Blackwater Rail Trail

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The Thomas industrial complex drove employment, industry, & economic activity. Many coal mine entrances in and around the town of Thomas led to miles of interconnected underground mine tunnels. On the surface the river front was covered with six rows of train tracks, a mine tipple, and a power plant.

2. Moving Coal to Market

After coming out of the mine and being cleaned, sorted, and graded, coal was ready to ship to market. Thomas mine works included "coke ovens," where impurities like sulfur were slowly burned out of the coal. The railroad carried the coal and coke all over the east coast.

3. The Railroad Station

The Thomas passenger and freight station was a point of arrival and departure for people, news, and goods. Before radio, television, and the internet, a railroad station was a center for community engagement and a bellwether for changing times. The station sat at the junction where the Davis branch split off from the main line from Elkins to Cumberland, and was midway between several of the largest industrial buildings and facilities in Thomas, making it convenient for visiting executives. The Thomas business district was actually further away, the mine tipples of the H.G. Davis Coal and Coke Company sat between the downtown and the new station. The building projected out over the river, and the iron pins in the stonework that held it remain. There are also parts of the brackets that held the passenger boarding platforms to the side of the bridge.

4. The Engine House + Coal-Hauling Locomotives

The locomotive maintenance and turning facilities at Thomas facilitated local rail operations. This included the trains that gather coal and coke hopper cars from nearby mines, and those that moved coal and coke over the grades and curves of Blackwater Canyon and on to industries heating fuel sellers, and seaports. The railroad constantly pushed new ways to operate and maintain locomotives with the most efficiency and least cost. The visible remains help illustrate this evolution. Originally, this site included a roundhouse, which is a maintenance building for steam and other locomotives where the stalls of a semi-circular building surround a rotating platform called a turntable. When the locomotives outgrew the roundhouse and turntable, they were replaced by a new building, the engine house, whose foundation is still visible. The steepness of the Blackwater Canyon grade, the sharpness of its curves, and the weight of loaded trains combined to make moving coal difficult. Crews could either combine multiple engines or use more complicated, innovative, or larger designs to move heavy trains. The Western Maryland Railway did both at various times.

5. The Snyder Run Wye

A "wye" is a place where three railroad tracks form a triangle, enabling trains to make a three-point turn. The tracks also form a “Y” shape where they come together as shown in the Sanborn Fire Insurance map. The main route followed the North Fork of the Blackwater between Cumberland and Elkins, while a branch line followed Snyder Run upstream to the town of Benbush. There is a call box mounted on a pole just before the wye. A small handful of branch lines radiated out of Thomas, Coketon, and Douglas in order to collect coal from the many mines nearby. The short Benbush branch was one such line. The two connecting tracks from Benbush to the main line turned sharply in opposite directions— one toward Hendricks and Elkins, and one toward Cumberland. These tracks form the wye’s three legs.

6. Mine Portal no. 29

This hillside was the location of a coal mine entrance until the 1950s when underground mining operations ceased. This portal was located near Coketon, an industrial complex and power plant that was almost as large as those in Thomas. A few foundations remain, along with some coke ovens, but the mine buildings and community are mostly gone. Today, groundwater is exposed to and acidified by the coal deposits known as the Coketon Mine Pool. Water flows out through this old mine entrance polluting the North Fork of the Blackwater River. In 1995, the mine opening was closed with a wet seal, and a passive water treatment system was installed. This system was no longer effective, and a non-profit known as the Friends of Blackwater works to monitor and improve the water quality in the North Fork.

7. Douglas, WV

Henry Gassaway Davis's companies built mines in all directions around Thomas, and built branch lines to connect them. At each mine, company-owned mining towns sprang up. They included a railroad station, a company general store, a school, a post office, one or more churches, and single- and multi-family homes for the miners and their families. Douglas is one such community.

8. Black Fork Grade

This uniquely steep grade on the former West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railroad, later the Western Maryland Railway, is located just past the location of a rail bridge and demonstrates the obstacles faced in transporting coal and other goods in this part of West Virginia. Few rail routes required more machinery or personnel to keep coal moving up the Blackwater Canyon grade. To get a loaded, 90-car coal train up to Douglas and into Thomas, it took nine locomotives to pull the coal hopper cars up the 3% grade of the Blackwater Canyon. Downhill trips were also difficult: in the 19th century, brakemen walked the car tops to set each car’s brakes by hand. Later, air brakes could stop an entire train from a valve in the engine cab, but still required great skill for safe use.

9. Buxton & Landstreet Building

A company store provided an industrial community with the necessities of life— as well as a means for a company to control its workforce. Lured by the lucrative prospect of mining coal for steelmaking, Henry Gassaway Davis and other investors poured millions of dollars into rapidly building a community here. This store ensured that the workforce would find the things they needed when they arrived, including food, clothing, tools, hardware, and other necessities. However, by paying in a company scrip— a type of currency good only at stores owned by the H.G. Davis Coal and Coke Company— owners also ensured that they could control pricing of goods, and that an employee’s earnings would return to the company. Workers often became indebted to the company through store credit. Labor reform laws outlawed scrip in the 1930s.

10. Davis Coal & Coke Company Administrative Building

The Davis Coal & Coke Company administration building, built in 1900 after an explosion destroyed the original structure, was the center of field operations for the Company until it closed in 1950. The two-story brick structure also housed the engineering department, where regional mines were planned, designed, and managed. The City of Thomas is the current owner of this property which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

This Tour is a Walking Tour.

Blackwater Rail Trail

Created by Friends of Blackwater, Inc on May 26th 2022, 9:03:28 pm.

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Description

The Blackwater Canyon River Rail Trail dates back to 1888 when it was used to haul coal and timber through the canyon. It reflects changes in the economy over the past century, as it now serves as one of the leading attractions in a county that now focusses on heritage tourism and outdoor recreation; it still contains many of the former coke ovens and other remnants of the region's past and connects the community of Thomas with Coketon and Douglas. The trail begins along the North Fork of the Blackwater River in Thomas and winds past steep-walled strip mines and rows of beehive coke ovens that have been reclaimed by trees and wildflowers for nearly a century. The trail is accessible in Thomas, WV at the juncture of Rt. 32 and 27 or from Hendricks, Rt. 73.

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Blackwater Rail Trail

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