Johnny,
I live in West by God Virginia. Basically everywhere is coal. I get a treat here in Charleston as Norfolk Southern is on one side of the river and CSX is on the other. I'm closest to the Cabin Creek spur on the CSX side of the tracks. Now where I grew up in southern West Virginia I was closest to the Nicholas Fayette and Greenbrier Railroad (NF&G). It was just a paper railroad which was shared by the C&O and NYC railroads. Oh and you have it right my name is Justin. I used to have a signature on here until I changed phones and I haven't figured out how to bring it back again.
Justin - Surrounded by RRs all your life! Doesn't get any better than that. I've only driven through Virginia and West Virginia a couple of times. Some of my favorite books are the ones Homer Hickam wrote about life in the late 50's in Coalwood, WV, and the 1999 movie October Sky based on Hickam's model rocketry while in high school. Assume most of that is true - don't know how accurately it portrays coal mining, but it seems realistic.
Nice talkin' with ya. Have a good day.
Johnny (Raincoat2)
Believe or not. The movie is extremely accurate. My brother has his brass tags he put on a pegboard when he went underground. I consider myself lucky to have grown up where I did. Not only did I get to railfan the coal trains coming out of the southern coalfields but I also got to witness the Allegheny pusher on several pushes up the grade to Allegheny, VA. Used to be a pair of SD40s now it's just a single AC4400. Which the last time I was in Ronceverte,WV I got to watch it do a push. It was great. There was also a limestone quarry just outside of Alderson,WV known as Snowflake.Snowflake came about because of all the limestone dust on the ground causing the ground to be white. My late uncle and father worked at the quarry known as Acme Limestone. It has since idled and was bought by a local concrete company. I can't think of the name off the top of my head.
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