Coal Fired Steamship Question

[Guest]

Up until the mid-60s, much of the coal used for home heating in the Eastern US was Anthracite, which burned "cleaner" than say coal from Indiana or Ohio. There used to be a thriving trade across Lake Ontario from Rochester and Geneva with anthracite coal to Canadian cities.

And coal used to have the nickname in the railroading industry, "black diamonds".

- Brian

[BigRiver]

Grew up the Soo in the 1960s, when everyone burned coal. On cold mornings walking to school the air would be tinged with the smell of coal smoke. When I ride the Badger and smell the coal smoke it really takes me back.

[Pete in Holland MI]

I'm too young to remember any affects of neighborhoods burning coal for heat, but would have to assume that there was a haze in the air. A coal furnace had a constant fire, and am sure many were not run at their utmost efficencies. Most older houses, out back somewhere, would be remnants of the ash & klinkers in the ground someplace. I do remember being at my grandma's house in the mid-60's, watching her shovel some coal into the stoker in her basement.

Yes, most coal burning ships used to eject their ash over the side. And yes, the Badger did that up till a few years ago. She now has a large ash retention system and it is emptied at the dock in Ludington. The lakes were treated differently back then, but things have changed. Some people were all up in arms of the Badger's actions, but I doubt that you'd find a mountain ridge between Ludington and Manitowoc of ash form the numerous steamers that ran that route for 100 years. Yet......most of us send out a large container of trash every week to a land fill, which, are growing mountains of trash that dot the landscape. They only seem to be growing, and it doesn't seem to bother people. We're all contributing to that pollution of the land scape.

[Guest]

Didn't older steamers eject the coal ash directly into the lakes?

[Guest]

Being to young to remember but in large urban centres like Chicago or Detroit Cleveland Toronto etc that heated homes with coal 60+ yrs ago in a real cold snap like we are experiencing would the air be clouded by all the coal being burnt?

[Pete in Holland MI]

Firing a locomotive or steam engine with coal takes a lot of experience to get the best yield of the fire. There is a saying "fire little.....fire often" when burning coal. I own a steam tractor and have first hand knowledge of this. Idealy, you want an even layer of coal across the grates. Generally a 2-3" bed of active coals is best to maintain, and makes for a hot fire. If it is to thin, the draft coming from under the grates causes that area of the coal to burn up, causing a dark spot in the fire where there is no fire or radiant heat, and cold air comes up thru that hole in the fire, reducing steaming ability. Put too much coal at one time or in one spot doesn't allow enough oxygen thru and causes another dark spot in the fire. This deep coal takes a long while now to ignite and come up to temperature, thus making a lot of smoke and not a lot of heat benefit for the boiler.

Therefore, once a bed of burning coals is established, frequently feeding the fire with small shovel fulls of coal and broadcasting it across the fire will allow the wildly scattered pieces to come up to ignition temperature quicker and maintain a constant heat output. Of course, this becomes a lot of work. Less caring people would rather shovel in a bunch of coal at one time, then coast for a while as the fire struggles to regain, and make a lot of smoke.

Maintaining a good coal fire requires skill on behalf of the fireman, and knowledge of how this particular type of coal likes to burn best.

[Guest]

Didn't the Badger have issues after they built the new marina & condos to the northeast of her Ludington dock?

For years the prevailing winds took a lot of her arrival and departure smoke and cinders over an industrial wasteland, but the magic of redevelopment put a pool and vast expanses of vinyl right in her plume fallout zone, and it made no difference who was there first.

[guest]

I grew up in St. Ignace when the Chief Wawatam was still carrying railcars across the Straits of Mackinac. From what I remember, about an hour before her first trip across the straits, the crew would start shoveling coal to build up steam. The smoke from the stacks was incredible and not very pleasant for anyone living downwind. Once underway they would feed the fire just enough to keep the steam up to the desired pressure. On her return there would be a lot of smoke if she was going to make another trip or very little if she was going to be done for the day or week. During the down time a watchman would feed her just enough coal to keep the fires going. At those times you would hardly be able to see any smoke at all coming from her stacks. Also, we could always tell a vessel was coming through the straits by the plum of smoke that proceeded being able to see it.
One more thing, The Historical Perspective page of this site has many pictures of the Chief as well as other steamers underway and tied up.

