{"id":32,"date":"2010-11-14T03:00:32","date_gmt":"2010-11-14T03:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wvrails.net\/?p=32"},"modified":"2018-11-05T23:26:36","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T23:26:36","slug":"deepwater-wv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/?p=32","title":{"rendered":"Deepwater, WV"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Deepwater Bridge (DB) Tower. This was the western end of the Virginian Ry. New York Central line from Columbus, OH to Gauley Bridge, WV is to the left. Track\u00a0<\/strong>next to building leads to the former VGN mainline which crosses\u00a0<\/strong>the Kanawha River\u00a0<\/strong>beyond the searchlight signal in the background.\u00a0<\/strong>
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Deepwater was a fascinating place to photograph trains. Three different railroads met in this small Kanawha Valley community approximately 32 miles east of Charleston. The main line of the Cheaspeake & Ohio and a branch of the New York Central paralleled the Kanawha River on each side in this area while the former Virginian main line from Norfolk, VA crossed over the C&O and joined the NYC on the other side of the Kanawha from Deepwater. This became the western end of the VGN after 1931 when the bridge over the Kanawha was built.<\/p>\n

The VGN had trackage rights from Deepwater Bridge (DB) Tower over the NYC to Dickinson Yard which is located approximately 15 miles east of Charleston. These trackage rights existed in the days of VGN passenger service when trains ran to Charleston. However it was cut back to Dickinson Yard when passenger service ended in the 1950’s.<\/p>\n

When I became old enough to go out on my own to photograph trains, the VGN had been merged into the Norfolk and Western for about 8 years. The N&W continued operating VGN Time Freights 71 and 72 between Dickinson Yard and DB Tower but they were on borrowed time. Also the New York Central was in its last days before being merged with the Pennsylvania RR to form the ill-fated Penn Central Transportation Co.\u00a0The C&O was the only railroad that was pretty much unchanged even though it had acquired control of the B&O in 1963.<\/p>\n

By 1976, Penn Central and other bankrupt northeastern railroads were conveyed to Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), and by 1999, CR was split between NS and CSXT. The Conrail (NYC) West Virginia Secondary went to NS. Then in 2016, NS leased most of the Secondary and also the former Princeton-Deepwater District\u00a0 of NS (VGN) from Deepwater to Maben, WV to the Kanawha River Railroad, LLC, a subsidiary of WATCO. I hope you enjoy the photos.<\/p>\n

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N&W Time Freight 72 chugging through\u00a0<\/strong>crossover from the NYC to the lead track to\u00a0<\/strong>the bridge over the Kanawha River. The lead\u00a0<\/strong>track to the left went to the Union Carbide\u00a0<\/strong>Metals plant located at Alloy about 0.5 miles\u00a0<\/strong>from this point.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Train 72 lead by Alco C628 #1122 heading\u00a0<\/strong>across the Kanawha River and eventually\u00a0<\/strong>over the C&O on the opposite side of the river.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Rear of Train 72 with caboose 530322 ex-<\/strong>VGN 322. This is a rare sight now days.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Rear of Train 72. The Kanawha River at this\u00a0<\/strong>point is unnavigable for barge traffic. The starting<\/strong>\u00a0point for navigation is approximately\u00a0<\/strong>a few hundred feet downstream to the right of the\u00a0<\/strong>picture.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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East end of the Kanawha River bridge with\u00a0<\/strong>the C&O<\/strong> running underneath. View is looking w<\/strong>est toward Charleston.\u00a0 The Virginian name\u00a0<\/strong>is still highly visible 8 years after the merger\u00a0<\/strong>of the VGN into the N&W.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Eastbound C&O coal drag headed by GP-9\u00a0<\/strong>6252 and 4 sister geeps. The sound of these\u00a0<\/strong>5 locomotives working together was quite awesome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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St Route 61 underpass looking west toward\u00a0<\/strong>Charleston. This is a separate structure from\u00a0<\/strong>the Kanawha River crossing. <\/strong>There is about\u00a0<\/strong>80 ft of fill between both bridges. Deepwater\u00a0<\/strong>Tunnel is to the left out of the picture.
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Deepwater Bridge (DB) Tower. This was the western end of the Virginian Ry. New York Central line from Columbus, OH to Gauley Bridge, WV is to the left. Track\u00a0next to building leads to the former VGN mainline which crosses\u00a0the Kanawha …<\/p>\n

Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wvrails.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}