It seems where I volunteer we are trying new fuels, we have tried one, bit of a failure, the ash forms a barrier to draft, and the ash pan fills up very fast, we have two others to test, and have not run out of coal yet, seems looking at South America for reasonable quality coal.
It is not the Ukraine invasion causing the problem, it is the failure of the washing plant for the South Wales coal, it was not economical to repair for just the narrow gauge railways of Wales, who all combined produce less CO2 to one jet to USA.
There was enough coal for around 5 years, mine was due to close, but we had time to find a replacement, but when the plant broke all the coal was sold to British steel and no more supplied to little trains of Wales.
We have the Heritage question. Corris Railway has a new engine, in the style of the old one, which Tanalyn railway has, but with roller bearings instead of white metal etc. But it looks old, even if built 2005. But again and again we get, that's not worth repairing, but it is heritage so it will be repaired. The idea of double heading so the diesel does the work, but steam looks the part, would be OK with an autocoach
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but these were not used with narrow gauge, so to have a diesel at the back or middle doing the work, and a steam engine at front looking the part, would need some way to control the diesel from the steam engine. The controls look impressive
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but hardly room in a narrow gauge steam engine to hide that, and not sure the driver would have enough hands to control two completely different engines.
