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Coal Bin

Coal Bin


The RVRR's coal bin. Collection of Jeff Jargosch.

Wm. Wyer & Co.
Report on Rahway Valley Railroad
August 1944

There is a coal bin at Kenilworth 51'x14'x5' high, built of creosoted wood. Coal is unloaded from cars by hand, and engines are coaled by hand also.
While larger railroads had large coal tipples to fill their locomotive tenders with anthracite, the Rahway Valley Railroad had but a simple wooden coal bin (or coal bunker). Jeff Jargosch relates the following, " In the 'steam era' that wooden coal bunker in Kenilworth didn't fill itself. George Clark supposedly bought the best coal he could get for his engines, which arrived from the CNJ in hoppers or gondolas. The track gang would report with shovels and scoops to unload the 50 ton hopper by hand into the bunker. Six days a week the first chore for this tireless crew was to fill the tenders of the locomotives. By eight o'clock start time, an average of eight tons of soft coal would do the trick." The coal bin disappeared not long after the end of the steam era in 1953.



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