[Lakercapt]

Much would depend on the quality of the coal. A high calorific value coal, hard coal would burn hotter and there would be less smoke. Placing the new pitch correctly was important too as piling all the new stoke in one place was bad and it did not ignite right away and smoke ensued. How may you ask would a "deckie" know what to do. This person did it on a coal-fired boat.

[Guest]

Many of the cities in the US forced the railroads to switch to diesel or electric due to the issues with smoke starting in the early 20th century. Depending on the coal, the smoke could contain an abundance of sulphur dioxide which if the atmosphere was wet could create sulphuric acid which was known to burn holes in clothing.

Smoke abatement was enforced by inspectors who used the Ringlemann Chart which by comparing the chart to the smoke they were observing, could judge the opacity of it.

When Soo River operated the Robert S. Pierson (1), she was fined several times for excessive smoke. Someone even called the fire department on her when she was docked in Toronto in the early 1980s!!

[Guest]

From looking around online at the ships lost in the 1913 Storm, it appears that in nearly every picture of an underway vessel there is a sizable smoke plume. Was this more common in earlier coal-fired steamer steamers dating prior to the 1950s?

[Pete in Holland MI]

There are right, and wrong, ways to fire with coal. Black smoke is unburned fuel that heads up the stack. As mentioned earlier, rolling smoke looks cool in pictures, and sometimes in ships, and locomotives, that was artificially created.

Owning a steam tractor and occasionally firing it on coal, it takes a lot of work to mange a good fire. Key to that is to be able to watch your smoke. That's tough to do from the bottom of a boat.

[garbear]

When rail car ferries still ran on Lake Michigan, there were many complaints from the ferry port cities about excessive coal smoke. I know a few fines were issued. The C&O ferries were all coal fired; right up until the end Milwaukee made many complaints about coal smoke. In the late 50s & early 60s when the Ann Arbor boats were still coal fired they received a lot of complaints too.

Grew up just South of Elberta in Arcadia. When I was a kid you could follow the Ann Arbor boats from Elberta to the horizon and back again because of the smoke trail.

[alerickson]

detroit had smoke rules for opacity(10%)when i was a coalpasser on the snyder jr. in 1960. we got fined for excess smoke and the picture the city sent to shenango was so smoky from the plant that you couldn't even see our stack! meanwhile , all the brass on the boat was turning purple and we were guilty of polluting? later in the same season we were locking through the soo and kicked a breaker in the firehole and immediately smoked all the people in the viewing area. we never locked thru the #1 lock the rest of that year.we were detroit stoker on the junior but on occasion we had to hand bomb when the stokers quit. my #13 sized shovel worked well.

[MilwBob]

When rail car ferries still ran on Lake Michigan, there were many complaints from the ferry port cities about excessive coal smoke. I know a few fines were issued. The C&O ferries were all coal fired; right up until the end Milwaukee made many complaints about coal smoke. In the late 50s & early 60s when the Ann Arbor boats were still coal fired they received a lot of complaints too.

[Mr Link]

Boilers equipped with stokers tended to smoke less than hand fired boilers but as Brian said, a good gang could usually keep the stacks clear, even when hand firing. There was typically some smoke, but not an excessive amount. Google the SS Badger to find images of the range of smoke it produces.

Photographers often considered heavy smoke dramatic, so there were probably times when a ship knew a commercial photographer was taking their photo and intentionally created smoke. This was quite common with steam locomotives in their waning days. Railfan photographers would sometimes even bribe the train crew to get lots of smoke.

I'm not sure if there were federal smoke regulations for steamships, but some cities, including Milwaukee and Duluth, had their own. These smoke abatement ordinances allowed city inspectors to fine violators, including ships. Here is language from the 1971 Great Lakes Pilot from Milwaukee:

https://books.google.com/books?id=PylYF ... rt&f=false

[wlbblw]

Typically, steam engines that are smoking badly are either being fired wrong, or the fire room gang is "blowing down the flues" to clean her out.

[Guest]

In looking at several older pictures of coal-fired steamships it appears that they usually always have a plume of smoke coming out of their stacks. More modern oil-fired steamers do not seem to have as much smoke as those earlier ships and it is common to see them without leaving any smoke trail at all. Did coal-fired ships always have smoke coming from their stack while they were in operation?