Sep. 7--This is not your father's coal boom.

Record high coal prices suggest, and industry analysts and executives confirm, that demand for Appalachian coal is at an all-time high.

Yet that demand hasn't produced companies, jobs and new mines that a 1970s coal boom produced.

Pennsylvania mines are hiring hundreds of people, and plan to hire thousands in the next five years or so, but most of that hiring is driven by a need to replace a rapidly retiring work force. Total mining employment in 2007 inched up by about 140 jobs.

Coal companies have opened some mines, but they've shut down others and total coal production in the state dropped by 1.5 million tons to 65.8 million tons in 2007.

Industry officials and state mine regulators agree that the number of mining companies is, if anything, shrinking.

So where's the boom?

It's at PBS Coals, which has laid 8.2 miles of railroad track in Stonycreek in Somerset County, to reach the preparation plant it's refurbishing so it can ship out more coal.

It's at Joy Global, parent company of Warrendale-based Joy Mining Machinery, which had a record $1.2 billion worth of orders for mining equipment in April, May and June and has a $2.5 billion backlog of machinery orders.

It's at Cecil-based Consol Energy, which is upgrading the Bailey Mine in Greene County, and the Shoemaker Mine, which straddles the West Virginia border into Washington County, to boost production. Bailey produced about 10 million tons of coal in 2007. Shoemaker recently reopened after improvements to its coal transportation system.

Consol spokesman Tom Hoffman said fundamental shifts in financing and environmental regulations since the 1970s have changed how the coal industry responds to price increases.

"We're bringing stuff on, but it doesn't happen as fast as a nonindustry observer would think," he said. In the 1970s, "a guy with a couple of bulldozers and a couple of trucks could open a coal mine pretty fast."

Now a new mine takes seven to 10 years to develop, and even a simple expansion takes two to three years, Hoffman said.

Coal prices were on their way up when an unexpected shortage of coal in China and Australia goosed the numbers into triple digits and has European utilities and steel manufacturers buying more East Coast coal.

Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association, said coal executives from Central Pennsylvania were "almost giddy" when he bumped into them during an industry conference held in New York in July. The strong market demand has been aided by a weak U.S.