N&W in 1911--Coalfield trolley

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
May 2, 1911

BUSINESS FOR TROLLEY LINE NOT LACKING
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Thousands Who Would Ride Daily Assure Dividends On Investment
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ENGINEERS NOW HERE INVESTIGATING PROJECT
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Gentleman Who Has Been in Section For Years Points Out Traffic Origins They Should Inquire Into Before Reporting
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ENORMOUS BUSINESS DONE BY LOCAL PASSENGER TRAINS
    Engineers are in this section investigating the trolley to the coalfield proposition.  On every hand they are told that it will be a paying proposition, but fearing that these engineers should take too technical an outlook of the situation by figuring only on census statistics a gentleman who has been in this section for some years said yesterday:
    "A trolley line cannot help but pay and pay well in the coalfields."  Some of the reasons advanced for such a statement are that the people of this section are of a migratory nature, in the first place, or they would never have come here when this section offered no inducement outside of the money return.  Ever since they came here they have been moving about and it has grown to be a second nature with them.  Born railroad men, it follows that these men will take advantage of chances to ride on a trolley line or any other line.  The miners by nature spend what they make and the scrip system in vogue has a tendency to keep them more or less supplied with money at all times so that they are always ready to ride  With a trolley line it would be an easy matter to develop a desire to ride among their wives and children.
    Bluefield is daily headquarters for at least 150 traveling men and Graham has quite a number.  These men, even allowing that they did not use the trolleys going to and from the field, would spend money liberally with a trolley company so that they could be carried from one operation to another.  Their daily expense account with the trolley companies would amount to an astounding annual sum.  In addition to this the coal operators are sometimes interested in several operations and they and their foremen make daily trips between these plants, and their annual expense account for trolley service would be large.  Then the railroad company spends a great deal of time while they are walking from one operation to another.  The company would soon find that it could save thousands of dollars a year by permitting these men to ride trolley cars and thus cut down by two-thirds or more the time they now get paid for while walking between operations.  Special officers and hundreds of business men who are continually on the go throughout the field would also supply a large annual expense account which would go to the trolley line.
    There are many others who would be daily users of the trolleys but when these people are figured in as daily users and as providing a certain sum of fixed income to a trolley line it can be readily seen that the floating business would bring the annual income of a trolley company up to an enormous sum.
    A traveling man who was interested recently at Pocahontas in the number of tickets sold asked another agent on the line if he sold as many tickets in a month as Pocahontas did.  He said he did not think so, although the city in which his office is located is nearly fifteen times as large as Pocahontas.  Investigation at the Pocahontas station by this traveling man secured the statement from the station agent that his office sold more tickets in two weeks than the larger city did in a month.
    Train No. 10, it is reported, one day over a week ago carried 1,100 passengers between Gary and Bluefield and the following  day the same train is said to have carried 1,500 passengers.  Train No. 2 also carries a heavy passenger trade, so do all the local trains.  In addition to the people who ride these trains there are thousands walking the track every day because they do not want to wait for a train to come along.  A trolley line could take care of these people and furnish a means of transportation which would save many lives annually.
    It is not an infrequent thing for 2,500 people to go to Keystone in a day and it is not an infrequent occurrence for  Welch to have a thousand visitors daily.  Northfork and Kimball have hundreds of visitors every day and many times the number runs up into the thousands.  Pocahontas has an average daily shopping list during the pay days which will run close to 2,000, or more, and there is not a day gone by but hundreds visit this town.
    Scarcely a day goes but hundreds of people from the field and from this city go to and from Bluefield and a great majority of these would patronize a trolley line.
    The best way to gauge the business which a trolley company can do in this field is to station a man at the bridge near the depot in Keystone and count the number of people who go to and from trains.
    Station another man at the "Northfork cut" and count the number who pass through it daily going both ways.  Station another man at the depot at Pocahontas and discover how many people leave and enter that town every day on the trains.  Station a man at Kimball and Welch depots to do likewise and then station a man at the bridge at Northfork leading to Kyle and count the number of people who walk in and out of that town.  It these facts do not prove that a trolley line would pay then finally station a man at all trains at Graham and at Bluefield and if the final test does not show that a trolley line would pay into this coalfield even if it does cost two million dollars then Bluefield and the coalfields do not need a trolley line.
    It would also be interesting to see what kind of a report men stationed at Ennis* and Huger* would make on the number of people who pass the depots at these points every day walking the track.  The same applies to the Tug Fork branch which cannot be given justice, as many of the people cross over the hill at Elkhorn, Switchback and Eckman.
    If the engineers who are considering the trolley proposition and who are in the city will make a test they cannot help but make a favorable report on the coalfield trolley proposition.
*Names indistinct on microfilm.  The best interpretation is shown.
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[Along about 1911 the Bluefield newspaper published a number of articles promoting the coalfield trolley line.  The impetus for this  was the formation at that time of the New River Power and Development Co. (later Appalachian Electric Power Co.--present day Appalachian Power Co.) to develop hydro-electric power plants on the New River to supply electricity to Bluefield, the coalfields, and intermediate territory.  The power company bought out the Bluestone Traction Co., in Bluefield just to get the streetcar company's power plant--the streetcar lines just came along as part of the deal.  The promise of additional electrical capacity from the New River development is what led proponents to promote the coalfield trolley line.   If you give credence to this reporter's claims, a coalfield trolley line might have been a paying proposition for a few years, but even in 1911 there were newspaper articles about "better roads" meetings and rallies.  Eventually the development of better roads and the resulting increasing use of automobiles and buses would have done in the coalfield trolley line just as happened to rural trolley and interurban lines all over this country.]

Gordon Hamilton
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