Western Morning News (Saturday)
Running out of steam as coal mines shut in UK
BRITAIN’S heritage railways, traction engines and other muchloved bygones from the age of steam are in danger of hitting the buffers – because they’re running out of coal.
The UK has effectively banned the extraction of coal to cut carbon emissions and just a handful of UK mines remain in operation. Many householders who still have coal fires rely on imports to keep them warm, but sales of domestic bituminous coal will be banned in a few months, too.
Steam railways, including a number in the South West, are relatively modest users of coal. Most prefer to use UK-mined fuel to reduce their carbon and other emissions, and because it burns cleaner and more efficiently. It gets transported over shorter distances and so is cheaper than poorer quality imports, too.
But South Devon Railway, which operates heritage trips for around 100,000 local people and tourists a year between Buckfastleigh and Totnes and is ready to bounce back after the Covid crisis, predicts its supplies of Welsh-mined coal will run out next year. Alternatives, from either Russia or Columbia, will be more expensive and – when it comes to keeping a steam engine going – far less efficient and less green.
Dick Wood, spokesman for the South Devon Railway, said a national campaign led by the Heritage Railway Association is underway to get politicians to recognise the problem and make an exception for the mining of coal to keep heritage operations running.
He said: “Coal is becoming a really big problem area for not only us Westcountry steam train operators, but also the whole heritage movement now, which covers traction and museum and stationary engines, too.
“However, this all needs putting into context. Taking all of the nation’s railways, traction engines and museums across the whole country, they only burn 26,000 tons a year between them all. We are, therefore, miniscule users in the greater scheme of things, when compared to industries such as cement or steel manufacture. We take our green responsibilities extremely seriously and they are at the heart of our business.
“We need to perhaps remember that the nation burns huge volumes of charcoal on barbecues to create far more CO2 than we do as a whole industry – the country should not be following green environmental tokenism but look at the issue far more realistically.”
In 2019, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Heritage Rail warned that British coal supplies would only last for another two years. In a report, it warned, “after that, imported coal will be more expensive and involve higher greenhouse gas emissions in transporting it to the UK, threatening the viability of 158 steam railways around the country.” Chair of the committee, Nicky Morgan, said it was right to reduce the burning of coal. But she said: “In this classic case of the law of unintended consequences, we need to find a way to enable heritage railways to continue steaming into the future.”