Re: Coal

James Wrote:
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> Hard coal was never a large proportion of coal
> reserves and I imagine most of it available in the
> U.S. (at least the easily reached stuff) has long
> since been mined.

Actually there's quite lot of it left, there just isn't a market for it.
Anthracite, in the US, was used mostly for heating. The market collapsed
in the late 30's and on into the early 50's. Hence the death of O&W and the weakness of the other "anthracite roads' (DL&W, RDG, LV) that wound up with them joining PC in Conrail. Not to mention hard times in the mining regions.

There's still a lot of anthracite near Crested Butte too.

hank