[PRCo] Re: West Penn Destination Sign Photo

[Harold G.]

Greetings   Re Yellow dod.   Was there a use of this
word to cover labor contracts and scab employees?

I remember something like it.

Harold Geissenheimer
-----Original Message-----
From: robert netzlof <wb3iqe at rocketmail.com>
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Date: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 2:12 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: West Penn Destination Sign Photo


>--- Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com> wrote:
>
>> ...The term must now be
>> so obsolete that the only reference in my newer dictionary is to a
>> football term.  For those too young to understand, I believe
>> red dog was the product of burning coal in very confined
>> spaces, such as a mine fire or a mine tailings or
>> culm bank fire.
>
>Well now, the term "culm bank" wasn't used much in Western PA. In any
>event, it's not so much "...burning coal in very confined spaces..."
>as it was "burning coal which had very high ash content", or perhaps
>"burning shale which had a high carbon content".
>
>But broadly speaking, you're right. The typical mine dump would catch
>fire when spontaneous combustion set it in. When it had burned out,
>one could dig down a foot or less and find the rather bright red
>stony material. The red was due to thoroughly oxidized iron.
>
>> A lot of roads in Western Pennsylvania were paved with it....
>>  It was apparently durable, readily available, and cheap.
>
>But now banned for that use, as rain tends to leach acids out of the
>material.
>
>There is a related term, "yellow dog", heard much less often. That
>refers to the yellow solids which precipitate out of acid mine waters
>as they are oxidized by exposure to the atmosphere. I've seen streams
>in which yellow dog had built up to the point that the stream was
>diverted out of its channel, but that concentration is rare. I'm not
>sure of the chemistry involved.
>
>=====
>Bob Netzlof a/k/a Sweet Old Bob
>
>
>
> 
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