Steam locomotive coal

[jadebullet]

It is Red-ing.

And the T-1s that were leased to the PRR were burning bituminous for a few years before the PRR got them. The PRR beat the crap out of them though, and didn't take the best care of them, which is why they were scrapped, aside from other reasons, such as dieselization.

Today, only 4 of these T-1s survive, with only two actually running. (well, right now only 1, but the other one is runable with maintenance.)

 

[rwa325]

CB&Q's "Lines West" engines had smoke box extensions for the express purpose of burning lignite.

 

[kws4000]

Indeed, it has been stated that NP Rosebud coal was more along the lines of "Glorified sod", and that it burned better with the miner's broken pick handles still in it.
There is a story in Pere Marquette Power, by Art Million and Tom Dixon, of a loco that, on one trip, received everything from dirt to rock to lignite to bitunimus to the hardest of the hard coal, which forms the focal point of the story: that is, given the 13 large bricks of cannel from Kentucky that barely fit through the firedoor, almost no further fuel needed to be added over the course of 15 minutes, with all injectors running and all pops blowing, firedoor glowing. At the end of the trip, she needed significant boiler work and would not be available for quite a while.