NW05537

[NW Mailing List]

I don't know if this will help with this photograph or not, but I do know
how the hopper management worked in Coalwood, WV. I'll apologize in advance
if this is something that everyone knows. I'm still reasonably new at this
compared with most of you.

The morning train would come in hauling about 100 empty hoppers. This is
probably in the 30's and 40's. (Described by my father who grew up in
Coalwood.) They would position the empty hoppers above the tipple and then
spend the day sorting the full hoppers so they could drop the eastbound
cars off on a siding to be picked up by a train on the mainline heading
that way. The westbound cars would get taken to Auville Yard. The mine
didn't own a locomotive, rather the N&W crew spent the day sorting the
hoppers.

When a new hopper (or 4) was needed at the tipple, some of the men that
worked for the mine would go get them and ride them downhill to the tipple.
Same thing when the hopper was full. So the mining company moved the cars
by gravity.

Again, I don't know if this will answer your questions or not, but perhaps
it will give a bit of insight. And I don't know how common this practice
was.

Tom Fulton
Asheville, NC

On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 3:17 PM NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

> The picture of the mine tipple at Capels WV shows hoppers on the middle
> track.  I am guessing that these hoppers were loaded under the tipple and
> are on one of the middle tracks for the mine run to get them and leave more
> empties.  That would mean that the mine has a locomotive.
>
> I think I can see a locomotive facing away from the camera, which means it
> is the mine run locomotive picking up the loads.
>
> I would certainly welcome and appreciate your deeper understanding of what
> is happening in this snapshot.
> Thank you,
> Mike Shockley
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