The hesperus mine interestingly offers a product as close to the
steam "nut" coal as you can find anywhere in the west. BTU per
ton I believe runs around 13 to 14,000 ,which is very good.The
coal is almost dust free when it arrives at the "bin".
Also an interesting note "Golden Spike" NHS now buys there coal
from king coal at Hesperus. When I was at GOSP we purchased our
coal from many mines in Utah to begin with when we converted
the 119 to coal from oil. I was in charge of purchasing fuel
there and the last mine I bought coal from from was a dutch
company Andalax near Huntington. The problem with all Utah
coal is not the quality it's the size. Utah coal is usually
very high quality High BTU. But you can only buy "lump" or
"stoker". Lump is basicly fireplace or stove coal and stoker
is generally power plant grade coal. Richard Carroll who was
CMO at GOSP now Facilties Manager told me that even ANDALX
stoped producing lump and only made stoker.
We had to break up all our coal from "basket ball" amd larger
to fist size which is the size of the old nut coal.
Stoker coal runs from 1" to 3" maximum. we tryed it, Nevada
Northern tried it and when I worked at "Heber" we had to mix
it when the old Hiawatha mine closed.But it burns up very
fast and you wind up shoveling more coal per trip than you
want to.The Hiawatha mine actually "cut"
locomotive nut coal!! I believe Heber Valley still cuts
their own coal with an old rock crusher they bought for that
purpose years ago. They buy their coal from the "Co -Op "mine
in lump size ,which is full of "Rozen" which is like five
of oil per piece of coal,in other words it is full of smoke!
Makes the fire drum badly when starting a fire! It is very hot
though.
We tried it, it's nut size but very pricey It has to go from the
mine to heber by truck then unloaded then re cut to nut size
and re loaded on truck and shiped to say GOSP. Nevada Northern
still buys it from heber I believe.Richard at GOSP told me that
even the distance it has to travel the Hesperus coal was the best
buy per ton. Steam Locomotive fuel even oil in the west is pricey.
And is also in short supply , hard to find.John Hillier who has
worked a lot of roads on the east coast and is also a C&TS
engineer and fireman this season said that nut coal is
plentyfull on the east coast.
