A Weekend on the "Pokey" - Part 1

Back in August 2006, my brother, Christopher, my cousin, Mark, and I set off for a weekend adventure on the NS Pocahontas District, or the Pokey, between Bluefield, WV and Williamson, WV. Checking the dates, it looks like Mark took Friday off from work to make it a three-day weekend, Aug. 4-6. I believe we stayed overnight somewhere in Virginia before starting Friday morning in Bluefield, WV. We didn't spend too much time (no photos) here before moving further west along the line to Yards, WV on the VA/WV border where we got the first official train of the trip (at least to me), a westbound manifest splitting the CPL signals at 11:05AM.

We made our way up the line, stopping at Bramwell to take pictures of the station before reaching our destination of Welch, WV or "Farm" on the NS. This location boasts a steam-era coaling tower as well as a group of ex-N&W CPLs. The CPLs have since been replaced with new Safetrans signals. At Farm, we caught an eastbound work train led by a sole leaser SD40-2, FURX 7245, at 1:45PM.

After the departure of the work train, we stuck around and were rewarded with another eastbound an hour later at 2:46PM. This time it would be a loaded coal train, which the line sees many of, being in the heart of coal country. NS 9656 would be the leader followed by NS 6571 and NS 8884, whom we would see later this trip.

This eastbound would be our entertainment for the afternoon as we took off in pursuit of it. We would get ahead of it at Kimball where we set up at the portal of Vivian Tunnel. NS hadn't started its Heartland Corridor project yet (the reason I think we took the trip down there) so it is nice having views of the untouched tunnels.

I chose to put some shots in black & white for two reasons: 1. the weather wasn't too cooperative on the first day 2. we didn't do a great job picking spots that offered the best lighting situations but we did okay! After Kimball, we got back ahead of them at Northfork. Northfork is the site of O. Winston Link's famous photo "Main Line on Main Street." The buildings seen in Link's photo were destroyed by a flood and are reduced to ruins as seen at our next location.

We continued eastward to Switchback where we set up by a small waterfall created by recent rainstorms. The N&W put up slide fences along parts of the route because of the proximity of the tracks to the rocky cliffs and hills. One such fence can be seen in the photo at Switchback.

We waited for the helpers to pass for a going away shot.

We continued the chase a few miles to grab one last shot of the helpers going above the road at Maybeury at 3:58PM.

For whatever reason, we turned around and headed back west to Welch arriving sometime around 5PM. There we found another eastbound coal train sitting under the coaling tower.

Nothing happened with them so we made our way further west to Roderfield, in between Roderfield and Vaughn Tunnels, where we would see a westbound light engine move led by UP 9788 at 6:05PM.

This would be the last movement in daylight we would see for the day as we went to check into the Elkhorn Inn in Landgraff for the night. Traffic appears to have been pretty good as I have (bad) photos taken from the porch of one at 9:09PM and one at 10:11PM. I don't remember if all three of us went down to the tracks to do some night stuff or just me, but it didn't take long for another train to come along as the headlight started lighting up the valley at 10:37PM. The fog and light from the train helped create an amazing effect silhouetting the CPL signal bridge in the distance.

I stayed out for the next train, a westbound, a little over half an hour later at 11:11PM. You can see my brother and cousin on the porch of the Elkhorn Inn as the headlight of the train lights up the surroundings  and again as the end of train device flashes away.

That would be it for the night and we were up and out by 8:45AM the next morning in Part 2!