I've heard Johnny Cash mention 'number 9 coal' in a few songs - what is number 9 coal?

Answer 1

Coal is sorted according to numbers. Number 9 coal would be long burning and have little smoke or soot. Another words the good stuff.

Answer 2

It's a coal mine, not a type of coal.

Opened in 1855, No. 9 Coal Mine, located in Lansford, Pennsylvania is the world's oldest continuously operated anthracite coal mine! Closed in 1972, the mine was re-opened as a heritage tourism attraction in 2002. Today visitors ride safely by train 1600 feet into the mountainside, to see and experience first hand what it was like for our fathers and grandfathers to work underground over the past 200 years.

Answer 3

The size of the coal, it's fine coal, like number 8 gravel like you use for your driveways. The smaller the number the bigger the lumps of coal! number 9 coal was like they shoveled in to a power plant or a steam engine, the mine had to screen the coal to get it all about this size!

Answer 4

I believe it refers to a train....off to look for evidence of such.
I do know he mentions trains a lot, too, and he's got one about dying and being taken away on the "309"


Edit: Forget all that...From what I can find (and I can't find much about it) #9 coal refers to either a grade of coal or coal mined out of a specific mine (Number 9 mine in Kentucky).

Answer 5

Its tne name give to the seam of coal they are working on...... for example # 1 seam # 2 seam etc, etc, sometimes a mine might be working more than one seam at any given time, in a big mine they might be working 10 seams, so they can easy reference the seam they are refering by the number they allocate to that seam.
I once worked as a coal miner.

Answer 6

Coal is graded on a scale of 1 to 10 as to it's hardness and density

Answer 7

It was Tennessee Ernie Ford's signature song not J. Cash

Answer 8

its a bunch of coal miners that got caught years and years ago?

I THINK?

Answer 9

heroin??