Why is there coal on the railroad tracks?

Question

We found a whole bag full in ten minutes of walking on the tracks this afternoon, and we do not live near any major coal mining areas and it is a long time since trains ran on coal. So we wondered why and how you can still find so much of amongst the rocks on the side of the tracks.

Answer 1

because trains transported coal and still do today from great distances.  the coal probably fell out of the train.  it is cheaper and easier to transport coal by rail road.  Coal is still used today by power companys. it is made into dust and blown into the fire to generate energy or something like that.  Have fun grilling.

Answer 2

It would be interesting to know where you are. Massive amounts of coal are transported every day by several railroads from Wyoming. These trains are usually bound for electrical generating stations around the U.S..  The way this coal is loaded is in a manner to reduce loss and problems. First, the coal is reduced to pieces that are no larger than a hockey puck. And it is automatically loaded into each car, then the top profiled to barely protrude above the height of the car. Then the top surface is sprayed with a biodegradable plastic film to eliminate dust and to prevent chunks from rolling off. The coal you are finding must be from a different source, and maybe the method of hauling doesn't have a strong emphisis on guarding against loss. Hard to know for sure of course. But, I'd say smash up your coal and have a bar-b-cue.

Here's scenerio that you could consider that happened to me last summer. I was using a switch engine to deliver about a dozen cars to a local industry on the edge of town. This move involves pulling the train forward for 2 miles, then backing 1 mile on another track to the industry. This way, the various car types can be pushed in to position on the various tracks on the industy's property. One car was a coal car for their boilers. As we pushed this car into place for unloading, a plant employee kept looking at the bottom of the coal car. After this car had been placed, he climbed up the side of it - looked in - and yelled at my Brakeman, "Hey, this car is only half full." What happened was, one of the bottom dump hatch door locks broke and the door opened a bit. We laid down a 3 mile trail of coal and didn't know it. This may be a possibility that could explain the coal you found, if it was mostly between the rails.

Answer 3

Bravo to Derail... my brother works at a large doal-fired power plant in Northern California and use a 64 car load of coal every week.

One time, 3 cars in that consist arrived EMPTY !!  The chutes on the bottom of those cars had been tripped sometime during their delivery.

My brother has occassionally taken oversized lumps of coal home and burned them in his wood stove.

Answer 4

Coal tends to fall off the open hopper cars onto the sides of the tracks especially on curves.  Enjoy your free coal.