The Norfolk & Western Railway transported much of the coal mined in southwestern Virginia and West Virginia. Many loads went north to Lake Erie, others to “tidewater” at N&W’s big terminal in Norfolk, Va., opened in 1885. Here it was loaded in vessels for shipment to ports up the East Coast or for overseas export. […]
Click the image to download this interactive PDF. Many who love narrow-gauge railroads consider West Virginia’s Babcock State Park hallowed ground, for that’s where the Mann’s Creek Railway operated. From 1886 to 1955, this 9-mile threefooter hauled Sewell-seam coal from Clifftop, along the old Midland Trail about 70 miles east of Charleston, to Sewell, in […]
Eastern coal railroads issued maps of coal mines they served for the information of customers. This map (redrawn for clarity) shows C&O’s New River and Kanawha (Ka-NAW) Districts in 1966. their common border marks the divide between high and low volatile coal measures, an important distinction that determines whether coal is used to make coke […]
This map has been almost 25 years in coming. As soon as Conrail was formed in 1976, Trains readers began requesting a huge “breakdown” map of Conrail coded to predecessor railroads. The project was too big for the limited resources then available to us. Thanks to Curt Richards, though, we now have a good source […]
The stack-top addition to John J. Craig Co. Shay No. 2147 may have caused more sparks than it arrested. T. G. King photo, C. K. Marsh Jr. collection Hard by the campus of the 1950’s-era University of Tennessee lay the modest Knoxville terminal of the storied Smoky Mountain Railroad. Several postwar railfan students, including me, […]
Chesapeake & Ohio B30-7 No. 8242 is sandwiched between SD45s, with 4383 in the lead, as they pass through Thurmond, W.Va., on July 26, 1984. Kermit Geary Jr. photo […]
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Bill Metzger This Map of the Month appeared in the February 2006 issue of Trains magazine. Mention the Pennsylvania Railroad and iconic images come to mind immediately: passenger trains rocketing down a four-track electrified main line; limiteds scooping water on the fly from track pans; impossibly long coal drags; and mammoth engineering projects, from Horseshoe […]
In the Spring 2008 issue of Classic Trains we look at the last weeks of steam on the N&W. See three clips of N&W 0-8-0’s and 2-8-8-2’s in action from the Herron Rail Video program Pocahontas Glory, Vol. 6. Norfolk & Western Steam – Episode 1 Norfolk & Western Steam – Episode 2 Norfolk & […]
In the Spring 2008 issue of Classic Trains we look at the last weeks of steam on the N&W. See three clips of N&W 0-8-0’s and 2-8-8-2’s in action from the Herron Rail Video program Pocahontas Glory, Vol. 6. Norfolk & Western Steam – Episode 1 Norfolk & Western Steam – Episode 2 Norfolk & […]
Water was a problem for both the Clinchfield Railroad and for local residents at Elkhorn City, Ky. The town is in far eastern Kentucky, at the north end of the Clinchfield where it met the south end of Chesapeake & Ohio’s Big Sandy Division, forming a through route for merchandise as well as the region’s […]
