Today a guy came in the office and was telling me about the "Blue Coal" yard that used to be located in Hampton Junction (now just Hampton) along the CNJ Phillipsburg line. If you look on Google Earth or Bing Maps you'll see a series of circular impressions adjacent to the track about a half mile west of the old CNJ shops, now Hampton Borough DPW yard, on the north side of the tracks. There was a fairly long siding there for the delivery of Blue Coal from PA. The coal was evidently stored and washed at this facility. I can see that it existed back as long ago as 1931 in historic aerials.com. Does anyone have any information on this facility? Specifically I'm curious if there was a coal gassification plant there. Also, I'd like to know what dye was used to color the coal blue. From what I understand the site is still covered in blue dirt - residue from the blue coal wash.
CGRLCDR wrote:Today a guy came in the office and was telling me about the "Blue Coal" yard that used to be located in Hampton Junction (now just Hampton) along the CNJ Phillipsburg line. If you look on Google Earth or Bing Maps you'll see a series of circular impressions adjacent to the track about a half mile west of the old CNJ shops, now Hampton Borough DPW yard, on the north side of the tracks. There was a fairly long siding there for the delivery of Blue Coal from PA. The coal was evidently stored and washed at this facility. I can see that it existed back as long ago as 1931 in historic aerials.com. Does anyone have any information on this facility? Specifically I'm curious if there was a coal gassification plant there. Also, I'd like to know what dye was used to color the coal blue. From what I understand the site is still covered in blue dirt - residue from the blue coal wash.Probably was no manufactured gas plant there. Hampton and its environs are in Elizabethtown Gas' service territory and E'Town and its predecessor companies had 6 such plants according to this ALJ Initial Decision: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 7178,d.cWc
See also: http://www.hatheway.net/28_locations_of_gas_plants.htm Don't know how accurate this is.