Hi Everyone,

My family and I took a trip to Frontiertown, a camp ground near Ocean City, MD, this weekend. They had a 24" Crown that was semi-operational on Saturday.

After the first trip of the day, the train was "closed until further notice". Being the curious and friendly person I am, I started chatting up the engineer. He was having a hell of a time keeping the fire going... using bags of "Anthracite by Blaschak", which appeared stacked about. He didn't seem very happy with the new shipment of coal.

A couple questions and an observation:

1) Wrong coal, right? Should have been bituminous or semi-bituminous?
2) To my amateur ears, during that first trip, the engine seemed very out of square...common?
3) Internet search didn't turn up much. Anyone know the provenance of this engine? Original to the park?

By the way, Frontiertown is amazing, and the kids loved it. Clean, lots of stuff to do. If you like camping, you may want to check it out.

v/r,
Joe

Definitely the wrong coal for a Crown with it's very limited grate area. Probably someone thought that it would be a good idea to use anthracite to reduce smoke, but with that firebox you couldn't keep it lit. They fire best with a good grade of bituminous.

Sounds like someone sent to Go-Fer to the hardware store and they grabbed the coal off the wrong pile, Blashak sells both Anthracite and Bituminous coals, The bituminous usually has the Santa on it or just has Blacksmith Coal written on it. They grabbed furnace coal, and if they carry both, the pallets are usually right next to each other.

If there was any thought behind the purchase they may have figured it was for the locomotive which is a rolling water heater, thus furnace coal must be correct.?.?.?

Rich C.

...Or it could be as simple as the person shopping for coal thought, "Oh, anthracite, that's the good stuff", and bought it.

If you were to rebuild the Crown with a Wootten firebox........... maybe make it a camelback?

The engine is original to the park circa 1960.

Wesley