch and a half rock is the same. It’s always inch and a half minus. But a majority will be inch and a half. Same with coal. Egg size minus. You will always have some small bits, either broken from or leakage through the screens.
When I was a child living in central Maryland, the oil company that delivered our heating oil also still sold coal. We are talking late 1960’s.
Their yard was located right along the tracks of the Baltimore and Annapolis RR, about 10 miles south of Baltimore. The oil company had a siding with a coal trestle for hoppers and unloading facilities for tank cars that delivered petroleum products.
They received deliveries by rail until the railroad shut down. By that time they had stopped selling coal.
It was the real life version of the classic small town coal and oil dealer.
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